16 ms·

Full Shutdown of L Train to Be Halted by Cuomo

118 points by cribbles 8y ago

nerdponx 8y ago
I wonder if this is what he got in exchange for signing the "lockbox" bill into law [0]. [0]: https://www.masstransitmag.com/rail/news/21039311/transit-lockbox-law-signed-by-cuomo-makes-raiding-subway-funding-more-difficult https://www.masstransitmag.com/rail/news/21039311/transit-lo...
mizzao 8y ago
It's crazy that the NYC transit system is controlled by the state government in Albany, a bunch of folks that pretty much don't use it at all.
- dvtrn 8y ago
  You think that's crazy? Austin Texas has passed on, I think to date, since 2001-five transit improvement programs voted down by a majority of people who don't even use CapMetro to begin with (glares angrily at west Austin)-in addition to lots of other vitally needed city improvements like, new zoning ordinances-which the city punted on after five years of deliberation and planning, not to mention a good amount of money hiring 'consultants' to help City Council figure out how to write the plan they eventually abandoned (CodeNEXT) Glares angrily again at West Austin But hey, we have "bendy"/rapid-transit-style buses as of a couple of years ago that don't even use protected lanes, so at least we can fit more people on a gridlocked Guadalupe St during rush hour than normal buses. OH! And a toll lane on Mopac now that charges you based on how congested the "loop" is and is guaranteed to be just as congested as the non-toll lanes. Austin Texas: A cautionary tale in applying chaos engineering to city planning. Grinds teeth into powder
  - Shivetya 8y ago
    so are they voting it down because they are being taxed for something they cannot use or benefit from directly? as for toll lanes, welcome to the the new means of permanent revenue extraction. Atlanta got them in spades including one near billion dollar installation that cannot be used if ice threatens because its nearly all bridges. people had to fight to remove tolls that were promised to be removed from GA400 years ago after it was paid off so now the state just switched to "express lanes" which is a PC way of saying toll lanes.
    - komali2 8y ago
      Having a bustling city center in easy metro access while you sit comfy in the suburbs seems like a great benefit to me. Drives up your land value while you suffer almost none of the detriments to metro-ization.
      - forrestthewoods 8y ago
        So they pay a higher tax rate on higher valued property and get nothing in return until they sell their home and move to a different city? That’s not a great sales pitch.
        dvtrn 8y ago
        You're not getting anything in return until you sell your home in any other circumstance (beyond leasing a room or the entire residence and hoping you can make a profit) anyway, what's the difference between higher property tax to pay for transit and higher property taxes to pay for, say, police pensions? Points to Chicago's property tax/pension nightmare
        traek 8y ago
        Maybe people would prefer the unstated third option of lower property tax.
    - dvtrn 8y ago
      so are they voting it down because they are being taxed for something they cannot use or benefit from directly? I'm hesitant to say this is exactly it (or even that it's one specific thing), since--if memory serves, and I'm opening this up for someone who perhaps has a better memory than I do, there was a bond package in 2005 that wouldn't have even affected the western edges of Travis County as the Cities of Bee Cave and West Lake are unincorporated.
    - skybrian 8y ago
      You say "revenue extraction" but why is it bad? Roads need to be paid for and having express lanes that convince some people to pay more voluntarily seems like a good thing. Busses and trains aren't free (usually) so I don't see why highways should be free.
  - komali2 8y ago
    Also, if you ride your bicycle, rednecks in lifted trucks will push you onto the curb and shout out the window "are you trying to die?" Choose a motorcycle, people will swerve at you. Whenever I bring up that I won't be in staying in SF, people inevitably say "oh, I heard Austin is a hot new tech hub! You're from Texas, aren't you?" Yup. From. From. And likely never going back.
    - dvtrn 8y ago
      Yup. From. From. And likely never going back. I'm a few weeks now into relocating to the midwest (which is why I still say "we" when I talk about Austin), and I've said the same thing. Austin is a marvelous place to spend a weekend or a couple of days if you want to see a festival (I still think Nashville is the better "live music" city), but I will never live there again unless it transforms dramatically so much of their transit issues, housing issues and traffic issues, not to mention finding a city council with a backbone. I don't think I can put it to words and have it sink in any better to someone who hasn't lived there how livid I was to see the news that council abandoned CodeNEXT. That was the move that got me packing up and forced my hand to get the hell out. https://www.statesman.com/news/20180802/codenext-to-code-nixed-adler-council-members-abandon-code-rewrite/1 https://www.statesman.com/news/20180802/codenext-to-code-nix... FTA: Since the first draft of the revised land-use rules was released in early 2017, CodeNext has laid bare the ideological differences between pro-density urbanists and neighborhood preservationists, who have sniped at one another for months in public meetings and through social media. Yep. That's pretty much describes my near 20 years living in Austin to the letter. About the only thing those two groups can agree on is "build another toll road so far out of the city it takes a 20 minute drive to the eastern edge of the city limits just so you can go north to Pflugerville and not sit on I-35 for an hour and a half"
  - vertexFarm 8y ago
    I hear you. I'm unable to even tolerate the dystopian traffic these days. Austin is going to NIMBY itself straight to hell. Eventually the infrastructure just plain isn't going to work anymore. A breaking point exists out there and they're stubbornly barreling towards it. I was born in Austin in the eighties and I can't stand going back anymore, even for a visit. I hate it there.
    - dvtrn 8y ago
      Austin is going to NIMBY itself straight to hell. It's already happened IMO.
  - freehunter 8y ago
    Knowing nothing of Austin politics, if West Austin keeps holding up the spending for something they won't/don't even use, wouldn't it make sense to only charge the people who actually would use it? Either splitting West Austin into its own city so they're free from the taxes, or extending the CapMetro out to West Austin so they can benefit from it, or...? It's easy to blame those guys for not seeing the benefit you would get from the extra tax, but if you put yourself in their shoes, they probably have more pressing issues that you yourself don't even have on your radar.
- fcbrooklyn 8y ago
  It's crazier that it's paid for by the state government in Albany, with taxes collected from the entire state. The control is a side effect of that.
  - ceejayoz 8y ago
    Seems fair, though. 40% of NY's tax revenue comes from NYC. Add in the surrounding areas (Westchester, Long Island, etc.) and non-residents who commute and you get up to 82%. https://www.politifact.com/new-york/statements/2018/feb/01/robert-mujica/do-downstate-ny-residents-contribute-more-income-t/ https://www.politifact.com/new-york/statements/2018/feb/01/r...
    - fcbrooklyn 8y ago
      Interesting, although the article is strangely silent on the subject of property taxes, which are extremely high in NY. NYC and surrounding areas undoubtedly have higher property values, so perhaps the ratio holds, but the rest of the state is very very big. It may also be that property taxes don't find their way to the state coffers, I'm honestly unsure.
- drugme 8y ago
  It's crazy that the NYC transit system is controlled by the state government in Albany, a bunch of folks that pretty much don't use it at all. Or given the fact the integrated metro NYC system (subway + regional rail) serves a very significant number of riders who do not actually live in NYC proper -- perhaps it's not so "crazy" after all.
  - vonmoltke 8y ago
    It serves a very significant number of riders who do not actually live in New York state as well.
    - murph-almighty 8y ago
      Said riders almost always pay non-resident income taxes to NY as well.
      - ceejayoz 8y ago
        The tens of millions of tourists probably don't, though. (Now, sales and hotel taxes, on the other hand...)
  - zjaffee 8y ago
    It's worth pointing out that a significant number of people who live in the bronx and queens do take metro north and LIRR respectively.
- wolco 8y ago
  If they could find the money within nyc property tax base they would be able to fund without the state government. Many would say Albany is controlled by nyc interests and why should citizens in cities like Buffalo in western ny fund nyc projects.
- pastor_elm 8y ago
  Most other (international) metros are owned by private entities (which may be owned by the government (e.g. Tokyo metro which is owned by both the Japanese government and the Tokyo government)). If you let the city own the MTA, they'll never make hard decisions because they'll be at the mercy of voters.
  - jcranmer 8y ago
    Private companies owning metros is actually relatively rare. Note that public transit is usually not run for a profit, since many of the benefits of transit cannot be captured by fares. (Those companies that are privately run generally make money by owning the high-value land around).
  - fcbrooklyn 8y ago
    A very interesting history of the NYC subway. https://www.amazon.com/722-Miles-Building-Subways-Transformed/dp/0801880548 https://www.amazon.com/722-Miles-Building-Subways-Transforme... It's been years since I read it, but as I recall, the system was built by private entities, who were gradually driven out of business when the city set a cap on the price of a fare (first at a nickel, then at a dime). When they folded one by one, they got subsumed into the MTA, and I guess at some point it was decided that it was ok to raise the price.
misiti3780 8y ago
I live in NYC but do not use the L, I assume this means the repairs are going to take 3 times as long as they are losing 5 days a week to work on them.
- tashoecraft 8y ago
  I use the L every day and I'm mixed about it. The L is already the fastest and most on time train in the city. It going down would be a massive inconvenience for me, but I want the city to take steps to improving the subway infrastructure. Backing down now just to get some votes is just kicking the can down the road to another generation to deal with
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- rtkwe 8y ago
  As with most thing NYC transit it's a mix. It would have been a huge disruption to people travelling into the city doubling commute times. On the other hand not shutting down the line means very important repairs have to be jammed into nights and weekends. Some repairs just won't be possible within that time so it'll have to get fixed later when the damage may have worsened.
- psychometry 8y ago
  I wonder if they could just run it during rush hour on weekdays, which would open up the middle of the day and nighttime for more work.
  - magic_beans 8y ago
    If you think New Yorkers don't need the subway after 9am or at night, you're deeply mistaken.
foolfoolz 8y ago
this is classic example of how U. S. infrastructure projects are slower and more costly than other countries. Other countries would shut this down and build then reopen, inconveniencing many. We will spend more and keep this going longer instead. Another great example is on 101 freeway in california they just finished replacing a bridge in palo alto. They did not shut the freeway down while it was literally replaced from underneath the cars. It took 3 years and caused horrendous traffic daily. I wonder how fast it could have been done if they shut down 101 entirely on that stretch. i know it’s easy to complain about how long these things take, but what would you rather have?
- luckydata 8y ago
  Is that what they were doing? OMG that's pure insanity. Traffic in the South Bay and going to the east bay through Dumbarton SUCKED because of that.
- jjeaff 8y ago
  I'm not familiar with the alternate routes there up north. But I know in Los Angeles, shutting down the 101 essentially shutters the doors of many businesses. Employees simply can't get to work. So I'm not sure it is desirable to shut a road down rather than cause huge delays.
- drugme 8y ago
  Let's just say there may be other factors to consider besides net project cost. Like, say: - The economic strangulation of entire neighborhoods - Disrupted access to health care and educational opportunities - Disrupted access to one's place of employment (for a great many people) - All of these disproportionately affecting, you know... lower income folks (and not so coincidentally, communities of color). - The spillover affect of all of the above on the regional economy as a whole (and hence -- on tax revenues available to the same governments who need to fund this construction in the first place). Stuff like that.
  - ng12 8y ago
    But that's exactly the problem -- local governments are powerless. They can't fix the BQE due to opposition from Brooklyn Heights community groups. Can't build skyscrapers south of Atlantic Terminal because they'd be too close to the community gardens. Can't redevelop lower Manhattan because everything between Houston and 30th is a "historical building". These are all valid concerns but taken together and they prevent anything from getting done. Good intentions, bad results.
nunez 8y ago
Huge relief.
marrone12 8y ago
How is it possible that a better and easier plan was never considered to rebuilding the tunnels? This had been in deliberation for years and they only just now decided they didn't have to? If anything this just highlights the incompetence of the city.
- DontGiveTwoFlux 8y ago
  Apparently they originally only looked at techniques that had been used before in the US. Agreed that the big contractors and old bureaucracies such as the MTA could probably use a round of inspiration.
- yahelc 8y ago
  The city doesn't run the subway, the state does.
- beerbajay 8y ago
  Because this isn't a real plan, it's Cuomo wanting to grandstand as a savior. "Cuomo’s tunnel experts spent just an hour evaluating damage" https://nypost.com/2019/01/04/cuomos-tunnel-experts-have-spent-just-an-hour-evaluating-damage/ https://nypost.com/2019/01/04/cuomos-tunnel-experts-have-spe...
DontGiveTwoFlux 8y ago
The press conference had lots of details. Last I checked no recording has been posted. The old plan called for replacing all of the bench walls along the length of both tunnels. Bench walls are the short concrete casements which house the cables needed to power the train and provide communications. Replacing them was necessary because of leakage to the cables which corrodes them. It would have been a total gut removal. The new plan is to 'rack' the cables along the walls, which will improve access and be way cheaper. It's some kind of hanging cable system. Some of the bench walls are damaged, so they will be removed or patched on an as needed basis. Otherwise they are obsolete, so the important bit is that they don't fall onto the tracks. There will be sensors to monitor for problems with the remaining benchwall. These techniques have been used in new tunnel construction outside the US, but never to rehabilitate an existing tunnel. It seems like a much needed improvement over the old plan which will have less costs and inconvenience.
- bilbo0s 8y ago
  >It seems like a much needed improvement over the old plan which will have less costs and inconvenience... This is true. (Along with everything else you posted.) At the same time though, all of this will mean less money for contractors. I have no problem with that, just wondering how much resistance this thing will meet? Because I know a lot of entities out there were banking on making a lot of money off of MTA lines in the near future.
  - bobthepanda 8y ago
    There will be plenty of money, at least for this initial contract. The full-shutdown contract was already issued, which will either lead to lots of legal wrangling as the MTA cancels the contract, the mother of all change orders that drives up the cost, or a little bit of A and a little bit of B. The better engineering is certainly a plus, but the time to have brought this up would've been two years ago when they started talking about all this in the first place. Cuomo has been the governor for a better part of a decade, this reeks of political oppurtunism.
    - 8y ago
cco 8y ago
So the plan is to leave the unused cabling in the tunnel and plaster some new stuff further up the wall? I hope that there is a robust plan in place to deal with the old cabling which will continue to rot and at some point will detach leading to blocked tracks or possible train damage.
- DontGiveTwoFlux 8y ago
  Apparently they will add sensors to continuously monitor the concrete for failures.
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mentos 8y ago
If HackerNews had the funding to start its own city do you think it could/would be managed any better? What about Google City, would you move there?
- ggm 8y ago
  No: fritz Lang filmed both of these in "metropolis"
kevin_thibedeau 8y ago
Presumably they will be scaling back the restrictions on low occupancy cars on 14th and Williamsburg Bridge. That was going to create mayhem above ground.
nicodjimenez 8y ago
Who really knows what type of negotiations have been going on behind the scenes. I personally never fully believed a complete L train shutdown could ever possibly happen. You just can't re-route that many people without creating massive chaos. Brooklyn-Manhattan subway transit is already strained as is. What we do know is that the MTA is controlled by the NYC construction mafia and is purposefully opaque. The MTA likes to give the appearance of losing lots of money so they can get federal aid. The money flows from residents and taxpayers into the pockets of union bosses and their construction company partners in the form of extremely lucrative construction contracts. Bloomberg would probably have handled this crisis better. The proposed complete L train shutdown was unrealistic from the start.
- bogomipz 8y ago
  >"What we do know is that the MTA is controlled by the NYC construction mafia and is purposefully opaque." No the MTA is controlled by a political mafia in Albany - the MTA board appointees are made by the Governor and approved by the legislature.[1] >"The MTA likes to give the appearance of losing lots of money so they can get federal aid." No the MTA does actually lose lots of money though wastefulness, incompetence, corruption and bad decision making. This is distinct from the interference, underfunding and financial machinations of the MTA made by the state. See: https://www.empirecenter.org/publications/mta-overtime-jumped-84-million-in-2015/ https://www.empirecenter.org/publications/mta-overtime-jumpe... https://www.politico.com/states/new-york/city-hall/story/2015/03/where-the-transit-build-costs-are-unbelievable-000000 https://www.politico.com/states/new-york/city-hall/story/201... https://www.wsj.com/articles/mta-blames-uber-for-decline-in-new-york-city-subway-bus-ridership-1532386865 https://www.wsj.com/articles/mta-blames-uber-for-decline-in-... [1] https://www.city-journal.org/html/who-runs-mta-15281.html https://www.city-journal.org/html/who-runs-mta-15281.html
bogomipz 8y ago
I'm guessing the "experts" that floated this alternative plan weren't actually transit engineers but rather real-estate developers with very specific interests in Williamsburg. In addition to securing financial commitments from these folks for his future Presidential run Cuomo relished the opportunity to portray himself as some kind of savior. Sadly for New Yorkers none of this is at all surprising.
beerbajay 8y ago
This is a terrible idea, and Cuomo has been widely condemned by transit advocates in NYC. It's insane that a plan that has been in the works for years is changed at the last minute by fiat of the governor. Also that they did not coordinate with the president of the New York City Transit Authority, Andy Byford. https://nypost.com/2019/01/04/cuomos-tunnel-experts-have-spent-just-an-hour-evaluating-damage/ https://nypost.com/2019/01/04/cuomos-tunnel-experts-have-spe... > The engineering team behind Gov. Cuomo’s miracle L-train cure has little experience working on transit projects — and spent a grand total of an hour evaluating the damage firsthand in the subway line’s tunnel The new plan is to patch the tunnel rather than rebuild, which will clearly be a shorter-term solution for infrastructure that the DOT claimed was severely degraded. Cuomo has controlled the MTA for EIGHT YEARS and except for the 2nd Ave subway has been useless in addressing its issues. He seems to be more interested in photo opportunities than actually fixing the budget, labor, infrastructure, and service issues that plague the subway.

118 points by cribbles 8y ago

I wonder if this is what he got in exchange for signing the "lockbox" bill into law [0]. [0]: https://www.masstransitmag.com/rail/news/21039311/transit-lockbox-law-signed-by-cuomo-makes-raiding-subway-funding-more-difficult https://www.masstransitmag.com/rail/news/21039311/transit-lo...

mizzao 8y ago

It's crazy that the NYC transit system is controlled by the state government in Albany, a bunch of folks that pretty much don't use it at all.

dvtrn 8y ago
You think that's crazy? Austin Texas has passed on, I think to date, since 2001-five transit improvement programs voted down by a majority of people who don't even use CapMetro to begin with (glares angrily at west Austin)-in addition to lots of other vitally needed city improvements like, new zoning ordinances-which the city punted on after five years of deliberation and planning, not to mention a good amount of money hiring 'consultants' to help City Council figure out how to write the plan they eventually abandoned (CodeNEXT) Glares angrily again at West Austin But hey, we have "bendy"/rapid-transit-style buses as of a couple of years ago that don't even use protected lanes, so at least we can fit more people on a gridlocked Guadalupe St during rush hour than normal buses. OH! And a toll lane on Mopac now that charges you based on how congested the "loop" is and is guaranteed to be just as congested as the non-toll lanes. Austin Texas: A cautionary tale in applying chaos engineering to city planning. Grinds teeth into powder
- Shivetya 8y ago
  so are they voting it down because they are being taxed for something they cannot use or benefit from directly? as for toll lanes, welcome to the the new means of permanent revenue extraction. Atlanta got them in spades including one near billion dollar installation that cannot be used if ice threatens because its nearly all bridges. people had to fight to remove tolls that were promised to be removed from GA400 years ago after it was paid off so now the state just switched to "express lanes" which is a PC way of saying toll lanes.
  - komali2 8y ago
    Having a bustling city center in easy metro access while you sit comfy in the suburbs seems like a great benefit to me. Drives up your land value while you suffer almost none of the detriments to metro-ization.
    - forrestthewoods 8y ago
      So they pay a higher tax rate on higher valued property and get nothing in return until they sell their home and move to a different city? That’s not a great sales pitch.
      - dvtrn 8y ago
        You're not getting anything in return until you sell your home in any other circumstance (beyond leasing a room or the entire residence and hoping you can make a profit) anyway, what's the difference between higher property tax to pay for transit and higher property taxes to pay for, say, police pensions? Points to Chicago's property tax/pension nightmare
        traek 8y ago
        Maybe people would prefer the unstated third option of lower property tax.
  - dvtrn 8y ago
    so are they voting it down because they are being taxed for something they cannot use or benefit from directly? I'm hesitant to say this is exactly it (or even that it's one specific thing), since--if memory serves, and I'm opening this up for someone who perhaps has a better memory than I do, there was a bond package in 2005 that wouldn't have even affected the western edges of Travis County as the Cities of Bee Cave and West Lake are unincorporated.
  - skybrian 8y ago
    You say "revenue extraction" but why is it bad? Roads need to be paid for and having express lanes that convince some people to pay more voluntarily seems like a good thing. Busses and trains aren't free (usually) so I don't see why highways should be free.
- komali2 8y ago
  Also, if you ride your bicycle, rednecks in lifted trucks will push you onto the curb and shout out the window "are you trying to die?" Choose a motorcycle, people will swerve at you. Whenever I bring up that I won't be in staying in SF, people inevitably say "oh, I heard Austin is a hot new tech hub! You're from Texas, aren't you?" Yup. From. From. And likely never going back.
  - dvtrn 8y ago
    Yup. From. From. And likely never going back. I'm a few weeks now into relocating to the midwest (which is why I still say "we" when I talk about Austin), and I've said the same thing. Austin is a marvelous place to spend a weekend or a couple of days if you want to see a festival (I still think Nashville is the better "live music" city), but I will never live there again unless it transforms dramatically so much of their transit issues, housing issues and traffic issues, not to mention finding a city council with a backbone. I don't think I can put it to words and have it sink in any better to someone who hasn't lived there how livid I was to see the news that council abandoned CodeNEXT. That was the move that got me packing up and forced my hand to get the hell out. https://www.statesman.com/news/20180802/codenext-to-code-nixed-adler-council-members-abandon-code-rewrite/1 https://www.statesman.com/news/20180802/codenext-to-code-nix... FTA: Since the first draft of the revised land-use rules was released in early 2017, CodeNext has laid bare the ideological differences between pro-density urbanists and neighborhood preservationists, who have sniped at one another for months in public meetings and through social media. Yep. That's pretty much describes my near 20 years living in Austin to the letter. About the only thing those two groups can agree on is "build another toll road so far out of the city it takes a 20 minute drive to the eastern edge of the city limits just so you can go north to Pflugerville and not sit on I-35 for an hour and a half"
- vertexFarm 8y ago
  I hear you. I'm unable to even tolerate the dystopian traffic these days. Austin is going to NIMBY itself straight to hell. Eventually the infrastructure just plain isn't going to work anymore. A breaking point exists out there and they're stubbornly barreling towards it. I was born in Austin in the eighties and I can't stand going back anymore, even for a visit. I hate it there.
  - dvtrn 8y ago
    Austin is going to NIMBY itself straight to hell. It's already happened IMO.
- freehunter 8y ago
  Knowing nothing of Austin politics, if West Austin keeps holding up the spending for something they won't/don't even use, wouldn't it make sense to only charge the people who actually would use it? Either splitting West Austin into its own city so they're free from the taxes, or extending the CapMetro out to West Austin so they can benefit from it, or...? It's easy to blame those guys for not seeing the benefit you would get from the extra tax, but if you put yourself in their shoes, they probably have more pressing issues that you yourself don't even have on your radar.
fcbrooklyn 8y ago
It's crazier that it's paid for by the state government in Albany, with taxes collected from the entire state. The control is a side effect of that.
- ceejayoz 8y ago
  Seems fair, though. 40% of NY's tax revenue comes from NYC. Add in the surrounding areas (Westchester, Long Island, etc.) and non-residents who commute and you get up to 82%. https://www.politifact.com/new-york/statements/2018/feb/01/robert-mujica/do-downstate-ny-residents-contribute-more-income-t/ https://www.politifact.com/new-york/statements/2018/feb/01/r...
  - fcbrooklyn 8y ago
    Interesting, although the article is strangely silent on the subject of property taxes, which are extremely high in NY. NYC and surrounding areas undoubtedly have higher property values, so perhaps the ratio holds, but the rest of the state is very very big. It may also be that property taxes don't find their way to the state coffers, I'm honestly unsure.
drugme 8y ago
It's crazy that the NYC transit system is controlled by the state government in Albany, a bunch of folks that pretty much don't use it at all. Or given the fact the integrated metro NYC system (subway + regional rail) serves a very significant number of riders who do not actually live in NYC proper -- perhaps it's not so "crazy" after all.
- vonmoltke 8y ago
  It serves a very significant number of riders who do not actually live in New York state as well.
  - murph-almighty 8y ago
    Said riders almost always pay non-resident income taxes to NY as well.
    - ceejayoz 8y ago
      The tens of millions of tourists probably don't, though. (Now, sales and hotel taxes, on the other hand...)
- zjaffee 8y ago
  It's worth pointing out that a significant number of people who live in the bronx and queens do take metro north and LIRR respectively.
wolco 8y ago
If they could find the money within nyc property tax base they would be able to fund without the state government. Many would say Albany is controlled by nyc interests and why should citizens in cities like Buffalo in western ny fund nyc projects.
pastor_elm 8y ago
Most other (international) metros are owned by private entities (which may be owned by the government (e.g. Tokyo metro which is owned by both the Japanese government and the Tokyo government)). If you let the city own the MTA, they'll never make hard decisions because they'll be at the mercy of voters.
- jcranmer 8y ago
  Private companies owning metros is actually relatively rare. Note that public transit is usually not run for a profit, since many of the benefits of transit cannot be captured by fares. (Those companies that are privately run generally make money by owning the high-value land around).
- fcbrooklyn 8y ago
  A very interesting history of the NYC subway. https://www.amazon.com/722-Miles-Building-Subways-Transformed/dp/0801880548 https://www.amazon.com/722-Miles-Building-Subways-Transforme... It's been years since I read it, but as I recall, the system was built by private entities, who were gradually driven out of business when the city set a cap on the price of a fare (first at a nickel, then at a dime). When they folded one by one, they got subsumed into the MTA, and I guess at some point it was decided that it was ok to raise the price.

misiti3780 8y ago

I live in NYC but do not use the L, I assume this means the repairs are going to take 3 times as long as they are losing 5 days a week to work on them.

tashoecraft 8y ago
I use the L every day and I'm mixed about it. The L is already the fastest and most on time train in the city. It going down would be a massive inconvenience for me, but I want the city to take steps to improving the subway infrastructure. Backing down now just to get some votes is just kicking the can down the road to another generation to deal with
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rtkwe 8y ago
As with most thing NYC transit it's a mix. It would have been a huge disruption to people travelling into the city doubling commute times. On the other hand not shutting down the line means very important repairs have to be jammed into nights and weekends. Some repairs just won't be possible within that time so it'll have to get fixed later when the damage may have worsened.
psychometry 8y ago
I wonder if they could just run it during rush hour on weekdays, which would open up the middle of the day and nighttime for more work.
- magic_beans 8y ago
  If you think New Yorkers don't need the subway after 9am or at night, you're deeply mistaken.

foolfoolz 8y ago

this is classic example of how U. S. infrastructure projects are slower and more costly than other countries. Other countries would shut this down and build then reopen, inconveniencing many. We will spend more and keep this going longer instead. Another great example is on 101 freeway in california they just finished replacing a bridge in palo alto. They did not shut the freeway down while it was literally replaced from underneath the cars. It took 3 years and caused horrendous traffic daily. I wonder how fast it could have been done if they shut down 101 entirely on that stretch. i know it’s easy to complain about how long these things take, but what would you rather have?

luckydata 8y ago
Is that what they were doing? OMG that's pure insanity. Traffic in the South Bay and going to the east bay through Dumbarton SUCKED because of that.
jjeaff 8y ago
I'm not familiar with the alternate routes there up north. But I know in Los Angeles, shutting down the 101 essentially shutters the doors of many businesses. Employees simply can't get to work. So I'm not sure it is desirable to shut a road down rather than cause huge delays.
drugme 8y ago
Let's just say there may be other factors to consider besides net project cost. Like, say: - The economic strangulation of entire neighborhoods - Disrupted access to health care and educational opportunities - Disrupted access to one's place of employment (for a great many people) - All of these disproportionately affecting, you know... lower income folks (and not so coincidentally, communities of color). - The spillover affect of all of the above on the regional economy as a whole (and hence -- on tax revenues available to the same governments who need to fund this construction in the first place). Stuff like that.
- ng12 8y ago
  But that's exactly the problem -- local governments are powerless. They can't fix the BQE due to opposition from Brooklyn Heights community groups. Can't build skyscrapers south of Atlantic Terminal because they'd be too close to the community gardens. Can't redevelop lower Manhattan because everything between Houston and 30th is a "historical building". These are all valid concerns but taken together and they prevent anything from getting done. Good intentions, bad results.

nunez 8y ago

Huge relief.

marrone12 8y ago

How is it possible that a better and easier plan was never considered to rebuilding the tunnels? This had been in deliberation for years and they only just now decided they didn't have to? If anything this just highlights the incompetence of the city.

DontGiveTwoFlux 8y ago
Apparently they originally only looked at techniques that had been used before in the US. Agreed that the big contractors and old bureaucracies such as the MTA could probably use a round of inspiration.
yahelc 8y ago
The city doesn't run the subway, the state does.
beerbajay 8y ago
Because this isn't a real plan, it's Cuomo wanting to grandstand as a savior. "Cuomo’s tunnel experts spent just an hour evaluating damage" https://nypost.com/2019/01/04/cuomos-tunnel-experts-have-spent-just-an-hour-evaluating-damage/ https://nypost.com/2019/01/04/cuomos-tunnel-experts-have-spe...

DontGiveTwoFlux 8y ago

The press conference had lots of details. Last I checked no recording has been posted. The old plan called for replacing all of the bench walls along the length of both tunnels. Bench walls are the short concrete casements which house the cables needed to power the train and provide communications. Replacing them was necessary because of leakage to the cables which corrodes them. It would have been a total gut removal. The new plan is to 'rack' the cables along the walls, which will improve access and be way cheaper. It's some kind of hanging cable system. Some of the bench walls are damaged, so they will be removed or patched on an as needed basis. Otherwise they are obsolete, so the important bit is that they don't fall onto the tracks. There will be sensors to monitor for problems with the remaining benchwall. These techniques have been used in new tunnel construction outside the US, but never to rehabilitate an existing tunnel. It seems like a much needed improvement over the old plan which will have less costs and inconvenience.

bilbo0s 8y ago
>It seems like a much needed improvement over the old plan which will have less costs and inconvenience... This is true. (Along with everything else you posted.) At the same time though, all of this will mean less money for contractors. I have no problem with that, just wondering how much resistance this thing will meet? Because I know a lot of entities out there were banking on making a lot of money off of MTA lines in the near future.
- bobthepanda 8y ago
  There will be plenty of money, at least for this initial contract. The full-shutdown contract was already issued, which will either lead to lots of legal wrangling as the MTA cancels the contract, the mother of all change orders that drives up the cost, or a little bit of A and a little bit of B. The better engineering is certainly a plus, but the time to have brought this up would've been two years ago when they started talking about all this in the first place. Cuomo has been the governor for a better part of a decade, this reeks of political oppurtunism.
  - 8y ago

cco 8y ago

So the plan is to leave the unused cabling in the tunnel and plaster some new stuff further up the wall? I hope that there is a robust plan in place to deal with the old cabling which will continue to rot and at some point will detach leading to blocked tracks or possible train damage.

DontGiveTwoFlux 8y ago
Apparently they will add sensors to continuously monitor the concrete for failures.

deleted 8y ago

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mentos 8y ago

If HackerNews had the funding to start its own city do you think it could/would be managed any better? What about Google City, would you move there?

ggm 8y ago
No: fritz Lang filmed both of these in "metropolis"

kevin_thibedeau 8y ago

Presumably they will be scaling back the restrictions on low occupancy cars on 14th and Williamsburg Bridge. That was going to create mayhem above ground.

nicodjimenez 8y ago

Who really knows what type of negotiations have been going on behind the scenes. I personally never fully believed a complete L train shutdown could ever possibly happen. You just can't re-route that many people without creating massive chaos. Brooklyn-Manhattan subway transit is already strained as is. What we do know is that the MTA is controlled by the NYC construction mafia and is purposefully opaque. The MTA likes to give the appearance of losing lots of money so they can get federal aid. The money flows from residents and taxpayers into the pockets of union bosses and their construction company partners in the form of extremely lucrative construction contracts. Bloomberg would probably have handled this crisis better. The proposed complete L train shutdown was unrealistic from the start.

bogomipz 8y ago
>"What we do know is that the MTA is controlled by the NYC construction mafia and is purposefully opaque." No the MTA is controlled by a political mafia in Albany - the MTA board appointees are made by the Governor and approved by the legislature.[1] >"The MTA likes to give the appearance of losing lots of money so they can get federal aid." No the MTA does actually lose lots of money though wastefulness, incompetence, corruption and bad decision making. This is distinct from the interference, underfunding and financial machinations of the MTA made by the state. See: https://www.empirecenter.org/publications/mta-overtime-jumped-84-million-in-2015/ https://www.empirecenter.org/publications/mta-overtime-jumpe... https://www.politico.com/states/new-york/city-hall/story/2015/03/where-the-transit-build-costs-are-unbelievable-000000 https://www.politico.com/states/new-york/city-hall/story/201... https://www.wsj.com/articles/mta-blames-uber-for-decline-in-new-york-city-subway-bus-ridership-1532386865 https://www.wsj.com/articles/mta-blames-uber-for-decline-in-... [1] https://www.city-journal.org/html/who-runs-mta-15281.html https://www.city-journal.org/html/who-runs-mta-15281.html

bogomipz 8y ago

I'm guessing the "experts" that floated this alternative plan weren't actually transit engineers but rather real-estate developers with very specific interests in Williamsburg. In addition to securing financial commitments from these folks for his future Presidential run Cuomo relished the opportunity to portray himself as some kind of savior. Sadly for New Yorkers none of this is at all surprising.

beerbajay 8y ago

This is a terrible idea, and Cuomo has been widely condemned by transit advocates in NYC. It's insane that a plan that has been in the works for years is changed at the last minute by fiat of the governor. Also that they did not coordinate with the president of the New York City Transit Authority, Andy Byford. https://nypost.com/2019/01/04/cuomos-tunnel-experts-have-spent-just-an-hour-evaluating-damage/ https://nypost.com/2019/01/04/cuomos-tunnel-experts-have-spe... > The engineering team behind Gov. Cuomo’s miracle L-train cure has little experience working on transit projects — and spent a grand total of an hour evaluating the damage firsthand in the subway line’s tunnel The new plan is to patch the tunnel rather than rebuild, which will clearly be a shorter-term solution for infrastructure that the DOT claimed was severely degraded. Cuomo has controlled the MTA for EIGHT YEARS and except for the 2nd Ave subway has been useless in addressing its issues. He seems to be more interested in photo opportunities than actually fixing the budget, labor, infrastructure, and service issues that plague the subway.