4 ms·

Yikes! Those photos are depressing -- especially the one showing people in a dinky office waiting to pull metal levers manually so trains in the network can pa

by cs702 11y ago

Yikes! Those photos are depressing -- especially the one showing people in a dinky office waiting to pull metal levers manually so trains in the network can pass safely. Anyone would agree the NYC subway system is mission-critical (without it, NYC would slow down to a crawl), yet its technology infrastructure has obviously been neglected for decades, due to lack of money, lousy management, corruption, or a combination of all these factors. And no one wants to pay higher fares or greater taxes.

greenyoda 11y ago
"due to lack of money..." There's actually billions of dollars being spent on projects like the 2nd Avenue line and the recently completed extension of the #7 train. For some reason, the powers that be consider this more essential than updating the ancient signalling infrastructure and maintaining the crumbling stations.
- tormeh 11y ago
  A new station is very beneficial politically - it sways voting, whereas nobody gets that excited by maintenance.
  - zem 11y ago
    sounds like every programming job ever :(
  - greenyoda 11y ago
    A new station is only useful to the small minority of riders who use it, while system-wide infrastructure problems affect everyone. Upgrading signalling on a train line would make life better for many more people than building one new station: trains would be able to run more often (which would make them less crowded) and the system would break down less often (the ancient signalling hardware is currently the least reliable part of the system). I heard that the new signalling on the L line is economically reviving a large part of Brooklyn now that it has reliable train service to Manhattan. And wouldn't people who suffer daily from late and crowded trains and have to deal with leaky stations with perpetually broken elevators be likely to vote against the current politicians when they run for re-election?
- sdoering 11y ago
  The problem with maintenance is, that it cannot be seen in public. What I imply is, that 2nd Ave or #7-extension are highly visible. Press writes about this and politicians that are associated with this leave a legacy. The legacy-part would also happen with maintenance (be the one who brings the system into 21. century) - but only after many years would this leak into history-books. Not fast enough to win the next election. Esp. if you are a local politician, who got the local construction for the extension, this might make a difference in incentives.
  - wcummings 11y ago
    Part of the work done on the 7 was upgrading signaling, which you could count as maintenance.
- rdtsc 11y ago
  Perhaps not different than software world -- people want to be known for "created and built ..." on their resume, rather than for "mainted and supported ...". It is of course fun and exciting if we are talking about spotify for dogs, not as fun when talking about critical infrastructure.
  - greenyoda 11y ago
    Agreed, but also nobody wants to be known for "the whole system fell apart while I was in charge".
  - ambicapter 11y ago
    Then just reword: "Doubled the expected lifespan with preventive maintenance and upgrades"
- melling 11y ago
  In the meantime, China FTW. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Metro#Future_expansion https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Metro#Future_expans...
  - Grue3 11y ago
    This is comparing apples to oranges. Would Shanghai Metro use 100-year old infrastructure in 2115? That's what you should be considering.
    - melling 11y ago
      No, the bottom line is that China races ahead and the US crawls along, yet spends a fortune.
- bradleyjg 11y ago
  The federal government kicks in a lot of money for big new capital projects but not much if anything for station rehabilitation. As the issuer of fiat currency, and given that we've been at the zero-bound interest rate for a while now the federal government has a lot more money to throw around than the city or state governments. The MTA also has an arcane governance structure that makes for poor accountability. Four votes on its board are picked by the NYC mayor, 1 each by the county executives of Nassau, Suffolk, and Westchester, 1/4 each by the county executives of Dutchess, Orange, Rockland, and Putnam counties and six by the Governor of the state.
deleted 11y ago
[deleted]
VLM 11y ago
"And no one wants to pay higher fares or greater taxes." For what exactly? Something almost no one interacts with is new for the sake of new? Here on HN where its assume high tech is necessary to scale because of high growth, the subway provides a view, however temporary, of another world where once technology scales "enough", new is no longer a relevant goal, aside from maintenance costs. One big problem with a forklift upgrade of a fifty year old system is the short term maintenance cost of the new system is lower (or, more accurately is unknown, but optimistically assumed to be lower) however the total net systemic cost over the next half century is likely to be much higher for the new system... after all, its very easy to rebuild 1950s and older technology, but near impossible to repair 2010s technology. I'm claiming (cost of maintaining old system 1950 to 2050) < (old system from 1950-2000) + (new system 2000-ish to 2050). We know we can afford the budget cost of maintaining pre-1950s gear in 2015... those costs will only drop with technology, but we know its impossible to internally maintain 2015 gear now and it may never be possible.
- FussyZeus 11y ago
  That's got to start falling off as a benefit at some point though, right? I mean according to the article at least they're having to machine replacement parts, which has to be multiple times the cost of the original part to do, especially considering the price of American labor. I don't know enough to say with any certainty if they've reached it yet, but I think they may have.
throwaway2048 11y ago
Maybe it just works, has been PROVEN to work over a century, has known failure states, and "upgrades" would simply be a massive waste of time and money? I know there is a huge obsession with new and shiny amongst programmers, but when it comes to massive real world infrastructure projects the last thing you want is unknown factors and "churn", especially when the benefits are unclear and dubious at best. Just because something is old, dosent mean it should be upgraded, infact if its worked well for as long as it has you should consider that very carefully first.
jrockway 11y ago
The article focuses on an interlocking at West 4th St. It's manually controlled because all normal service goes straight through the interlocking without conflicting with other trains. During construction, you can switch the 8th Ave. trains onto the 6th Ave. line and vice versa. That's all that interlocking does. There is absolutely no need to upgrade this particular piece of infrastructure; it won't increase the throughput of trains through the interlocking, and it won't be easier to maintain. This stuff is _simple_ and works fine. The upgrade to CBTC seems like a scam from the contractors to me. The Canarise Line was upgraded to CBTC, which can handle 26 trains per hour as opposed to the 12 trains per hour of the ABS signalling. 12 trains per hour is one train every 5 minutes. But they run trains every 6 minutes anyway -- there is no period in the timetable where they run 26 trains per hour, or even 2 individual trains at that spacing. (There is a period where they claim "every 4-6 minutes", for a maximum of 15tph if indeed there are two trains 4 minutes apart. I've just missed a lot of L trains, and waiting 6 minutes seems like "a good day" to me. As I understand it, the L gets most of its load from one station, and so it takes longer than the best headway just to load passengers there. Then, they can't turn trains quickly enough at the terminal. They blame the track layout but it's actually their relaying procedure that's the problem.)

by cs702 11y ago

greenyoda 11y ago

"due to lack of money..." There's actually billions of dollars being spent on projects like the 2nd Avenue line and the recently completed extension of the #7 train. For some reason, the powers that be consider this more essential than updating the ancient signalling infrastructure and maintaining the crumbling stations.

tormeh 11y ago
A new station is very beneficial politically - it sways voting, whereas nobody gets that excited by maintenance.
- zem 11y ago
  sounds like every programming job ever :(
- greenyoda 11y ago
  A new station is only useful to the small minority of riders who use it, while system-wide infrastructure problems affect everyone. Upgrading signalling on a train line would make life better for many more people than building one new station: trains would be able to run more often (which would make them less crowded) and the system would break down less often (the ancient signalling hardware is currently the least reliable part of the system). I heard that the new signalling on the L line is economically reviving a large part of Brooklyn now that it has reliable train service to Manhattan. And wouldn't people who suffer daily from late and crowded trains and have to deal with leaky stations with perpetually broken elevators be likely to vote against the current politicians when they run for re-election?
sdoering 11y ago
The problem with maintenance is, that it cannot be seen in public. What I imply is, that 2nd Ave or #7-extension are highly visible. Press writes about this and politicians that are associated with this leave a legacy. The legacy-part would also happen with maintenance (be the one who brings the system into 21. century) - but only after many years would this leak into history-books. Not fast enough to win the next election. Esp. if you are a local politician, who got the local construction for the extension, this might make a difference in incentives.
- wcummings 11y ago
  Part of the work done on the 7 was upgrading signaling, which you could count as maintenance.
rdtsc 11y ago
Perhaps not different than software world -- people want to be known for "created and built ..." on their resume, rather than for "mainted and supported ...". It is of course fun and exciting if we are talking about spotify for dogs, not as fun when talking about critical infrastructure.
- greenyoda 11y ago
  Agreed, but also nobody wants to be known for "the whole system fell apart while I was in charge".
- ambicapter 11y ago
  Then just reword: "Doubled the expected lifespan with preventive maintenance and upgrades"
melling 11y ago
In the meantime, China FTW. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Metro#Future_expansion https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shanghai_Metro#Future_expans...
- Grue3 11y ago
  This is comparing apples to oranges. Would Shanghai Metro use 100-year old infrastructure in 2115? That's what you should be considering.
  - melling 11y ago
    No, the bottom line is that China races ahead and the US crawls along, yet spends a fortune.
bradleyjg 11y ago
The federal government kicks in a lot of money for big new capital projects but not much if anything for station rehabilitation. As the issuer of fiat currency, and given that we've been at the zero-bound interest rate for a while now the federal government has a lot more money to throw around than the city or state governments. The MTA also has an arcane governance structure that makes for poor accountability. Four votes on its board are picked by the NYC mayor, 1 each by the county executives of Nassau, Suffolk, and Westchester, 1/4 each by the county executives of Dutchess, Orange, Rockland, and Putnam counties and six by the Governor of the state.

deleted 11y ago

[deleted]

VLM 11y ago

"And no one wants to pay higher fares or greater taxes." For what exactly? Something almost no one interacts with is new for the sake of new? Here on HN where its assume high tech is necessary to scale because of high growth, the subway provides a view, however temporary, of another world where once technology scales "enough", new is no longer a relevant goal, aside from maintenance costs. One big problem with a forklift upgrade of a fifty year old system is the short term maintenance cost of the new system is lower (or, more accurately is unknown, but optimistically assumed to be lower) however the total net systemic cost over the next half century is likely to be much higher for the new system... after all, its very easy to rebuild 1950s and older technology, but near impossible to repair 2010s technology. I'm claiming (cost of maintaining old system 1950 to 2050) < (old system from 1950-2000) + (new system 2000-ish to 2050). We know we can afford the budget cost of maintaining pre-1950s gear in 2015... those costs will only drop with technology, but we know its impossible to internally maintain 2015 gear now and it may never be possible.

FussyZeus 11y ago
That's got to start falling off as a benefit at some point though, right? I mean according to the article at least they're having to machine replacement parts, which has to be multiple times the cost of the original part to do, especially considering the price of American labor. I don't know enough to say with any certainty if they've reached it yet, but I think they may have.

throwaway2048 11y ago

Maybe it just works, has been PROVEN to work over a century, has known failure states, and "upgrades" would simply be a massive waste of time and money? I know there is a huge obsession with new and shiny amongst programmers, but when it comes to massive real world infrastructure projects the last thing you want is unknown factors and "churn", especially when the benefits are unclear and dubious at best. Just because something is old, dosent mean it should be upgraded, infact if its worked well for as long as it has you should consider that very carefully first.

jrockway 11y ago

The article focuses on an interlocking at West 4th St. It's manually controlled because all normal service goes straight through the interlocking without conflicting with other trains. During construction, you can switch the 8th Ave. trains onto the 6th Ave. line and vice versa. That's all that interlocking does. There is absolutely no need to upgrade this particular piece of infrastructure; it won't increase the throughput of trains through the interlocking, and it won't be easier to maintain. This stuff is _simple_ and works fine. The upgrade to CBTC seems like a scam from the contractors to me. The Canarise Line was upgraded to CBTC, which can handle 26 trains per hour as opposed to the 12 trains per hour of the ABS signalling. 12 trains per hour is one train every 5 minutes. But they run trains every 6 minutes anyway -- there is no period in the timetable where they run 26 trains per hour, or even 2 individual trains at that spacing. (There is a period where they claim "every 4-6 minutes", for a maximum of 15tph if indeed there are two trains 4 minutes apart. I've just missed a lot of L trains, and waiting 6 minutes seems like "a good day" to me. As I understand it, the L gets most of its load from one station, and so it takes longer than the best headway just to load passengers there. Then, they can't turn trains quickly enough at the terminal. They blame the track layout but it's actually their relaying procedure that's the problem.)