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> I still don't understand why the signal system takes so long to upgrade. Can't they install most of the new system while the old one is still working on the s

> I still don't understand why the signal system takes so long to upgrade. Can't they install most of the new system while the old one is still working on the same tracks? They could, technically, but the TWU won't let them. The TWU has used signal upgrades as a perpetual carrot for decades - anytime people talk about improvements, they say "well, we need to do X first, so we can upgrade to the most modern signal technology in Y years." If they upgraded the signals, they'd lose this leverage, so instead it remains eternally Y years away.

betterunix2 9y ago
I call BS. The TWU has no say over signal upgrades and the MTA has not even hired union members to install the new signal system. The more likely answer is that the MTA has hired shady contractors who did incompetent work for years.
- chimeracoder 9y ago
  > The TWU has no say over signal upgrades The TWU has immense leverage over the projects that get prioritized. In fact, of the six suggestions that the article lists for fixing the subway, the TWU has actively fought against five of them. > and the MTA has not even hired union members to install the new signal system. This is an issue that's been going on for decades. Talking about what's happening in 2017 with the new signal network misses the entire point of why this project wasn't completed back in the 90s.
  - betterunix2 9y ago
    You seem to think the TWU has power that it really does not have. The MTA has been consolidating the subway system's towers since the 1970s, closing a number of the electromechanical towers and replacing them with transistorized (and now computerized) equipment. In the 90s and 00s they had a grand plan to create a single control center for the whole system, but they hired incompetent contractors who failed to deliver, so now they are back to the old approach of building new towers to replace multiple old towers. At no point has the TWU stopped them. All the TWU can do is stop the MTA from eliminating jobs, they cannot stop the MTA's plans to install new equipment.
    - chimeracoder 9y ago
      > You seem to think the TWU has power that it really does not have. All the TWU can do is stop the MTA from eliminating jobs, they cannot stop the MTA's plans to install new equipment. I don't think you understand how much power the TWU does have. Not only do they have the power to stop projects altogether, like automating the trains (which they did, as noted in the article), but they do have the ability to either delay or stonewall projects that they oppose by framing them as issues of labor allocation. Even if they can't unilaterally kill the project outright, they can make it expensive and painful enough that nobody will ever pursue it. There's a symbiotic relationship between the TWU and MTA leadership (and one that's parasitic with respect to the state). Other aspects of this have already been described elsewhere in this thread and the linked article, and it's not possible to understand the way public transit infrastructure projects happen (or, more commonly, don't happen) in New York without accounting for this massive force.
      - betterunix2 9y ago
        The article says the union did exactly what I said the union can do: prevent the MTA from cutting jobs. That does not prevent the MTA from modernizing the signal system -- the entire context of the dispute over the L line was the MTA's effort to reduce trains to a one-man crew, from the current two-man crew, after a modern signal system was installed and operational. The MTA is busy installing that same modern system on two lines in Queens. The TWU is not a massive force in transit projects. At worst, they block cost-cutting measures that modern technology can enable through automation. CBTC has benefits beyond automated trains -- it allows trains to run closer together and it allows more flexible usage of the tracks (the current block system does not allow track directions to change as needed, for example). Like I said, the reason this was not deployed in the 90s is that the MTA wasted 15 years trying to build a single tower to control the entire system; things are proceeding now because the MTA went back to its previous approach of consolidation. The TWU had nothing to do with it and continues to have nothing to do with it.
        chimeracoder 9y ago
        > The TWU had nothing to do with it and continues to have nothing to do with it. It sounds like you're treating the TWU and MTA as two separate entities. Legally, yes, that's true, but in practice, more often than not, the TWU and MTA act in tandem. If you just look at one and not the other, or the interplay between the two, you miss out on the broader picture. (In this specific case, I don't see a particularly significance in the distinction between "blocking the project from happening" and "blocking them from realizing a major cost-saving benefit that motivates and funds the project".)

betterunix2 9y ago

I call BS. The TWU has no say over signal upgrades and the MTA has not even hired union members to install the new signal system. The more likely answer is that the MTA has hired shady contractors who did incompetent work for years.

chimeracoder 9y ago
> The TWU has no say over signal upgrades The TWU has immense leverage over the projects that get prioritized. In fact, of the six suggestions that the article lists for fixing the subway, the TWU has actively fought against five of them. > and the MTA has not even hired union members to install the new signal system. This is an issue that's been going on for decades. Talking about what's happening in 2017 with the new signal network misses the entire point of why this project wasn't completed back in the 90s.
- betterunix2 9y ago
  You seem to think the TWU has power that it really does not have. The MTA has been consolidating the subway system's towers since the 1970s, closing a number of the electromechanical towers and replacing them with transistorized (and now computerized) equipment. In the 90s and 00s they had a grand plan to create a single control center for the whole system, but they hired incompetent contractors who failed to deliver, so now they are back to the old approach of building new towers to replace multiple old towers. At no point has the TWU stopped them. All the TWU can do is stop the MTA from eliminating jobs, they cannot stop the MTA's plans to install new equipment.
  - chimeracoder 9y ago
    > You seem to think the TWU has power that it really does not have. All the TWU can do is stop the MTA from eliminating jobs, they cannot stop the MTA's plans to install new equipment. I don't think you understand how much power the TWU does have. Not only do they have the power to stop projects altogether, like automating the trains (which they did, as noted in the article), but they do have the ability to either delay or stonewall projects that they oppose by framing them as issues of labor allocation. Even if they can't unilaterally kill the project outright, they can make it expensive and painful enough that nobody will ever pursue it. There's a symbiotic relationship between the TWU and MTA leadership (and one that's parasitic with respect to the state). Other aspects of this have already been described elsewhere in this thread and the linked article, and it's not possible to understand the way public transit infrastructure projects happen (or, more commonly, don't happen) in New York without accounting for this massive force.
    - betterunix2 9y ago
      The article says the union did exactly what I said the union can do: prevent the MTA from cutting jobs. That does not prevent the MTA from modernizing the signal system -- the entire context of the dispute over the L line was the MTA's effort to reduce trains to a one-man crew, from the current two-man crew, after a modern signal system was installed and operational. The MTA is busy installing that same modern system on two lines in Queens. The TWU is not a massive force in transit projects. At worst, they block cost-cutting measures that modern technology can enable through automation. CBTC has benefits beyond automated trains -- it allows trains to run closer together and it allows more flexible usage of the tracks (the current block system does not allow track directions to change as needed, for example). Like I said, the reason this was not deployed in the 90s is that the MTA wasted 15 years trying to build a single tower to control the entire system; things are proceeding now because the MTA went back to its previous approach of consolidation. The TWU had nothing to do with it and continues to have nothing to do with it.
      - chimeracoder 9y ago
        > The TWU had nothing to do with it and continues to have nothing to do with it. It sounds like you're treating the TWU and MTA as two separate entities. Legally, yes, that's true, but in practice, more often than not, the TWU and MTA act in tandem. If you just look at one and not the other, or the interplay between the two, you miss out on the broader picture. (In this specific case, I don't see a particularly significance in the distinction between "blocking the project from happening" and "blocking them from realizing a major cost-saving benefit that motivates and funds the project".)