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Cities like NYC are overcrowded and dysfunctional, but our financial system allows dysfunctional and failing systems to continue to operate up until the point t

Cities like NYC are overcrowded and dysfunctional, but our financial system allows dysfunctional and failing systems to continue to operate up until the point to which they physically collapse and start either entering prolonged periods of obvious mechanical non-function and/or killing people in embarrassing numbers. Without all the bailouts, the MTA would have failed decades ago and would have had to have been restructured. Because NYC's political priorities have been to conserve past structures and agreements at the expense of the present and the future, you will see performance go down and down to the point to which 1950s performance will look like 1950s science fiction. I don't think I would expect anything to change until a major accident kills a large number of people in one day. You should expect the people in charge of the system as it exists today to keep getting millions of dollars as service continues to degrade. But the MTA knows this, so they stop the trains constantly when there is any chance of a collision, so you get the slow motion choke for money that you have had for decades. There's a great option if you are not happy with New York City and its governance: leave! NYC is a machine for fleecing young people who want to move there with heads full of movies and TV and rich foreign potentates with more money than sense. It's not a great place to live if you want to have a comfortable middle class lifestyle. It might have been that 30+ years ago, but not anymore.

huebomont 8y ago
"If something's not working well, abandon it" is pretty pathetic advice. There are very clear ways to fix the problem, the only cause for pessimism is whether the people in charge will do the right things.
- JimboOmega 8y ago
  There are very clear ways to fix the problem Are there, though? You can play armchair city planner all you want, but where is the political, legal, regulatory, etc, environment that allows this "very clear" fix to proceed? Who's to say that even with a big fare increase and a lot of money pushed in, that money won't mysteriously disappear while things don't get any better - as has happened historically? Sometimes an entity DOES need to fail, and fail hard, before it can really be restructured entirely.
  - JumpCrisscross 8y ago
    > Are there, though? I live in Manhattan. Love it. The MTA fucking up is still miles ahead of every other American city on their best days in terms of transit and density. Most New Yorkers’ stories of nightmarish delays find parity with the daily commutes Americans across the country put up with as a matter of course.
    - passthefist 8y ago
      Yep. Really the only city with a transit system on par with New York/Metro IMO is Chicago. And even then the Manhattan subway system has much better coverage than the L. I prefer living places where I'm not reliant on owning a car, and when I was moving back to the states there were only a handful of metro areas I felt this was possible in without it being inconvenient.
      - umichguy 8y ago
        NYC and Chicago were the only two big cities I liked living in from a public transport perspective... Maybe that's why I ended up here in London!
  - j-c-hewitt 8y ago
    Talking about the politics of it and pointing out the issue, or even joining a straphanger lobbyist group are about as relevant to the real politics involved as playing Sim City 2000 and making your own subway layout. Numerous mayors and governors have tried and failed to fix an issue that is much larger than can be addressed just on the local level. There are also issues with how labor disputes work in the US that can't be addressed purely on the local level. Part of the problem is encompassed in a much larger problem that other unrelated entities have to deal with: dysfunctional impacts of precedents and legislation in US labor law. And indeed, the response that many companies have had to the failure of attempts to reform US labor law has been to just leave the US entirely and/or to just go bankrupt due to failure to work things out with unions partly owing to the widely acknowledged inflexibility of US law in this area. There are many issues like this in which the resolution is really clear on an intellectual level. When it involves screwing the existing stakeholders, it should not be surprising when those stakeholders use all the leverage they have to resist being deprived of what they have. For example: Medicare is broke, it doesn't take 195 space alien IQ to see that you have to implement means testing to make the system fiscally whole, but good luck proposing it because you will be annihilated politically if you do. It does not take having a giant 900 pound brain to see that you have to screw the union and blow up the MTA to fix the system. But good luck doing it. And it makes perfect sense for the average AARP member to send in their contributions to protect their entitlements under the law even if they understood intellectually that the government cannot afford to maintain that entitlement in the future.
nine_k 8y ago
Cities like NYC are fine WRT density; Manhattan specifically did see a much larger population in the past. This does not make MTA's efficiency any better, though. NYC's subway and buses enjoy a lot of daily ridership, sell ad space, and sell commercial space underground. Still these, rather large, sources of income are not sufficient, and MTA eats a lot of subsidies, because the expenses are enormous, and incentives to save are likely not there. Cost-cutting is likely politically hard, because of pork-barrelling, the unpopularity of firing workers (especially unionized workers), and likely plain corruption.
untog 8y ago
> NYC is a machine for fleecing young people who want to move there with heads full of movies and TV and rich foreign potentates with more money than sense. Eh, I'm actually not so sure about that. Salaries in NYC are a lot higher than in other parts of the country, so provided you're doing well (say you're in tech, perhaps!) you're not being fleeced at all. I am a little more optimistic than you are that the subway may one day be fixed. Unfortunately its fate rests in the hands of New York State, not the city, and many in NYS government couldn't care less about fixing it (Cuomo, here's looking at you). But it feels as though we're reaching a breaking point where citizens will demand change without anyone needing to die.
- ep103 8y ago
  He means move to a commutable distance away : )
  - untog 8y ago
    Better not go to New Jersey, those NJ Transit tunnels aren't up to much either!
    - Endy 8y ago
      No, but the PATH is pretty reliable and buses work - especially the Spanish bus. Every time I hear people complaining about the train into NYC I ask them why they don't either come to Passaic, Union City, or Hoboken and take an easier and faster (and often, less expensive!) alternative in.
sloreti 8y ago
> It's not a great place to live if you want to have a comfortable middle class lifestyle. It might have been that 30+ years ago, but not anymore. NYC had 2245 murders in 1990 and 290 murders last year. Every category of crime has fallen dramatically over that time period. NYC is less affordable today, but it's without a doubt more "comfortable" and livable for all income levels.
sotojuan 8y ago
This is somewhat ignorant. NYC is not just for rich yuppies. The city is home to a lot of middle and lower middle class families as well as the working class who can’t just leave and rely on public transportation for work or school. Look beyond midtown and north Brooklyn and you’ll see that. It’s entirely fair for people to want to improve things.

huebomont 8y ago

"If something's not working well, abandon it" is pretty pathetic advice. There are very clear ways to fix the problem, the only cause for pessimism is whether the people in charge will do the right things.

JimboOmega 8y ago
There are very clear ways to fix the problem Are there, though? You can play armchair city planner all you want, but where is the political, legal, regulatory, etc, environment that allows this "very clear" fix to proceed? Who's to say that even with a big fare increase and a lot of money pushed in, that money won't mysteriously disappear while things don't get any better - as has happened historically? Sometimes an entity DOES need to fail, and fail hard, before it can really be restructured entirely.
- JumpCrisscross 8y ago
  > Are there, though? I live in Manhattan. Love it. The MTA fucking up is still miles ahead of every other American city on their best days in terms of transit and density. Most New Yorkers’ stories of nightmarish delays find parity with the daily commutes Americans across the country put up with as a matter of course.
  - passthefist 8y ago
    Yep. Really the only city with a transit system on par with New York/Metro IMO is Chicago. And even then the Manhattan subway system has much better coverage than the L. I prefer living places where I'm not reliant on owning a car, and when I was moving back to the states there were only a handful of metro areas I felt this was possible in without it being inconvenient.
    - umichguy 8y ago
      NYC and Chicago were the only two big cities I liked living in from a public transport perspective... Maybe that's why I ended up here in London!
- j-c-hewitt 8y ago
  Talking about the politics of it and pointing out the issue, or even joining a straphanger lobbyist group are about as relevant to the real politics involved as playing Sim City 2000 and making your own subway layout. Numerous mayors and governors have tried and failed to fix an issue that is much larger than can be addressed just on the local level. There are also issues with how labor disputes work in the US that can't be addressed purely on the local level. Part of the problem is encompassed in a much larger problem that other unrelated entities have to deal with: dysfunctional impacts of precedents and legislation in US labor law. And indeed, the response that many companies have had to the failure of attempts to reform US labor law has been to just leave the US entirely and/or to just go bankrupt due to failure to work things out with unions partly owing to the widely acknowledged inflexibility of US law in this area. There are many issues like this in which the resolution is really clear on an intellectual level. When it involves screwing the existing stakeholders, it should not be surprising when those stakeholders use all the leverage they have to resist being deprived of what they have. For example: Medicare is broke, it doesn't take 195 space alien IQ to see that you have to implement means testing to make the system fiscally whole, but good luck proposing it because you will be annihilated politically if you do. It does not take having a giant 900 pound brain to see that you have to screw the union and blow up the MTA to fix the system. But good luck doing it. And it makes perfect sense for the average AARP member to send in their contributions to protect their entitlements under the law even if they understood intellectually that the government cannot afford to maintain that entitlement in the future.

nine_k 8y ago

Cities like NYC are fine WRT density; Manhattan specifically did see a much larger population in the past. This does not make MTA's efficiency any better, though. NYC's subway and buses enjoy a lot of daily ridership, sell ad space, and sell commercial space underground. Still these, rather large, sources of income are not sufficient, and MTA eats a lot of subsidies, because the expenses are enormous, and incentives to save are likely not there. Cost-cutting is likely politically hard, because of pork-barrelling, the unpopularity of firing workers (especially unionized workers), and likely plain corruption.

untog 8y ago

> NYC is a machine for fleecing young people who want to move there with heads full of movies and TV and rich foreign potentates with more money than sense. Eh, I'm actually not so sure about that. Salaries in NYC are a lot higher than in other parts of the country, so provided you're doing well (say you're in tech, perhaps!) you're not being fleeced at all. I am a little more optimistic than you are that the subway may one day be fixed. Unfortunately its fate rests in the hands of New York State, not the city, and many in NYS government couldn't care less about fixing it (Cuomo, here's looking at you). But it feels as though we're reaching a breaking point where citizens will demand change without anyone needing to die.

ep103 8y ago
He means move to a commutable distance away : )
- untog 8y ago
  Better not go to New Jersey, those NJ Transit tunnels aren't up to much either!
  - Endy 8y ago
    No, but the PATH is pretty reliable and buses work - especially the Spanish bus. Every time I hear people complaining about the train into NYC I ask them why they don't either come to Passaic, Union City, or Hoboken and take an easier and faster (and often, less expensive!) alternative in.

sloreti 8y ago

> It's not a great place to live if you want to have a comfortable middle class lifestyle. It might have been that 30+ years ago, but not anymore. NYC had 2245 murders in 1990 and 290 murders last year. Every category of crime has fallen dramatically over that time period. NYC is less affordable today, but it's without a doubt more "comfortable" and livable for all income levels.

sotojuan 8y ago

This is somewhat ignorant. NYC is not just for rich yuppies. The city is home to a lot of middle and lower middle class families as well as the working class who can’t just leave and rely on public transportation for work or school. Look beyond midtown and north Brooklyn and you’ll see that. It’s entirely fair for people to want to improve things.