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Current population of NYC: 8 million or so? Figure that with your belief that NYC could handle more, let's say 2.5 times that, to get 20 million riders of the

Current population of NYC: 8 million or so? Figure that with your belief that NYC could handle more, let's say 2.5 times that, to get 20 million riders of the system. $100 billion / 20 million riders = $5000 in capital expense to upgrade the system. That's a lot of riders going on a lot of subway rides to recoup that!

bobthepanda 8y ago
Subways are mostly important in terms of positive externality, though. The differential in wages between a job in Manhattan and an equivalent job in the outlying parts of the city can be quite large. The money saved by not requiring a car to live in New York is tens of thousands of dollars. The additional property value that subway accessibility provides is in the billions of dollars. The subway averts several billion dollars worth of gridlock and the ensuing air and noise pollution. And so on and so forth. Without the subway New York would, quite literally, be unlivable. The following scenes were from the traffic pandemonium that resulted after Hurricane Sandy closed all subway crossings of the East River: Waiting in line for a replacement bus shuttle - https://i.pinimg.com/originals/02/35/9c/02359cce293b989333b22dbb4628a727.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/originals/02/35/9c/02359cce293b989333b2... Traffic while the subway was down - https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/121031090241-18-sandy-ny-1031-horizontal-large-gallery.jpg https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/121031090241-18-sandy...
- patrickg_zill 8y ago
  I don't deny that subways in NYC are an overall benefit, or that it can be tough to fully capture in numbers its usefulness. But somehow the money has to be paid back, or else there has to be a consensus that "we won't get the money back directly but it is a good thing to do for NYC" with NYC taxpayers then picking up the slack.
Itaxpica 8y ago
Even leaving aside the other myriad economic benefits of the subway and the fact that your numbers are off even by the standard of fuzzy back-of-the-math envelope (you should consider tourists and commuters who live outside of the city but work in the city, which will balloon that number significantly), $5000 a head isn't all that much. At $2.75 a ride (and the price goes up every few years), that's roughly 1,800 rides, which if a rider rides twice a day every day (fairly common for New Yorkers) means that $5000 will be recouped in two and a half years.
- patrickg_zill 8y ago
  My math isn't off at all: NYC subway stats, 2016 5,655,755 (weekdays, 2016) 3,202,388 (Saturdays, 2016) 2,555,814 (Sundays, 2016) Stats include ALL riders including tourists and commuters etc. This when NYC population is ~8.5 million in 2016. Note that the $5000/head is just for the additional capital expenses. Your math doesn't cover all the other expenses the subway system would incur, like wages, power, maintenance over the estimated 2.5 year period you mention.

bobthepanda 8y ago

Subways are mostly important in terms of positive externality, though. The differential in wages between a job in Manhattan and an equivalent job in the outlying parts of the city can be quite large. The money saved by not requiring a car to live in New York is tens of thousands of dollars. The additional property value that subway accessibility provides is in the billions of dollars. The subway averts several billion dollars worth of gridlock and the ensuing air and noise pollution. And so on and so forth. Without the subway New York would, quite literally, be unlivable. The following scenes were from the traffic pandemonium that resulted after Hurricane Sandy closed all subway crossings of the East River: Waiting in line for a replacement bus shuttle - https://i.pinimg.com/originals/02/35/9c/02359cce293b989333b22dbb4628a727.jpg https://i.pinimg.com/originals/02/35/9c/02359cce293b989333b2... Traffic while the subway was down - https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/121031090241-18-sandy-ny-1031-horizontal-large-gallery.jpg https://cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/121031090241-18-sandy...

patrickg_zill 8y ago
I don't deny that subways in NYC are an overall benefit, or that it can be tough to fully capture in numbers its usefulness. But somehow the money has to be paid back, or else there has to be a consensus that "we won't get the money back directly but it is a good thing to do for NYC" with NYC taxpayers then picking up the slack.

Itaxpica 8y ago

Even leaving aside the other myriad economic benefits of the subway and the fact that your numbers are off even by the standard of fuzzy back-of-the-math envelope (you should consider tourists and commuters who live outside of the city but work in the city, which will balloon that number significantly), $5000 a head isn't all that much. At $2.75 a ride (and the price goes up every few years), that's roughly 1,800 rides, which if a rider rides twice a day every day (fairly common for New Yorkers) means that $5000 will be recouped in two and a half years.

patrickg_zill 8y ago
My math isn't off at all: NYC subway stats, 2016 5,655,755 (weekdays, 2016) 3,202,388 (Saturdays, 2016) 2,555,814 (Sundays, 2016) Stats include ALL riders including tourists and commuters etc. This when NYC population is ~8.5 million in 2016. Note that the $5000/head is just for the additional capital expenses. Your math doesn't cover all the other expenses the subway system would incur, like wages, power, maintenance over the estimated 2.5 year period you mention.