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The Case for the Subway
- twobyfour 9y agoThe subway needs a case made for it? You'd think it would be obvious that NYC can't function at its current size without the subway. And that's even before you get into the benefits in terms of sustainability, transportation access for those who are less well off, real estate values, and all that jazz.
- keevie 9y agoAnd yet, no real change to the status quo of slow deterioration seems to be happening. The louder and more powerfully we can make this (I agree obvious) case, the better!
- imbusy111 9y agoMakes me think of how the San Francisco Bay Area could have been an even greater city than New York, the next capital of the world, if not for it's failure to expand and modernize the public transportation system and, obviously, the housing crisis.
- xyhopguy 9y agomaybe if they weren't so vulnerable to climate change. My money is on Portland. Good climate projects, tons of natural resources, strong urban growth boundry restricting sprawl. If the state ever figures it's shit out Portland would boom.
- imbusy111 9y agoMy concern with Portland is that it can be washed away by a massive tsunami any day now. Reference: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big-one https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/07/20/the-really-big...
- twobyfour 9y agoMeh, New York could be wiped out by a moderate-sized earthquake (that we're supposedly overdue for and definitely unprepared for) any day now. I'm not sure there's such a thing as a city that's not vulnerable to at least one climate change or natural disaster threat.
- electricslpnsld 9y ago> I'm not sure there's such a thing as a city that's not vulnerable to at least one climate change or natural disaster threat. Denver seems pretty safe. No earthquakes, safe from rising seas, no hurricanes or tsunamis.
- taoistextremist 9y agoNorthern cities that are more inland seem to avoid them. Maybe they have the same earthquake vulnerability you mentioned, but I think it's extremely unlikely, but there's Chicago, Detroit, Toronto, even Montreal that are able to deal with the large snowfalls they get, and in general don't seem like they'll be hit as hard by climate change-caused extreme weather as other areas.
- rootusrootus 9y agoPortland has no idea how to deal with the growth we get now, much less anything that would qualify as a 'boom'. Traffic is frequently terrible with no real plan in place on how to deal with it. The canned answer is 'more bikes and light rail' but that's clearly not going to cut it. Plus, houses are already getting quite expensive here, largely due to that UGB you mention. Unless we're willing to compromise on that (and as a long-time resident who appreciates being able to reach something like wilderness pretty easily, I hope we do not) then pretty quickly we are going to have SF-level housing problems.
- nwah1 9y agoWhen density is high enough, and public transit decent enough, people don't need to own cars. In Manhattan, 85% of residents do not own cars. And that's with a terrible subway!
- deleted 9y ago[deleted]
- Aloha 9y agoPortland; home of impractical solutions, for anti-problems. I honestly love portland, but it doesnt want to be an urban area.
- Frondo 9y ago"due to that UGB" ... Man, developers always say that, and it's simply never been true. There's so much undeveloped land still within the UGB, and so many opportunities to build densely close into city limits--a lot of which is happening, but a lot more of which could still happen. Portland does have a big housing problem, it's true, but the solution isn't in opening up the UGB--it's in getting more good jobs, and encouraging more entrepreneurship, so that folks can actually afford to buy the condos going up all over that city.
- xyhopguy 9y agoDang sorry man that wasn't what I meant. The Ugb encourages density as you said, which is quite good if you want a comprehensive transit system.
- dsfyu404ed 9y ago>maybe if they weren't so vulnerable to climate change Of the unpredictable and rapid vertical and horizontal kind?
- ebikelaw 9y agoPortland's urban growth boundary doesn't seem terribly effective. Most of the land inside the boundary is a fractal sprawlscape of dead-end streets lined with single-family homes and 3-car garages. Most of the region's population growth is happening outside the boundary, in places like Vancouver (Washington) and Salem. Because Portland has failed to really urbanize and build sufficient housing, while having a strong economy and plenty of jobs, people are simply driving further to work and living in places outside the UGB.
- ravitation 9y agoThis can't be overstated. Anecdotally, you can feel it just by looking at the city. Downtown Portland isn't really growing in the same way that cities like Austin are (which isn't to say Austin is the poster child for urban growth either).
- xyhopguy 9y agoThe suburbs also have urban growth boundaries (parents live next to one) and it's easy to build over single family homes. The people and the city don't seem very interested however. The whole state is really antigrowth and it has been for a century.
- ravitation 9y agoWhat do you mean "if the state ever figures its shit out"?
- ng12 9y ago> modernize the public transportation system and, obviously, the housing crisis. I think the two are very related. The Bay Area's biggest problem is there is no Brooklyn or Queens -- meaning large, extremely dense residential areas which are a (relatively) painless commute from the city.
- ebikelaw 9y agoWell, all we need to do is make Oakland seven times more populous, and it's Brooklyn.
- electricslpnsld 9y agoAnd more accessible by transit. The parts of Oakland near BART are super easy to get to FIDI, Market, the Mission, etc, but huge swaths of the Town are miles from BART. Hell, drop a few BART stations in Alameda you'd be a huge step in the right direction.
- ebikelaw 9y agoThe population of Oakland is more densely packed around BART stations than is the population of San Francisco. Yes there are “large swaths” within the city limits, but they are the least populous.
- michaelleslie 9y agoSome Second Transbay Tube plans mention a stop in Alameda before entering Oakland. Whether the project happens in San Francisco's lip-service to transit NIMBY climate is the bigger question.
- ravitation 9y agoBrooklyn and Queens didn't become dense residential areas with relatively painless commutes from the city overnight. It's not like there isn't land for such areas in the bay area, the biggest issue is that they are all separate cities and have separate local governments.
- nacho2sweet 9y agoMakes me think you Bay area people have been living in your gig economy servent utopia for too many years without an earthquake to remember why this will never be the case.
- woolvalley 9y agoEarthquake Tokyo would like a word with you :p
- kindatrue 9y agoYou should probably know that amongst the voting class of the SF Bay Area, "Manhattan" is a four letter word.
- panic 9y agoI think there's still a chance! SPUR (http://www.spur.org http://www.spur.org) is one organization trying to move the Bay Area in this direction; maybe people on here know of others. 2017 has seen some promising housing legislation at a state level (like SB-2, SB-3 and SB-35), and I believe there's even more in the pipeline for 2018.
- cdkee 9y agoYes, as someone who commutes to SF from the South Bay, it's depressing how our public transport compares to other major cities. BART needs to just go around the Bay Area entirely in a loop, or Caltrain needs to become more efficient. Hopefully electrification will help in this regard.
- mateo411 9y agoThis is actually happening. BART is going to San Jose. It will go to San Jose Diridon thus completing the loop. It will take longer than everybody likes and probably cost more money than was originally budgeted, but it's going to happen.
- cdkee 9y agoI ended up looking it up after I posted, and you're right! Plans also include going all the way to the Santa Clara Caltrain station, surprisingly. Maybe by 2030.
- rconti 9y agoAnd it will take two hours to get to SF. Even Millbrae to Hayward takes 90 minutes.
- michaelleslie 9y agoFrom my understanding, most of the benefit of this BART extension will be for East Bay commuters (areas in the south, like Milpitas and Fremont, in particular) who are more likely to work in the South Bay than in San Francisco. Caltrain presumably will remain the fastest option from San Jose, at least if regressive enclaves like Atherton don't delay the improvements for the high-speed rail project. Getting the fiefdoms to coordinate is the Bay's eternal transit problem, however.
- rconti 9y agoTell me about it. The closest CalTrain to me is Atherton, which, of course, is only open on weekends. OTOH Atherton may well be one of HSR's smallest problems.
- nerfhammer 9y agoExplosive growth of cities, adding modern infrastructure as fast as you possibly can, labor mobility, etc: Think of how China is doing these things and turns out to be growing economically at an unbelievable rate. We're only blocked by lots of smalltime local rent-seeking behavior.
- pdog 9y ago> Now, no matter the cost—at least $100 billion—the city must rebuild it to survive. Why are transit-build costs so much more expensive in New York compared to other major international cities? The cost of new underground railway is between $400 million and $700 million per mile in cities like London, Tokyo, and Berlin. The Second Avenue subway in New York cost $2.5 billion per mile, which is five times the average elsewhere in the world.
- twobyfour 9y agoThe Times did an article on that last week.
- boylan 9y agoYup - https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-construction-costs.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-... There were at least 200 people making $1,000/day to do nothing. That's $73 million/year in pure waste on that project alone.
- Eridrus 9y agohttps://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-construction-costs.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-... https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/18/nyregion/new-york-subway-system-failure-delays.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/18/nyregion/new-york-subway-... etc
- stcredzero 9y agoNew York City’s subway, meanwhile, is falling apart. If you are a regular rider, you know this firsthand. But even if you aren’t, it has probably become difficult to ignore all the stories about the system’s failure How much of this is due to the loss of human capital?
- 1_2__4 9y agoI feel like we all actively participate in the relentless effort to pretend we don’t need humans for anything but consumption - or if we do need them they just need to have beating hearts and functioning lungs, no expertise required - then also bemoan the state of our society and country. To me the former naturally begets the latter but reading HN every day you’d think the problem is we just haven’t cut people out of the equation enough yet.
- bgentry 9y agoThe major issue with any plan to fix the subway is that MTA can no longer build cost-effectively. This was highlighted by the NYT just last week: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-construction-costs.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-... It costs them $1.5B-$3.5B per mile of track in NYC, while other global cities do it for a tenth of the cost. One glaring example of mismanagement of funds: The budget showed that 900 workers were being paid to dig caverns for the platforms as part of a 3.5-mile tunnel connecting the historic station to the Long Island Rail Road. But the accountant could only identify about 700 jobs that needed to be done, according to three project supervisors. Officials could not find any reason for the other 200 people to be there. If they can’t get the costs down to the same range as the countries whose systems they envy, how can they compete?
- istorical 9y agoThis should be obvious to anyone who's ever lived in NYC. It feels normal here to see 5 MTA employees in orange safety vests standing around watching one guy putting safety cones around a puddle.
- aleyan 9y ago> 5 MTA employees in orange safety vests standing around watching one guy putting safety cones around a puddle. You are being hyperbolic here, but cones around a puddle warrants a discussion. There have been cases where I have seen portions of a station cordoned off with tape and perhaps with safety cones; however it is not my experience with NYC subway puddles in general. It feels like almost half the stations have leaky ceilings that you can see dripping during rainy weather. No safety cones. During drier days you can find these spots by stalactites and straws forming on the ceiling and by discoloration and mineral deposits on the platform. Two nights ago I noticed something much more frighting on the south bound Prince Street platform. Drip from the ceiling was freezing on the platform and formed an ice-patch a meter in diameter. There were no cones and the subway platform is not the place where I would want to slip. This is a safety issue especially as the whole platform feels only 3 meters wide. You and I may see MTA workers milling about and appearing lazy to us, but the example of putting safety cones around a puddle doesn't pass the sniff test to me.
- CodeSheikh 9y agoDilute unions monopoly. Bring in foreign (other states) construction/labor force competition.
- rayiner 9y agoIt needs to be fixed, but maybe the MTA isn't the right entity to fix it. Maybe write Elon Musk a $3 billion check with no political strings attached and see what he can do with it?
- Will_Do 9y agoI like the sentiment of this but Elon isn't the right person. He hates all things mass transit.
- bryananderson 9y agoThis isn’t true. The Boring Company’s first two projects are intercity mass transit (Baltimore-DC) and local mass transit (O’Hare-downtown Chicago).
- neolefty 9y agoHe seems to be angling for Mass Transit 2.0: The Bus Comes to You. Is that going to work? I don't know yet. I want to believe, though.
- phinnaeus 9y agoIt will make things better, but I don't think it can solve anything outright. Grade separation, which provides load balancing and a sort of fail-over route, is the real deal.
- notfromhere 9y agoI'll believe it when I see it. Being a rich techie doesn't mean you know how to build a public transit system
- estel 9y agoIs the current plan actually for mass transit or just point-to-point rather exclusive transit? https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2017/12/what-elon-musk-doesnt-get-about-urban-transit/548843/ https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2017/12/what-elon-mus... was doing the rounds a few weeks ago
- andrewla 9y ago> New York City’s subway, meanwhile, is falling apart. If you are a regular rider, you know this firsthand. But even if you aren’t, it has probably become difficult to ignore all the stories about the system’s failure: the F train that was trapped between stations for close to an hour without power or air conditioning, the Q train that derailed in Brooklyn, the track fire on the A line in Harlem that sent nine passengers to the hospital. I am a regular rider, and there are very few facts and a lot of anecdotes thrown out here. I do not think the subway is falling apart -- there are always problems, but in general, I see incremental improvement; we see more newer cars as the old ones phase out, and we're getting train arrival information throughout the system. Crowding is a problem as demographics shift, but trains run frequently during rush hours. From what I hear, the L is the worst for overcrowding, but most of the other lines handle the capacity fine. The problems that we continually have with broken switches and rerouted trains and shutdowns, etc., don't seem to have gotten worse, but are just a perennial problem. I can totally see why it has been hard to fund it, because despite articles like this trying to stir up things, things really don't seem to be getting worse. That's not to say things are great -- you only have to ride another subway pretty much anywhere to see what you're missing out on. But the NYT's attempt to paint the subway as being on the precipice of a disaster rings false and only serves to hurt the cause of improving the subway by creating an air of alarmism.
- ixtli 9y agoI am also a long-time resident and consistent subway rider and I agree with the above. The subway DOES need a massive cash injection to allow it to perform to the standards we'd all like. The city also DOES need to reconcile the fact that it costs 10x the amount as any other city to repair because of inflated labor costs. It is NOT "falling apart" in some Fallout-style postapocalypsis. If we need to convince people that the sky is literally falling to get them to care then nothing is going to change and certainly not for the better.
- pcurve 9y agoI've been riding the subway for decades. I would say compared to couple decades ago, NYC subway is a lot better. Yeah it smells like piss on Time Square platform during heat of summer and compared to subway systems in Europe, Japan, Seoul, the station looks like half-baked boondoggle. But hey, I've been saying Hi to the same piece of dust ball on ceiling pipe since 1996 thanks to MTA's total refusal to vacuum what's over your head. I've watched that dust ball blossom into a fine young lady. I may even propose to her this year, all thanks to MTA.
- throw7 9y agoHere's hoping Byford can turn things around like Ravitch did. I can half-picture Jamie Dimon getting on board.
- rdlecler1 9y agoWith autonomous vehicles, will subways matter in 5–10? I can imagine a world where we have small and very low cost electric transportation pods (no need for most safety feature) that drive bumper to bumper, door handle to door handle at least on some routes. Cost per mile will be much cheaper than the subway.
- Demoneeri 9y agoIt's a geometry problem, you don't have enough space in a city to have all those pods and pods station.
- mbreese 9y agoYou can still only fit so many cars safely on a given road, regardless of how automated they are. Subways (and all public transportation) will always have greater potential throughput, provided that people can get where they want to go. The larger the city, the more likely you are to have common routes with other people. It's analogous to small packets vs jumbo packets. You're going to always have better throughput for the overhead, the larger the unit... so for just bulk moving of data (people) to/from a limited number of destinations, you'd be better served with the "jumbo" option. If you have a small number of people with a large number of destinations, a smaller option (cars), is better. Unless we're talking completely reimagining the transportation network (which isn't a 5-10 year time frame project), you won't see use of autonomous pods displace subways -- especially in a place like NYC.
- skrause 9y agoHow do cyclists and pedestrians fit into that? Is this your utopia? https://i.ytimg.com/vi/s-kdRdzxdZQ/maxresdefault.jpg https://i.ytimg.com/vi/s-kdRdzxdZQ/maxresdefault.jpg
- nerfhammer 9y agoA single New York subway train can carry 1000-2000 people and might carry 2500 at rush hour. There are ~14000 licensed taxis in New York. So all of the taxis in New York could carry the equivalent of 5.6 trains. Any given subway line has about 15 trains per hour and there are 25 or so subway lines. So you could assume there's maybe 350 trains running at any given time vs. 5.6 train-equivalents in taxi space. So unless self-driving pods can somehow squeeze together 60 times more densely than taxis as well as not need to deal with crosswalks or traffic lights, the subway has a rather large advantage here. https://www.quora.com/How-many-people-are-on-New-York-subways-at-a-time https://www.quora.com/How-many-people-are-on-New-York-subway... https://www.quora.com/How-many-trains-are-on-a-New-York-subway-line-at-any-given-time https://www.quora.com/How-many-trains-are-on-a-New-York-subw... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_New_York_City_Subway_services#Trains_per_hour https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_New_York_City_Subway_s...
- ryanianian 9y agoComments seem to focus on inefficiencies in the system, but I think that misses the point: the subway adds incredible value that only real-estate developers see. Sure there is waste/bureaucracy/corruption in the system, but the bigger point is that the economy isn't setup for the MTA to profit from its own success. Being close to the subway increases property values massively, but none of that value sees the MTA's bottom-line or repair-fund. This was shocking to me and one that seems like an easy fix - a "subway tax" E.g.: charge a T% subway tax for any sales over $D within X meters of a subway station. Somebody smarter than me would figure out the right values for (T,D,X) and other incentives. (Maybe less if you're adding affordable housing, maybe more if you're a corporation, maybe say the funds can only be used for capital projects, ...) This encourages the MTA to add more stops and make repairs to encourage more sales close to the stops. Win-win.
- rayiner 9y agoThey have these in e.g. DC: https://www.apta.com/resources/reportsandpublications/Documents/APTA-Value-Capture-2015.pdf https://www.apta.com/resources/reportsandpublications/Docume.... Besides that, MTA simply needs to raise rates. London Tube fares are quite a bit higher than MTA fares.
- ryanianian 9y agoSkimmed through the document. In most of the the case-studies it provides, a general-purpose tax was added to properties near transit. That is unfortunate since it means people who have owned their home for a very long time (and who thus may not see transit as a benefit) end up being forced into a tax. Raising rates affects lower-income people quite harshly, and they're usually the ones who have to take multiple forms of public transit to begin with. I don't know of many New Yorkers who have a hard time with the $2.75/ride fee for occasional trips and maybe the per-trip cost alone could be increased substantially, but if you're buying a monthly pass, the current $117/month already feels like a lot of money, even if you consider the savings versus alternatives.
- raiflip 9y agoThis is a great point, but also if the MTA builds a subway which increases land value, then the city will get an increase in property tax as the property value has increased, thereby effectively getting increased tax revenue from the subway. Nonetheless the point you make is valid, and I think either there needs to be a separate specific property tax linked to the subway increasing value, or a portion of the property tax increase from a stop being built needs to be earmarked for the subway. Probably the former.
- dantaylor08 9y agoI jumped in here hoping this was about sandwiches.