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Other major cities around the world are moving to automated light rail. Singapore and Kula Lumpar both have fully automated trains, London has several of their

Other major cities around the world are moving to automated light rail. Singapore and Kula Lumpar both have fully automated trains, London has several of their lines automated with plans on slowly replacing rolling stock to eventually go driver-less on more of its above ground lines. American cities are so far behind. D.C. is probably one of the best metros, but NYC and Chicago, while having quite extensive systems for very large cities, have no budget to expand or move them into the future. For cities that large, these systems have to be maintained. They cannot afford to cut train lines, unless they want to end up with grueling traffic like you have in LA.

hkmurakami 9y ago
iirc Yurikamome in the gulf area of Tokyo is automated monorail. It's really nice -- well run, clean, peaceful.
delackner 9y ago
While automation sounds elegant, it has nothing to do with the problems or solutions here. The core problem with the NYC subway system is a management culture that does not value long term problem solving, instead preferring quick fixes and short term band aids. Many modern subway systems have similarly huge networks with far higher traffic than NYC but manage to maintain low failure rates and CLEAN tracks simply because they value and prioritize maintenance and quality of service. Some are private, some are public. It truly baffles me why NYC and actually the SF BART both fail so utterly to even attempt to provide quality service.
- concerned_user 9y ago
  I live in Europe and to me it seems that its a general American mentality of everybody having a car, dislike of mass transit in any form (except planes) and as a result mass transit is meh and makes people even more miserable.
  - CaptainZapp 9y ago
    I live in Europe and to me it seems that its a general American mentality of everybody having a car New York is different. Car ownership is extremely low and the subway is a vital part of the city's transportation infrastructure. The problem seems more attitude wise. We want great infrastrure while paying low taxes. This contradiction, of course, isn't really solvable as can be seen in the generally pretty rotten state of infrastructure in the US.
    - AznHisoka 9y ago
      New York has one of the highest state tax rates, 2nd to only California. It is absurdly high given the quality of public transportation. They cant have it both ways.
      - lovemenot 9y ago
        This reply seems to be a good illustration of the attitude described by its parent. The word they is telling. I live in a city with one of the most cost-effective public transport systems. People in Tokyo tend to think of the railways as an extension of themself / their home / their city. Whereas I imagine most Americans tend to look at such systems from an external perspective: hence "they".
        AznHisoka 9y ago
        ... If my subway was cost-effective, timely, and orderly, I certainly would find it easy to consider it an extension of myself. So there's nothing special about the Japanese (or bad about New Yorkers)
      - diogenescynic 9y ago
        A good example of this issue would be the escalators in BART. BART installed these shitty escalators 30 years ago that don’t work well outside and are prone to breaking down, plus homeless defecate on them... Instead of replacing the escalators that constantly break (or installing a bathroom... they’ve all been closed since 9/11...) they just keep fixing the escalators over and over and over again. It’s a penny wise, pound foolish mentality. We refuse to make long term investments in our infrastructure and just use bandaid solutions that end up costing much more. Oh and the person in charge of selecting the escalators for BART was eventually hired by the escalator company. It’s a perfect example of everything wrong with public goods in America.
- wdn 9y ago
  The biggest problem here is MTA is government run. Return the subway to the private sector. Get rid of the union. The union took the city hostage many times. Enough is enough.
  - chimeracoder 9y ago
    > The biggest problem here is MTA is government run. Return the subway to the private sector. Get rid of the union. You're going to get downvoted for this because there's a very strong pro-union contingent on Hacker News, and most people reading Hacker News aren't from New York. That said, it's true that many of the problems that New York transit faces stem from the extreme incompetence and greed of the TWU. It's not even about protecting their members' interests; it's about the TWU protecting its own interests as a corporate entity.
- andreasklinger 9y ago
  Non-NYC-er here: > The core problem with the NYC subway system is a management culture that does not value long term problem solving, instead preferring quick fixes and short term band aids Do they have the time and budget horizon to do long-term planning ? To me it seems like SF and NY subways are underfunded
  - rayiner 9y ago
    http://content.tfl.gov.uk/tfl-mayors-budget-2017-18.pdf http://content.tfl.gov.uk/tfl-mayors-budget-2017-18.pdf Transport for London budgeted 2.26 billion pounds for the London Underground in 2016. Even at peak exchange rates from 2014, that's $3.8 billion. The MTA spent $8.18 billion on the subway in 2017. The London Underground handles about 5 million rides per day, versus a bit under 6 million per day for the NYC subway. So the NYC MTA spends 120% more to serve about 20% more subway riders.
  - alexanderstears 9y ago
    They're underfunded for the level of management and expectations for reliable service. As another comment noted, the MTA uses 120% of London's transportation budget to serve 20% more riders. Superior management could improve the service without additional expenditures but it would probably involve breaking the gravy train for political factions like unions and politicians' friends.
  - chimeracoder 9y ago
    > > The core problem with the NYC subway system is a management culture that does not value long term problem solving, instead preferring quick fixes and short term band aids The management culture you're referring to stems from the TWU, which actively fights efforts to impose long-term planning and solutions, in favor of quick, short-term responses that pad their bills. The government doesn't push back against these, because (for a variety of reasons that are beyond the scope of this article), New York city and state government are not really accountable to their own constituents. To give you an idea of how bad it is, the mayor of New York hasn't ridden public transit regularly in decades and doesn't even know basic transit ridership facts[0]. The former Speaker of the NYS Assembly (who was convicted for corruption a few years ago) was one of the strongest advocates for cutting the bus service that his own district was entirely dependent on[1]. Because of said corruption, he was essentially untouchable, so there was no democratic avenue for holding him accountable. Corruption in NYS is widespread; it's the most corrupt state in the country[2], and it's no surprise that this corruption impacts the public transit infrastructure. [0] https://twitter.com/2AvSagas/status/943158489064624128 https://twitter.com/2AvSagas/status/943158489064624128 [1] His district has essentially no subway coverage [2] http://www.politifact.com/new-york/statements/2016/sep/19/elaine-phillips/new-york-has-been-most-corrupt-state-decades/ http://www.politifact.com/new-york/statements/2016/sep/19/el...
flanbiscuit 9y ago
> American cities are so far behind. D.C. is probably one of the best metros, but NYC and Chicago, while having quite extensive systems for very large cities, have no budget to expand or move them into the future. Related to this. We're finally starting to get rid of the stupid metrocards and switching to a tap/scan system. I saw one at 34th on the A/C/E line (34th & 8th West side entrance), just one turnstile had it so guessing they are just testing it there. Baby steps. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/23/nyregion/metrocard-subway-new-york.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/23/nyregion/metrocard-subway...
- adrianN 9y ago
  You realize that the article admonishes exactly this kind of modernization? Switching to a different ticket system does nothing for poorly maintained infrastructure, except sucking away much needed budget.
  - Stefstefstef 9y ago
    In The Netherlands, the transit card create a great deal of budget. By having a digital card that you need to top up. You end up with money on a card that isn't used. Thus the transit company suddenly has €20-€50 extra cash available per train user. The intrest even generates pretty good money I can imagine
    - mattmanser 9y ago
      In the London Underground (and on the london buses) you can literally tap your contact-less debit or credit card. Just charged the cheapest rate for the route you took, which automatically caps per day or week on how much you pay, if you do multiple journeys, to be like an "all-day" or "all-week" pass.
      - deadbunny 9y ago
        Yup, I even got a refund the other day automatically. Not sure why as the tube wasn't really any worse than usual but hey, it was a free journey.
ancientworldnow 9y ago
The L mine has CBTC and the 7 will as well. The MTA has a plan to deploy this to all their lines but they have almost 900 miles of track with more than 6000 cars and it's an expensive and slow process - especially when the lines run 24/7 unlike everywhere else.
cwal37 9y ago
D.C.'s metro is plagued with problems: didn't stay on top of upkeep, no dedicated funding, semi-unworkable governance, service cuts in the last couple years. We just exited a year long "Safe Track" maintenance program earlier in 2017, but they weren't able to get nearly enough done and service on many lines in the evening will still often be 20-25 minute headways with single tracking for additional maintenance. During rush hour, it will fairly often be an 8+ minute wait for a train in some core stations. . . it's crazy. Having grown up in and around Chicago, I would take the L+Metra over the Metro any day. Every time I go home to visit friends and family I'm reminded of how disappointing transit is in the nation's capital. If you're out in the evenings or need to work early in the morning on the weekends you're also out of luck. Train service ends early Sunday-Thursday, and starts late Saturday-Sunday. Going to a concert is an eternal crapshoot, the last train on our line during the week can be as early as 10PM. This all disproportionately affects service workers and people without consistent access to personal transit as well, which bothers me on a more fundamental level than the personal inconvenience in my life; I perceive it as a failure of the urban social contract. Also, LA is basically the only one of the largest American cities that is actually expanding their system in a meaningful and relatively quick way. Alexandria (where I live) has been trying to get an infill station in Potomac Yards added for something like 20+ years.
AndyMcConachie 9y ago
As someone who spends a lot of time in DC I'm not sure they have the best metro in the US. I personally like the NYC metro better for getting around the city. DC's metro is largely designed to get people into and out of the city during rush hour. Most people in the DC area don't use it for anything else and as a consequence it suffers from high ridership during rush hour and very little ridership at other times. Unlike NYC, there are few places you can live in DC without also owning a car.
sageabilly 9y ago
The DC metro is absolutely NOT one of the best, for many reasons already explained by commenters. Many, many years of inadequate maintenance have caught up, to the point that this is a site that exists: https://ismetroonfire.com/ https://ismetroonfire.com/ I live a half mile from a metro stop (out in the suburbs) and I STILL would rather drive into DC whenever I need to go into the city. It's faster, more reliable, and more convenient even with the hassle of driving in DC and finding/paying for parking.
dajohnson89 9y ago
>D.C. is probably one of the best metros, Oh dear -- that's a scary thought. Here in DC it's unanimously understood that the metro is a train wreck, literally and figuratively.
cafard 9y ago
The DC metro, as other commenters said, has its own problems of delayed maintenance. A larger problem is its limited coverage. The time to build subways was when New York did, and it was less expensive. But then Washington had many fewer people and its suburbs were not particularly extensive.

hkmurakami 9y ago

iirc Yurikamome in the gulf area of Tokyo is automated monorail. It's really nice -- well run, clean, peaceful.

delackner 9y ago

While automation sounds elegant, it has nothing to do with the problems or solutions here. The core problem with the NYC subway system is a management culture that does not value long term problem solving, instead preferring quick fixes and short term band aids. Many modern subway systems have similarly huge networks with far higher traffic than NYC but manage to maintain low failure rates and CLEAN tracks simply because they value and prioritize maintenance and quality of service. Some are private, some are public. It truly baffles me why NYC and actually the SF BART both fail so utterly to even attempt to provide quality service.

concerned_user 9y ago
I live in Europe and to me it seems that its a general American mentality of everybody having a car, dislike of mass transit in any form (except planes) and as a result mass transit is meh and makes people even more miserable.
- CaptainZapp 9y ago
  I live in Europe and to me it seems that its a general American mentality of everybody having a car New York is different. Car ownership is extremely low and the subway is a vital part of the city's transportation infrastructure. The problem seems more attitude wise. We want great infrastrure while paying low taxes. This contradiction, of course, isn't really solvable as can be seen in the generally pretty rotten state of infrastructure in the US.
  - AznHisoka 9y ago
    New York has one of the highest state tax rates, 2nd to only California. It is absurdly high given the quality of public transportation. They cant have it both ways.
    - lovemenot 9y ago
      This reply seems to be a good illustration of the attitude described by its parent. The word they is telling. I live in a city with one of the most cost-effective public transport systems. People in Tokyo tend to think of the railways as an extension of themself / their home / their city. Whereas I imagine most Americans tend to look at such systems from an external perspective: hence "they".
      - AznHisoka 9y ago
        ... If my subway was cost-effective, timely, and orderly, I certainly would find it easy to consider it an extension of myself. So there's nothing special about the Japanese (or bad about New Yorkers)
    - diogenescynic 9y ago
      A good example of this issue would be the escalators in BART. BART installed these shitty escalators 30 years ago that don’t work well outside and are prone to breaking down, plus homeless defecate on them... Instead of replacing the escalators that constantly break (or installing a bathroom... they’ve all been closed since 9/11...) they just keep fixing the escalators over and over and over again. It’s a penny wise, pound foolish mentality. We refuse to make long term investments in our infrastructure and just use bandaid solutions that end up costing much more. Oh and the person in charge of selecting the escalators for BART was eventually hired by the escalator company. It’s a perfect example of everything wrong with public goods in America.
wdn 9y ago
The biggest problem here is MTA is government run. Return the subway to the private sector. Get rid of the union. The union took the city hostage many times. Enough is enough.
- chimeracoder 9y ago
  > The biggest problem here is MTA is government run. Return the subway to the private sector. Get rid of the union. You're going to get downvoted for this because there's a very strong pro-union contingent on Hacker News, and most people reading Hacker News aren't from New York. That said, it's true that many of the problems that New York transit faces stem from the extreme incompetence and greed of the TWU. It's not even about protecting their members' interests; it's about the TWU protecting its own interests as a corporate entity.
andreasklinger 9y ago
Non-NYC-er here: > The core problem with the NYC subway system is a management culture that does not value long term problem solving, instead preferring quick fixes and short term band aids Do they have the time and budget horizon to do long-term planning ? To me it seems like SF and NY subways are underfunded
- rayiner 9y ago
  http://content.tfl.gov.uk/tfl-mayors-budget-2017-18.pdf http://content.tfl.gov.uk/tfl-mayors-budget-2017-18.pdf Transport for London budgeted 2.26 billion pounds for the London Underground in 2016. Even at peak exchange rates from 2014, that's $3.8 billion. The MTA spent $8.18 billion on the subway in 2017. The London Underground handles about 5 million rides per day, versus a bit under 6 million per day for the NYC subway. So the NYC MTA spends 120% more to serve about 20% more subway riders.
- alexanderstears 9y ago
  They're underfunded for the level of management and expectations for reliable service. As another comment noted, the MTA uses 120% of London's transportation budget to serve 20% more riders. Superior management could improve the service without additional expenditures but it would probably involve breaking the gravy train for political factions like unions and politicians' friends.
- chimeracoder 9y ago
  > > The core problem with the NYC subway system is a management culture that does not value long term problem solving, instead preferring quick fixes and short term band aids The management culture you're referring to stems from the TWU, which actively fights efforts to impose long-term planning and solutions, in favor of quick, short-term responses that pad their bills. The government doesn't push back against these, because (for a variety of reasons that are beyond the scope of this article), New York city and state government are not really accountable to their own constituents. To give you an idea of how bad it is, the mayor of New York hasn't ridden public transit regularly in decades and doesn't even know basic transit ridership facts[0]. The former Speaker of the NYS Assembly (who was convicted for corruption a few years ago) was one of the strongest advocates for cutting the bus service that his own district was entirely dependent on[1]. Because of said corruption, he was essentially untouchable, so there was no democratic avenue for holding him accountable. Corruption in NYS is widespread; it's the most corrupt state in the country[2], and it's no surprise that this corruption impacts the public transit infrastructure. [0] https://twitter.com/2AvSagas/status/943158489064624128 https://twitter.com/2AvSagas/status/943158489064624128 [1] His district has essentially no subway coverage [2] http://www.politifact.com/new-york/statements/2016/sep/19/elaine-phillips/new-york-has-been-most-corrupt-state-decades/ http://www.politifact.com/new-york/statements/2016/sep/19/el...

flanbiscuit 9y ago

> American cities are so far behind. D.C. is probably one of the best metros, but NYC and Chicago, while having quite extensive systems for very large cities, have no budget to expand or move them into the future. Related to this. We're finally starting to get rid of the stupid metrocards and switching to a tap/scan system. I saw one at 34th on the A/C/E line (34th & 8th West side entrance), just one turnstile had it so guessing they are just testing it there. Baby steps. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/23/nyregion/metrocard-subway-new-york.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/23/nyregion/metrocard-subway...

adrianN 9y ago
You realize that the article admonishes exactly this kind of modernization? Switching to a different ticket system does nothing for poorly maintained infrastructure, except sucking away much needed budget.
- Stefstefstef 9y ago
  In The Netherlands, the transit card create a great deal of budget. By having a digital card that you need to top up. You end up with money on a card that isn't used. Thus the transit company suddenly has €20-€50 extra cash available per train user. The intrest even generates pretty good money I can imagine
  - mattmanser 9y ago
    In the London Underground (and on the london buses) you can literally tap your contact-less debit or credit card. Just charged the cheapest rate for the route you took, which automatically caps per day or week on how much you pay, if you do multiple journeys, to be like an "all-day" or "all-week" pass.
    - deadbunny 9y ago
      Yup, I even got a refund the other day automatically. Not sure why as the tube wasn't really any worse than usual but hey, it was a free journey.

ancientworldnow 9y ago

The L mine has CBTC and the 7 will as well. The MTA has a plan to deploy this to all their lines but they have almost 900 miles of track with more than 6000 cars and it's an expensive and slow process - especially when the lines run 24/7 unlike everywhere else.

cwal37 9y ago

D.C.'s metro is plagued with problems: didn't stay on top of upkeep, no dedicated funding, semi-unworkable governance, service cuts in the last couple years. We just exited a year long "Safe Track" maintenance program earlier in 2017, but they weren't able to get nearly enough done and service on many lines in the evening will still often be 20-25 minute headways with single tracking for additional maintenance. During rush hour, it will fairly often be an 8+ minute wait for a train in some core stations. . . it's crazy. Having grown up in and around Chicago, I would take the L+Metra over the Metro any day. Every time I go home to visit friends and family I'm reminded of how disappointing transit is in the nation's capital. If you're out in the evenings or need to work early in the morning on the weekends you're also out of luck. Train service ends early Sunday-Thursday, and starts late Saturday-Sunday. Going to a concert is an eternal crapshoot, the last train on our line during the week can be as early as 10PM. This all disproportionately affects service workers and people without consistent access to personal transit as well, which bothers me on a more fundamental level than the personal inconvenience in my life; I perceive it as a failure of the urban social contract. Also, LA is basically the only one of the largest American cities that is actually expanding their system in a meaningful and relatively quick way. Alexandria (where I live) has been trying to get an infill station in Potomac Yards added for something like 20+ years.

AndyMcConachie 9y ago

As someone who spends a lot of time in DC I'm not sure they have the best metro in the US. I personally like the NYC metro better for getting around the city. DC's metro is largely designed to get people into and out of the city during rush hour. Most people in the DC area don't use it for anything else and as a consequence it suffers from high ridership during rush hour and very little ridership at other times. Unlike NYC, there are few places you can live in DC without also owning a car.

sageabilly 9y ago

The DC metro is absolutely NOT one of the best, for many reasons already explained by commenters. Many, many years of inadequate maintenance have caught up, to the point that this is a site that exists: https://ismetroonfire.com/ https://ismetroonfire.com/ I live a half mile from a metro stop (out in the suburbs) and I STILL would rather drive into DC whenever I need to go into the city. It's faster, more reliable, and more convenient even with the hassle of driving in DC and finding/paying for parking.

dajohnson89 9y ago

>D.C. is probably one of the best metros, Oh dear -- that's a scary thought. Here in DC it's unanimously understood that the metro is a train wreck, literally and figuratively.

cafard 9y ago

The DC metro, as other commenters said, has its own problems of delayed maintenance. A larger problem is its limited coverage. The time to build subways was when New York did, and it was less expensive. But then Washington had many fewer people and its suburbs were not particularly extensive.