6 ms·

NYC Subway Trains Might Start Moving Faster

80 points by daegloe 8y ago

melling 8y ago
“Over the summer, Mr. Byford created a new “speed unit” — a three-person team that traveled every mile of track on the system in an empty train to find areas where trains could safely move faster. The team identified 130 locations where the speed limit should be increased. So far, a safety committee at the transit agency has approved 34 locations for speed increases.” There are almost 100 other possible locations.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
dajohnson89 8y ago
Can't read TFA b/c paywall. A low maximum speed is not what's responsible for the MTA's deteriorating service levels. The problems are mainly signal issues and train malfunctions[0]. To a lesser extent, track fires. This begets the question -- what good is a marginal top speed increase, if so many trains arent reaching their top speed anyways? At least 30% of the time during my rush-hour MTA commute, my train is crawling through the tunnel, well under its current maximum speed. Think tortoise and hare. Also -- higher max speed might mean harder stops. [0] https://ny.curbed.com/2018/9/17/17869218/nyc-subway-signal-problems-delays-riders-alliance https://ny.curbed.com/2018/9/17/17869218/nyc-subway-signal-p...
- calebegg 8y ago
  The change isn't to the top speed, it's to mis-configured time signals that forced trains to slow to a crawl unnecessarily. In this article (which you probably also won't be able to read, sorry; try incognito?), the Times explains why some mis-configured time signals are the cause of many delays, with compelling evidence to back up the claim. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/05/09/nyregion/subway-crisis-mta-decisions-signals-rules.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/05/09/nyregion/subw...
  - cimmanom 8y ago
    Right. Plus how often is an entire line backed up because the operator didn't crawl slowly enough past that misconfigured signal, so the emergency brake got triggered and additional action had to be taken to get the train moving again (release from dispatch? crew sent out?), causing thousands of people systemwide to be "delayed because of a signal problem at 14th St" or whatever?
- gojomo 8y ago
  What if I told you, Neo, that you can read the article, in an incognito/private window?
kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
I've been suspicious that MTA has being keeping the speeds down as a cost savings means to reduce energy consumption. Same with "Sandy repairs" causing service reductions that they won't compensate for on parallel lines. Their other favorite BS excuse it that delays are caused by people holding doors open. But that doesn't hold water either when uncrowded trains still have the doors malfunction and reopen multiple times. Pre-Byford management seems to have been controlling their burn rate with these shenanigans. Otherwise the system should be able to handle 1948 ridership levels.
- iooi 8y ago
  This article explains the slow speeds pretty well: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/05/09/nyregion/subway-crisis-mta-decisions-signals-rules.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/05/09/nyregion/subw... Basically, it boils down to heavy consequences for operators that go too fast coupled with systems that measure speed inconsistently.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
monksy 8y ago
Sounds like the MTA is slowing down due to poor maintenance and a lack of active management.
gen220 8y ago
I remember reading the article linked in this one, from the Village Voice, at the beginning of this year. Strongly recommend reading it for you armchair MTA critics: it has a lot of tinder for your tirades. https://www.villagevoice.com/2018/03/13/the-trains-are-slower-because-they-slowed-the-trains-down/ https://www.villagevoice.com/2018/03/13/the-trains-are-slowe... If my memory serves me well, it made a pretty convincing argument that the MTA was deliberately and publicly misconstruing the "slow train problem" as a result of "congestion", effectively blaming the success of the city for the failure of its public transportation. The Voice article rendered this commonly-touted line of defense not just misleading, but flagrantly incorrect. From my perspective, it seems that the reversal of policy reported now, only came into existence because of the line of investigative reporting that began with the Village Voice piece. Credit for your commute's speedup probably belongs, at least in part, to the Voice's fantastic investigative reporting (a full 2 months before the linked NYT piece). Even more reason to support your local journalists! :)
- yostrovs 8y ago
  Too late for the Village Voice. It has been effectively shut down. Will there be any real reporting left once Google and Facebook are finished organizing the world's information?
- yahelc 8y ago
  The piece explicitly credits them: > Workers have also started to replace faulty signals that trigger a train’s emergency brakes at low speeds, a problem investigated by The New York Times and The Village Voice that has also led to slower service.
hamilton 8y ago
This New Yorker piece on Andy Byford provides a lot more context for why the MTA is the way that it is: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/07/09/can-andy-byford-save-the-subways https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/07/09/can-andy-byfor...
- stuxnet79 8y ago
  Andy did a great job with the Toronto transit. I feel like his work is cut out for him in NYC as MTA looks like a complete shit show from both a political and fiscal standpoint (relative to TTC). I wish him good luck.
mabbo 8y ago
> Workers recently started to change speed limit signs on the first segment on the Fourth Avenue line in Brooklyn between 36th Street and 59th Street. Overall, officials plan to change the speed limits at 100 locations by the spring. The real problem here, as I see it, is that humans are still involved in running the trains. We need speed signs for them to read, we need to hope they follow the rules, we need them to control the train as best a human can. Plenty of cities in the world are running autonomous trains. It's not easy to do, but it is doable. Retrofitting existing trains would be a difficult project, I imagine, but worth the cost. How much more efficiency could we gain just by shaving those half seconds (or more) at every single start, stop, door open, door close, etc? I don't even think we need to fire the operators (I'm certain their union would object anyway) so much as change their role to one of managing the autonomous train, providing first aid when needed, keeping a human watch on things.
- rtkwe 8y ago
  The problem is the subway has a lot of trouble doing the upgrades that would be required to enable computer driven trains the tracking infrastructure just doesn't exist and installing it requires shutdowns that are extremely disruptive and time consuming.
  - yostrovs 8y ago
    The MTA will shut down the L train tunnel under the East River for almost two years. There's no talk of automatic trains being introduced as part of that, remarkably long, repair.
    - bogomipz 8y ago
      Which is incredible since the L line made its first "automatic" debut over a decade ago: https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/automated-train-rolls-article-1.389778 https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/automated-train-rolls-a... It costs hundreds of million of dollars and there were service disruptions for years, often entire weekends to do the work. There was no Uber or Lyft either.
    - 8y ago
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
snissn 8y ago
My armchair / layperson issue with the subway infrastructure is that a lot of the issues around delays and especially the L train upgrades are related to antiquated signaling systems that seem to not at all acknowledge all of the updates to telecommunications that have been developed in the last 100 years.
- yostrovs 8y ago
  I attribute the highly expensive nature of NYC subway to politics, since similar services don't have overall cost anywhere near what New Yorkers pay in fees and taxes. The new chief of the MTA is asking for $40 billion to upgrade the system. They should be able to build three new New York subway systems from scratch with that kind of money.
  - Wowfunhappy 8y ago
    I would be very interested to see an analysis of exactly why laying track in NYC is more expensive than in other cities/countries. "Politics" is a very nebulous reason—if that is indeed the cause—I'd love to see more detail on where in our political system, and why, etc. I'm sure part of the problem is that subway workers in NYC are well-paid, but that's probably not all of it.
    - hapless 8y ago
      Fraud, waste, and the worlds worst purchasing work. NYCT workers are well paid, but that is only an explanation for high operating expense, not obscene capital expenses. Operating expense is really fairly well managed, albeit with unusually high wages. It is a small, small part of the subway’s problems.
      - vkou 8y ago
        The unusually high wages can also be attributed to a city with an incredibly high cost of living, and large number of overtime hours. Train conductor base pay is $23-30 an hour - the six-figure salaries that you read about are for people doing >40h/week, including night shift/holiday/on-call work. I generally think that it's reasonable that people who do more work get paid more then people who do less work... Or that people doing the same work during hardship hours get paid more then people doing their 9-5.

80 points by daegloe 8y ago

“Over the summer, Mr. Byford created a new “speed unit” — a three-person team that traveled every mile of track on the system in an empty train to find areas where trains could safely move faster. The team identified 130 locations where the speed limit should be increased. So far, a safety committee at the transit agency has approved 34 locations for speed increases.” There are almost 100 other possible locations.

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

dajohnson89 8y ago

Can't read TFA b/c paywall. A low maximum speed is not what's responsible for the MTA's deteriorating service levels. The problems are mainly signal issues and train malfunctions[0]. To a lesser extent, track fires. This begets the question -- what good is a marginal top speed increase, if so many trains arent reaching their top speed anyways? At least 30% of the time during my rush-hour MTA commute, my train is crawling through the tunnel, well under its current maximum speed. Think tortoise and hare. Also -- higher max speed might mean harder stops. [0] https://ny.curbed.com/2018/9/17/17869218/nyc-subway-signal-problems-delays-riders-alliance https://ny.curbed.com/2018/9/17/17869218/nyc-subway-signal-p...

calebegg 8y ago
The change isn't to the top speed, it's to mis-configured time signals that forced trains to slow to a crawl unnecessarily. In this article (which you probably also won't be able to read, sorry; try incognito?), the Times explains why some mis-configured time signals are the cause of many delays, with compelling evidence to back up the claim. https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/05/09/nyregion/subway-crisis-mta-decisions-signals-rules.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/05/09/nyregion/subw...
- cimmanom 8y ago
  Right. Plus how often is an entire line backed up because the operator didn't crawl slowly enough past that misconfigured signal, so the emergency brake got triggered and additional action had to be taken to get the train moving again (release from dispatch? crew sent out?), causing thousands of people systemwide to be "delayed because of a signal problem at 14th St" or whatever?
gojomo 8y ago
What if I told you, Neo, that you can read the article, in an incognito/private window?

kevin_thibedeau 8y ago

I've been suspicious that MTA has being keeping the speeds down as a cost savings means to reduce energy consumption. Same with "Sandy repairs" causing service reductions that they won't compensate for on parallel lines. Their other favorite BS excuse it that delays are caused by people holding doors open. But that doesn't hold water either when uncrowded trains still have the doors malfunction and reopen multiple times. Pre-Byford management seems to have been controlling their burn rate with these shenanigans. Otherwise the system should be able to handle 1948 ridership levels.

iooi 8y ago
This article explains the slow speeds pretty well: https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/05/09/nyregion/subway-crisis-mta-decisions-signals-rules.html https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/05/09/nyregion/subw... Basically, it boils down to heavy consequences for operators that go too fast coupled with systems that measure speed inconsistently.
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]

monksy 8y ago

Sounds like the MTA is slowing down due to poor maintenance and a lack of active management.

gen220 8y ago

I remember reading the article linked in this one, from the Village Voice, at the beginning of this year. Strongly recommend reading it for you armchair MTA critics: it has a lot of tinder for your tirades. https://www.villagevoice.com/2018/03/13/the-trains-are-slower-because-they-slowed-the-trains-down/ https://www.villagevoice.com/2018/03/13/the-trains-are-slowe... If my memory serves me well, it made a pretty convincing argument that the MTA was deliberately and publicly misconstruing the "slow train problem" as a result of "congestion", effectively blaming the success of the city for the failure of its public transportation. The Voice article rendered this commonly-touted line of defense not just misleading, but flagrantly incorrect. From my perspective, it seems that the reversal of policy reported now, only came into existence because of the line of investigative reporting that began with the Village Voice piece. Credit for your commute's speedup probably belongs, at least in part, to the Voice's fantastic investigative reporting (a full 2 months before the linked NYT piece). Even more reason to support your local journalists! :)

yostrovs 8y ago
Too late for the Village Voice. It has been effectively shut down. Will there be any real reporting left once Google and Facebook are finished organizing the world's information?
yahelc 8y ago
The piece explicitly credits them: > Workers have also started to replace faulty signals that trigger a train’s emergency brakes at low speeds, a problem investigated by The New York Times and The Village Voice that has also led to slower service.

hamilton 8y ago

This New Yorker piece on Andy Byford provides a lot more context for why the MTA is the way that it is: https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/07/09/can-andy-byford-save-the-subways https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2018/07/09/can-andy-byfor...

stuxnet79 8y ago
Andy did a great job with the Toronto transit. I feel like his work is cut out for him in NYC as MTA looks like a complete shit show from both a political and fiscal standpoint (relative to TTC). I wish him good luck.

mabbo 8y ago

> Workers recently started to change speed limit signs on the first segment on the Fourth Avenue line in Brooklyn between 36th Street and 59th Street. Overall, officials plan to change the speed limits at 100 locations by the spring. The real problem here, as I see it, is that humans are still involved in running the trains. We need speed signs for them to read, we need to hope they follow the rules, we need them to control the train as best a human can. Plenty of cities in the world are running autonomous trains. It's not easy to do, but it is doable. Retrofitting existing trains would be a difficult project, I imagine, but worth the cost. How much more efficiency could we gain just by shaving those half seconds (or more) at every single start, stop, door open, door close, etc? I don't even think we need to fire the operators (I'm certain their union would object anyway) so much as change their role to one of managing the autonomous train, providing first aid when needed, keeping a human watch on things.

rtkwe 8y ago
The problem is the subway has a lot of trouble doing the upgrades that would be required to enable computer driven trains the tracking infrastructure just doesn't exist and installing it requires shutdowns that are extremely disruptive and time consuming.
- yostrovs 8y ago
  The MTA will shut down the L train tunnel under the East River for almost two years. There's no talk of automatic trains being introduced as part of that, remarkably long, repair.
  - bogomipz 8y ago
    Which is incredible since the L line made its first "automatic" debut over a decade ago: https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/automated-train-rolls-article-1.389778 https://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/automated-train-rolls-a... It costs hundreds of million of dollars and there were service disruptions for years, often entire weekends to do the work. There was no Uber or Lyft either.
  - 8y ago

deleted 8y ago

[deleted]

snissn 8y ago

My armchair / layperson issue with the subway infrastructure is that a lot of the issues around delays and especially the L train upgrades are related to antiquated signaling systems that seem to not at all acknowledge all of the updates to telecommunications that have been developed in the last 100 years.

yostrovs 8y ago
I attribute the highly expensive nature of NYC subway to politics, since similar services don't have overall cost anywhere near what New Yorkers pay in fees and taxes. The new chief of the MTA is asking for $40 billion to upgrade the system. They should be able to build three new New York subway systems from scratch with that kind of money.
- Wowfunhappy 8y ago
  I would be very interested to see an analysis of exactly why laying track in NYC is more expensive than in other cities/countries. "Politics" is a very nebulous reason—if that is indeed the cause—I'd love to see more detail on where in our political system, and why, etc. I'm sure part of the problem is that subway workers in NYC are well-paid, but that's probably not all of it.
  - hapless 8y ago
    Fraud, waste, and the worlds worst purchasing work. NYCT workers are well paid, but that is only an explanation for high operating expense, not obscene capital expenses. Operating expense is really fairly well managed, albeit with unusually high wages. It is a small, small part of the subway’s problems.
    - vkou 8y ago
      The unusually high wages can also be attributed to a city with an incredibly high cost of living, and large number of overtime hours. Train conductor base pay is $23-30 an hour - the six-figure salaries that you read about are for people doing >40h/week, including night shift/holiday/on-call work. I generally think that it's reasonable that people who do more work get paid more then people who do less work... Or that people doing the same work during hardship hours get paid more then people doing their 9-5.