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Cuomo Declares a State of Emergency for the Subway
- liberte82 9y agoYou can do that?
- ProAm 9y agoIt just frees up funds... its not a real emergency.
- JohnTHaller 9y agoIgnore it and short-change it while hoping the NYC mayor takes the blame until there's a problem, then pretend to be concerned and have a big public "plan" to fix it to try to look like the savior.
- Afforess 9y agoThis subway crisis and others like it is the end result of the cycle of "Crisis Management". We have politicians who "never let a good crisis go to waste", a media which practically requires a constant state of crisis somewhere to attract meaningful attention (and thus ad-revenue) and the final result is that society can barely focus on whatever actively burning crisis is at hand. Future simmering problems are ignored and actively shortchanged, because the political class doesn't care (trains running on time doesn't get you votes, only smearing your political opponents messes do!). The media class cannibalized itself long ago, and no longer has enough revenue to run both a major online presence and deep investigative reporting that could surface future problems in advance. Citizens rightly distrust both as being myopic rent-seeking classes - and they are! Sadly, this mistrust does nothing to fix either situation, only giving both new excuses for why everything is broken. What's worse is that perpetual firefighting is 10-100x more expensive than fixing a crisis in advance. Perpetual "Crisis Management" is a large driver of the cost disease that infects many industries, like infrastructure and healthcare. Why will "fixing" the subway cost billion of dollars? Because NYC eagerly let the technical debt and maintenance build up in exchange for it not being $poitician's problem yesterday. There was no incentive to improve and fix the situation in advance. There still isn't. So whatever Cumuo does here, don't worry - we'll be back again for a repeat next decade.
- astockwell 9y agoLike the programmer anecdote that's made the HN rounds recently: Being a crummy programmer who regularly saves the day (because the system is crummy and constantly needs saving) will get you more esteem/money/visibility than being a good programmer who's systems hum along with no fuss.
- seanp2k2 9y agoWhy do it right the first time and only get one celebration? Just push your first cut to prod then start planning a deprecation / upgrade / migration cycle. Repeat until you get promoted to a management role. Repeat until you're rich enough to retire early or dead.
- carlisle_ 9y agoI hope California is taking notes.
- koolba 9y agoClearly Illinois wasn't: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-28/illinois-is-in-a-6-billion-budget-hole-and-flirting-with-junk https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-28/illinois-...
- selectodude 9y agoI don't know, the CTA seems to be functioning okay.
- ams6110 9y agoThe CTA/RTA is highly corrupt. Unsurprising for Chicago. The usual kind of stuff: patronage hiring, pension shenanigans. A former executive director stepped in front of a Metra train on the day he was going to be fired for taking $475,000 of unapproved vacation pay.
- tacomonstrous 9y agoAt least the trains are mostly working, unlike NYC or DC. Corruption coupled with performance is more palatable than corruption that leads to chaos.
- uptown 9y ago"Every New York City Subway Line Is Getting Worse. Here’s Why." https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/28/nyregion/subway-delays-overcrowding.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/06/28/nyregion/subw...
- bedhead 9y agoI would argue that a large reason why infrastructure tends to fall into such sorry states of disrepair in the US is because of the vast misalignment of interests between politicians and the services. When the person responsible for this stuff has a shelf life of maybe four years, there's simply no incentive to allocate adequate amounts of time, energy, and capital towards things which someone else will inevitably get credit for because of the time it takes. Besides, no one gets praised for this sort of thing...it's just something they're expected to do. The whole thing is a shame.
- nickthemagicman 9y agoMost countries WITH term limits seem to be doing much better than countries without term limits.
- bedhead 9y agoYeah it's funny. Anecdotally, I think most people would agree that other countries, particularly Western European ones, seem to just care more about transportation infrastructure. Maybe it's just a cultural thing. But there is still that interest misalignment I would argue. And voters tend to be as myopic as the politicians, always waiting for a crisis to roll around before actually caring.
- CydeWeys 9y agoI can assure you that New Yorkers, perhaps uniquely in all of America, care deeply about transportation infrastructure. The problem is that the MTA (which runs the New York City subway, mind you) is inexplicably run at the state level, meaning decisions about NYC public transit are made in Albany, three hours away. And naturally the state as a whole is not willing to invest as much money into the subway as NYC itself would be, even though the majority of the state's tax revenue comes from NYC and its metro area. It's your classic case of the urban center subsidizing the rest of the people in the state and not getting anything for it in return. There's actually a New York City secessionist movement (from NY state, not the US) for reasons along these lines.
- bpodgursky 9y ago> “I made eye contact with a couple of people, and they made a sad face,” she said. “I guess it was a nice human moment.” And to think they claim living in NY is dehumanizing! Yeah, it's hard to imagine the amount of money it would take me to live there.
- santaclaus 9y agoI dunno, having lived across the US (the southeast, NYC, Colorado, Bay Area, Oregon, Washington), NYC is far from the unfriendliest city. I see way more open hostility in California, which somehow has a rep for being laid back.
- zachsnow 9y agoI wonder if the subway actually increases the perceived friendliness? Everyone that has driven a car has likely experienced road rage in one form or another.
- CydeWeys 9y agoI love living in NYC. Have you actually spent any appreciable amount of time here? You're reading a lot into a joke in an news article.
- pcunite 9y agoI did not realize he legislated banks to make Affirmative Action (Subprime) loans as HUD Sectary during President Bill Clinton's administration. I did not realize he was the brother of CNN news anchor Chris Cuomo.
- perseusprime11 9y agoNJTransit and Subways failing at the same time makes it really hard for commuters especially ones with families and kids who need to be picked up and dropped at day care and schools. The lack of leadership and vision are making Big Apple into a third world country. What good is it for customers to have free wifi on Streets but failing subways.
- vonmoltke 9y agoI commute in from Jersey and I have booked a few hotel stays since the derailments because I would have to leave the house well before 7 to guarantee making it in by 9.
- perseusprime11 9y agoIs your company paying?
- zanny 9y agoPoliticians do not operate on the principal of what is good for customers. They operate on whether or not doing something increases their odds of reelection, or in the case of term limits whether an action will make themselves or their successor look good. In the cases you described, putting a wifi mesh net topside is something that can be done in weeks. Revamping a hundred year old subway that woefully needs tens of billions of dollars of renovations that would probably take a decade to complete raise taxes while you are in office while your successor 2 terms later reaps the rewards. If they even get that far - the tragedy of ignorant voters is how long term vision doesn't get anyone votes. If you raise taxes now, you probably won't be in office tomorrow, even if that tax raise would make every constituent you have a millionaire 5 years from now, and they would elect a replacement whose entire platform is to undo what you did, because the immediate pain is much more meaningful to them in the voting booth than the long term promise.
- gdubs 9y ago“We know what we need to do. He mentioned the subway’s aging signal system. We live in a digital age. Our signal system isn’t even analog. It’s mechanical.” Now there's something I'd like to read a HN post on.
- adammck 9y agoYou might find this interesting: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/11/why-dont-we-know-where-all-the-trains-are/415152/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/11/why-d...
- madamelic 9y agoWhat Adam (?) said, but now in video form: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mjx3S3UjmnA https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mjx3S3UjmnA
- dajt 9y agoLook up mechanical signal interlocking. It's pretty interesting.
- Gibbon1 9y agoReminds me of an article I read on some guys that updated the controls for a sewage tunnel that runs under the Hudson river. The more they investigated the dynamics of a 1000 foot long, 10 diameter pipe full of poo, the more terrified they became. And more impressed with the long dead engineers that originally solved the problem in the 1920's. Original controls were all mechanical.
- crocal 9y agoIt's actually partially true. The NYCT signalling system is more like a sandwich. At the bottom they have a legacy system called AWS. It is built using a logic of relays that will raise or lower mechanical arms on the tracks. When the arm is raised it will collide with a valve on the train that, once opened will apply the brakes on the train forcibly. The logic driving this is from the beginning of the 20th century and seriously pretty clever. The guys at the time even timed the relays to raise arms according to the recommended maximum speed for driving the train. On top of this, computer based systems have been deployed, especially CBTC, starting in the Canarsie line. So, frankly, the statement made is quite inaccurate. The system works in the sense that it allows higher potential capacity. The real problem is that with a legacy sandwich so deep the failure rate is terrible, especially when age of material and obsolescence kicks in. Now imagine fixing a technical debt that spans nearly 2 centuries, with limited maintenance time, and life critical functions buried inside. This is the problem.
- conradev 9y agoAmtrak is in a sorry state as well. They announced recently that they are going to perform much needed maintenance on NY Penn station (which they own, and which the MTA's LIRR uses) [1]. From former Amtrak CEO David Hughes: "The accumulated deferred maintenance and lack of attention really makes it almost a third-world operation." [2] [1] http://www.cbsnews.com/news/amtrak-crash-philadelphia-highlights-aging-infrastructure/ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/amtrak-crash-philadelphia-highli... [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/09/nyregion/nj-transit-schedule-penn-station-repairs.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/09/nyregion/nj-transit-sched...
- ams6110 9y agoAmtrak should have been euthanized decades ago. They have been abysmal for years, perhaps somewhat better in the Northeast. The Northeast routes should have been sold off to regional transit authorities and the rest of the system shut down.
- rayiner 9y agoYou're not wrong. The northeast system is absolutely viable--bankrolled mostly by business travelers who get a lot of value out of being plopped down in the middle of Manhattan or D.C. at the end of the trip. The underlying rail is viable for commuter lines too. Otherwise it's a boondoggle and diverts money that could be better used elsewhere.
- crzwdjk 9y agoIt's hard to say whether the long distance trains are viable as a transportation service, because they're also in the "land cruise" business and oddly enough that part seems even less profitable. It's the source of a lot of the expenses, especially for things like food service. Amtrak has actually tried cutting the diner on one of the Florida trains and dropping sleeper prices by $100, and is making considerably more money on that train, so there's still some potential to get close to 100% cost recovery on LD service if Amtrak gets out of running the land cruise business, which it seems reluctant to do because of tradition.
- nickthemagicman 9y agoClassic 'Starve the beast' politics. Don't fund the public service and it fails. The first paragraph is about 'entrepenuers' lining up to fix the subway... There's going to be contracts.and aton of money to be made
- deevolution 9y agoIf the transit system were privately owned, would it be in better condition?
- ams6110 9y agoPossibly, but most customers would balk at paying a fare that represents the true cost of their ride.
- dogruck 9y agoGovt could subsidize based on need -- like they do for the Obama Cell Phones.
- dajt 9y agoNo chance. The deferred maintenance would be even worse, operators would come and go rebranding everything every few years, they'd all point fingers at each other when something went wrong... ugh. Look at the mess the UK rail system is in - absurdly high ticket prices, confusing interconnections, bad service, finger pointing, bad maintenance, it's a mess. The original railways were privately owned and apparently worked pretty well but it is a different world now. Minimal costs trump all else and that's no way to run a city's mass transit system. They will never be profitable enterprises, they are a public service, for the good of the public and the city itself.
- dogruck 9y agoYou lead with "no chance", and subsequently acknowledge that the NYC subways used to be privately owned, and that it worked well. Ever wonder why airplanes had wifi before the subway? Private vs public. Ever compare the privately owned NYC ferries (fully open to the public) with the publicly owned ferries?
- dajt 9y agoI've spent a single day in NYC all my life so have no idea. I'm wondering if ferries are easier to run as there is less infrastructure. There are the equivalent of stations and maintenance depots, but not rails. I don't know who owns the ferry infrastructure or if it is shared. If you privatised the trains, would the different operators share tracks and stations? If so who would own and maintain them? My guess is the operators would baulk at the idea of maintaining ANY infrastructure and just want to run trains leased from the govt, over a system maintained by the govt, who now has less revenue from the fares. In NSW our railway barely if never got to operational status under private ownership. The govt took it over immediately and it has been priceless for the state ever since. But of course bean counters have been complaining about it for decades now. I think there has been privatisation stuff going on for a while like the airport line. They were also trying to disentangle the various routes so they could sell them off, but that is hard because they didn't need to be planned that way when built. It seems to me like a city's metro system is too important to leave in the hands of private operators whose only reason to exist is to make a profit and that will bail out the second things are not worth its time and money. If the metro chokes, so does the city.
- jlampa 9y agoThis article describes the challenges faced by the NYC subway system in a fascinating way: https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/11/why-dont-we-know-where-all-the-trains-are/415152/ https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2015/11/why-d...
- abele2017 9y agoThe governor has stopped ignoring the problem, which is a vital first step! spanish to english https://spanishto-english.com/ https://spanishto-english.com/