"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 wher

"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.