
Why Subways in the Northeast Are So Troubled - gwintrob
http://www.nytimes.com/2016/05/27/nyregion/no-silver-bullet-as-subways-in-the-northeast-show-their-age.html
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yompers888
I know that this article is talking just about subways, but they brought up
the issue of infrastructure spending being far too low. In many cases,
however, it's more about the spending being incredibly poorly directed. I was
talking to someone who used to sit on the commission of a Virginia city. He
told me that VDOT pays for 95% of road construction and maintenance if it
conforms to VDOT urban code. This is incredibly foolish for two reasons:

1\. Urban code requires a minimum 28 foot road width. Understanding that
"urban" here best means "where there might be some people" rather than
significant density, this is a horrendous plan because it encourages huge
roads designed for ~45mph. these roads optimize traffic throughput in places
that should be optimized for livability, resulting in unnecessarily high
spending and, more importantly, dangerous car-paths that discourage crossing
the street, or even using it at all without a car.

2\. More relevant to infrastructure spending, this imbalanced gravy train
means that a town can easily add the tax base of large retailers at the edges
of town, and the only cost to them is 5% of the huge roads involved in getting
people out to those relatively unproductive stores. The result is a land-use
problem where people have no inclination to build near one another, and the
resulting dysfunctional road system that tries to move people and foster
economic activity with the same infrastructure, and does both quite poorly.
It's the futon of roads. And sure it's nice (if you live in one of these
places) to be able to drive to the huge grocery store and pick from 8
different kinds of mustard, but if you're buying the specialty versions, you
should probably just be ordering it online.

Granted, that's just the Virginia system, but it seems reasonable to expect
that it would be similar in other states. In my travels, I haven't noticed
many (U.S.) places that didn't fall into similar patterns.

~~~
rayiner
> And sure it's nice (if you live in one of these places) to be able to drive
> to the huge grocery store and pick from 8 different kinds of mustard

It's not. It's a disaster. It takes you 30 minutes just to grab some
toothpaste if you run out. The NOVA suburbs are utterly dysfunctional and
traffic is near a breaking point. It's often faster to drive to DC from
Annapolis than from Great Falls or Reston (despite the latter being half the
distance).

~~~
yompers888
There's a name for this sort of misunderstanding on the internet, but it
escapes me.

To be clear, what I meant is "All other factors ignored, it can be mildly
convenient to have access to this abundance of choice." Although, I actually
hate having this much choice, as it makes it impossible to shop in a grocery
store you don't know, and while I'm at it, I love the size of Trader Joe's
parking lots. I was trying to address one (of many, many) complaints that
people bring when you suggest something taming the infrastructure demon. Also
frequently heard: "If you shrink the lane width and slow the roads down to 25,
it'll take forever to get across town!" First of all, if you stop building
dumb stroads (street-road hybrids, the aforementioned futon of traffic
engineering), the towns will be much smaller, so you'll only have to go half
the distance. Hell, you might even be able walk or ride your bike!

I feel for you if you're living and commuting around DC. I did a month-long
internship that had me commuting between Fort Meade and Annapolis, and it made
me swear off commuting by car. I also spent years making frequent trips
between Annapolis and Charlottesville, so I got to watch the expansion down
the 95 corridor. You haven't experienced the madness of crowds until you've
seen people buying expensive homes as far South as Stafford so that they can
spend the next decade hating themselves as they spend 10% of their existence
hating themselves as they idle on 95. The DC beltway is the epitome of poor
land use.

------
Volscio
DC's metro system is in another league of dysfunction from the other systems
which suffer from the typical, chronic burden of heavy use.

The article lumps it all together; "hey, we should do a transit article
today".

------
benbenolson
Raising federal gasoline taxes to pay for infrastructure? Since when does that
make sense? Let the people that use the subway, pay for the subway's
maintenance-- that way, the larger the amount of people that use it, the more
money that gets allocated to maintaining it.

Keeping this kind of thing within the cities that are affected by the issues
ensures that the amount of funding scales with the population of the cities,
and ensures that a the infrastructure being maintained doesn't depend on the
(often unreliable) federal government to give them money.

~~~
tobz
If we assume that these systems are in dire need of repair (which many of them
are), and that they are unreliable (which they frequently are), then it can be
a hard sell to ask riders to pay more. Pay more for what? Improvements years
from now, when what I really need is reliable transportation to and from my
job NOW?

Also, if we can continue with the assumptions about these systems, they're not
in a position to sustain increased ridership or increased trips, which makes
it very hard to capture that revenue in the way you propose.

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kiruwa
Worth considering when reading that article...
[http://theweek.com/articles/449646/why-expensive-build-
bridg...](http://theweek.com/articles/449646/why-expensive-build-bridge-
america)

~~~
Animats
The new eastern span of the SF Bay Bridge is about 6x over budget because
politicians wanted it to look pretty. There's no need for a suspension bridge
there; the water isn't deep and it's not a major navigation channel. It could
have been a set of short spans, like the old one, and much cheaper.

~~~
CalRobert
And we still can't ride a bicycle all the way to SF from the east bay (well,
without going via San Jose at least)

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danielschonfeld
I just want to leave this here -
[http://narrowstreetssf.com/](http://narrowstreetssf.com/) one can dream....
America with narrow streets

~~~
burfog
That kind of dream is called a nightmare.

We block out the Sun. We replace the nice smooth concrete sidewalks with
cobblestones... causing more noise from wheels (carts and strollers and bikes
too, not just cars) and causing people in high heels to sprain their ankles.
Oh, and cobblestone is crazy expensive. I guess we'll be needing mass transit,
but we just made the street to narrow for it. We make it really tough to
transport a family. We made the area inhospitable for people (often women and
elderly) who feel unsafe out of their cars.

I know it's cute. It's not actually livable, unless maybe you are an athletic
single male who telecommutes. Oh, and the weather is at least as nice as SF.

------
StillBored
Replace subway with road or airport and you get the same article for the rest
of the major cities in the US.

The 2 hours a day I sit in my car to drive 10 miles to work and back cost me
more in lost time (translated to money) than the property taxes I pay.

You can't tax cut your way to prosperity.

------
jmount
Because to the New York Times only the Northeast exists. San Francisco Bay
Area BART is having troubles- but I doubt we will be seeing federal dollars
routed our way. But by all means lets all worry about DC and NY.

~~~
basseq
> The Federal Transit Administration found that public transit systems have a
> backlog of $86 billion in critical maintenance nationwide.

I wonder how that backlog is allocated: e.g., how BART's _backlog_ compares to
NYC, Boston, and DC.

DC and BART are about the same age (1972 vs. 1976), but DC has 68% more
riders[1] and an operating budget that's almost double[2]. (So, yes, WMATA
also spends more per rider.)

Everyone's hurting for investment in general.

[1] Weekday Daily Ridership from Wikipedia: 423,120 (BART) vs. 712,843
(WMATA). [2] FY16 Annual Operating Budgets: $900k (BART) vs. $1.8B (WMATA)

~~~
DrScump
But is that an apple to apple comparison? Operating budget means only so much
-- it ignores major costs like pension and benefit obligations and debt
service (BART is among the worst at both).

~~~
basseq
It's just a data point. I have no idea how they really compare, or which one
is in "worse" shape. As a DC resident, I know the impending metro shutdown is
going to be a disaster.

