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I don't think you appreciate the rate of change around here. When something new gets put in place, it's there for a long time. We are still listening to incoher

I don't think you appreciate the rate of change around here. When something new gets put in place, it's there for a long time. We are still listening to incoherent stop announcements from 50-year -old speakers that should have been retired in the nineties. These screens will probably be around for at least twenty years. They aren't good, a waste of money from an institution that is already cash-strapped.

VWWHFSfQ 7y ago
> We are still listening to incoherent stop announcements from 50-year -old speakers that should have been retired in the nineties. That's only on the older trains that are being replaced. Every new train on the main red, green, and blue lines have recorded stop announcements for at least the last 10 years. Everybody knows that NYC subway isn't as modern as a lot of systems but don't forget that it's by far the largest subway system in the world and also one of the oldest. They've installed LTE in almost all the stations now and are rolling out contactless payments. Progress is being made to modernize but it's not happening overnight.
- mcny 7y ago
  Why are we cash strapped? Everyone from the governor and the state legislature to the unions and private contractors seem to be hell bent on destroying it. Why won't NYS put more money into the subways? Why can't we get driverless trains? Why do trains have to slow to a crawl if there is work being done two tracks over? Do we need barriers between tracks? So many low hanging fruits blocked by greed and short term self interest.
  - bradleyjg 7y ago
    Why put in more money, when the money we put in already is so inefficiently spent? Let the MTA prove they can be a good steward and then I’d be all for spending more on them as needed.
    - bobthepanda 7y ago
      Has starving poorly run government authorities ever worked?
      - bradleyjg 7y ago
        Is more than $20B/year a starvation diet?
        mcny 7y ago
        > Is more than $20B/year a starvation diet? You are absolutely right but I still think USD 20B is not enough. How much of the GDP of the Empire State is (directly or indirectly) because of the city? Everyone benefits when the city has better infrastructure. Yes, the unions are at fault. I too get angry when the overtime nonsense making the news. > After five hours, all he could explain is what a chief measurement operator does — claiming Caputo is “one of only a few people” who can operate an “advanced track-geometry car,” which examines the rails for defects. > Overtime payments surged to more than $1.3 billion across the entire MTA last year, up from $1.2 billion the year before, according to Empire Center data. > Tarek justified the megasized paychecks by saying the agency has been working on major upgrades recently, and claiming it is often cheaper to pay an existing employee overtime than to hire another person for the same work. https://archive.fo/fPTqA https://archive.fo/fPTqA Yes, this is a problem. I don't have a solution but I think the solution to this problem will also help introduce self-driving trains and help us reduce head count at the agency which should help decrease costs.
        bradleyjg 7y ago
        The unions blocked driver only trains on the L line. What makes you think they’ll allow self driving trains? And it’s not just unions either. The capital spending side is also monstrously inefficient. As far as solutions go, I don’t blame you for not having one but I can’t support any additional money when we can’t even have confidence that it will actually improve anything rather than just going directly into even waste, fraud, and abuse.
        7y ago
  - rayiner 7y ago
    NYC MTA is not at all cash strapped. It’s budget is significantly bigger than transport for london’s, and the two cities have very similar systems.
- mattlondon 7y ago
  > don't forget that it's by far the largest subway system in the world Citation needed. It is the 6th largest after Shanghai (676km) , Beijing (628km), Guangzhou (478km), London (402km), and Moscow (397km). NYC has 380km in comparison. (1) NYC has a lot of stations compared to anywhere else, but in my experience the stations in NYC are often basically just a set of steps going down from the street, then a simple turnstile leading to a bare platform with basically no other facilities at all (e.g. you cant even change directions without going outside back up to the street and back down through the turnstile again ... I don't think there are even chairs?). Compare this to some stations elsewhere in the world where there is significantly more going on in a station (e.g. Paris, Moscow, London etc). Some of the larger stations in NYC have a bit more in terms of infrastructure, but a lot of the time there is basically nothing down there (and they are dark and filthy) and I can't imagine they are a significant source of strain on the system compared to the other parts (tracks, signals, rolling-stock, bridges, tunnels etc) 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metro_systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metro_systems
  - madamelic 7y ago
    >I don't think there are even chairs? It isn't that they didn't have chairs, it's that they can't have chairs. The homeless problem in NYC is bad and it just happens subway stops are better than above ground when winter comes. Call it mean, I think it is unfair but homeless people belong elsewhere than the subway.
    - VWWHFSfQ 7y ago
      NYC's homeless problem isn't even as bad as comparatively tiny places like Seattle or Portland where it's completely disgusting and sad. I left Seattle in 2009 and went back for a month last year and the homeless population looked like it had doubled despite so much investment and modernization happening in downtown over the last decade.
      - delfinom 7y ago
        Because that investment and modernization drives out the less fortunate onto the streets. Nobody is investing in affordable housing, it's all luxury apartments to sell to foreign buyers and maybe that one kid who made a few million selling his startup. Then they dress up the surronding area to pump their investment's value.
- gshdg 7y ago
  It’ll be decades before all of the trains from the ‘70s and ‘80s (pre-recorded-announcement systems) are replaced and all trains have recorded announcements and decent speakers. Heck, we’re only just now starting to replace the last of the trains (R32s) from the early 1960s (the trains that were supposed to replace them ended up instead replacing some ‘70s trains (R44s) that turned out to have a construction or design flaw that caused them to fail earlier than expected). And the agency is basically bankrupt. Decades to next upgrade the crappy waste of money digital displays seems to me to be a reasonable conjecture.
- thatfrenchguy 7y ago
  > Everybody knows that NYC subway isn't as modern as a lot of systems but don't forget that it's by far the largest subway system in the world and also one of the oldest. Paris and London’s subway are older, around the same size, and much much much more modern than NYC. Underinvestment is what makes NYC’s metro shitty.
  - VWWHFSfQ 7y ago
    Paris and London's subway systems are not comparatively sized. Paris has more than 100 fewer stations than NYC. It's about 60% the size. London is even smaller.
    - foldr 7y ago
      Note that the count of 270 stations usually given for London excludes the DLR and the Overground, which are effectively part of the same system. The DLR has 45 stations and the Overground 112. It's perhaps debatable how much of the Overground should be included in the count, but the DLR certainly should.
  - rayiner 7y ago
    London spends half as much per passenger mile as NYC. A mile of subway in Paris or London costs 1/7 as much to build as in NYC. What makes NYC’s metro shitty is that New Yorkers are running it.
bogomipz 7y ago
Or the regularly inaccurate station countdown clocks which took 11 years to roll out.
reaperducer 7y ago
If the MTA upgraded its facilities at the rate that people on HN want, then there would be articles on HN complaining about the MTA wasting money on needless upgrades. Analog life is never going to be what people on HN want it to be.
- Eric_WVGG 7y ago
  sorry, I can't tell if you're saying that HN people want MTA upgrades or not. As far as I'm concerned, low-tech solutions in the meatspace are frequently the best ones. Signage of static assets like subway maps should be paper. We've got these short-and-wide red LED signs for "next train in 4 minutes", those should be digital, but they're getting phased out in favor of LCD screens, that's dumb. Those big new screens showing ads… I guess if they bring in more revenue, great? But if they double as notices for service interruptions, the serious stuff ought to show up more frequently than once every 12 screens… All anyone wants is some common sense and not expensive change for change's sake. Low-res digital subway maps are stupid, full stop.
deleted 7y ago
[deleted]

VWWHFSfQ 7y ago

> We are still listening to incoherent stop announcements from 50-year -old speakers that should have been retired in the nineties. That's only on the older trains that are being replaced. Every new train on the main red, green, and blue lines have recorded stop announcements for at least the last 10 years. Everybody knows that NYC subway isn't as modern as a lot of systems but don't forget that it's by far the largest subway system in the world and also one of the oldest. They've installed LTE in almost all the stations now and are rolling out contactless payments. Progress is being made to modernize but it's not happening overnight.

mcny 7y ago
Why are we cash strapped? Everyone from the governor and the state legislature to the unions and private contractors seem to be hell bent on destroying it. Why won't NYS put more money into the subways? Why can't we get driverless trains? Why do trains have to slow to a crawl if there is work being done two tracks over? Do we need barriers between tracks? So many low hanging fruits blocked by greed and short term self interest.
- bradleyjg 7y ago
  Why put in more money, when the money we put in already is so inefficiently spent? Let the MTA prove they can be a good steward and then I’d be all for spending more on them as needed.
  - bobthepanda 7y ago
    Has starving poorly run government authorities ever worked?
    - bradleyjg 7y ago
      Is more than $20B/year a starvation diet?
      - mcny 7y ago
        > Is more than $20B/year a starvation diet? You are absolutely right but I still think USD 20B is not enough. How much of the GDP of the Empire State is (directly or indirectly) because of the city? Everyone benefits when the city has better infrastructure. Yes, the unions are at fault. I too get angry when the overtime nonsense making the news. > After five hours, all he could explain is what a chief measurement operator does — claiming Caputo is “one of only a few people” who can operate an “advanced track-geometry car,” which examines the rails for defects. > Overtime payments surged to more than $1.3 billion across the entire MTA last year, up from $1.2 billion the year before, according to Empire Center data. > Tarek justified the megasized paychecks by saying the agency has been working on major upgrades recently, and claiming it is often cheaper to pay an existing employee overtime than to hire another person for the same work. https://archive.fo/fPTqA https://archive.fo/fPTqA Yes, this is a problem. I don't have a solution but I think the solution to this problem will also help introduce self-driving trains and help us reduce head count at the agency which should help decrease costs.
        bradleyjg 7y ago
        The unions blocked driver only trains on the L line. What makes you think they’ll allow self driving trains? And it’s not just unions either. The capital spending side is also monstrously inefficient. As far as solutions go, I don’t blame you for not having one but I can’t support any additional money when we can’t even have confidence that it will actually improve anything rather than just going directly into even waste, fraud, and abuse.
      - 7y ago
- rayiner 7y ago
  NYC MTA is not at all cash strapped. It’s budget is significantly bigger than transport for london’s, and the two cities have very similar systems.
mattlondon 7y ago
> don't forget that it's by far the largest subway system in the world Citation needed. It is the 6th largest after Shanghai (676km) , Beijing (628km), Guangzhou (478km), London (402km), and Moscow (397km). NYC has 380km in comparison. (1) NYC has a lot of stations compared to anywhere else, but in my experience the stations in NYC are often basically just a set of steps going down from the street, then a simple turnstile leading to a bare platform with basically no other facilities at all (e.g. you cant even change directions without going outside back up to the street and back down through the turnstile again ... I don't think there are even chairs?). Compare this to some stations elsewhere in the world where there is significantly more going on in a station (e.g. Paris, Moscow, London etc). Some of the larger stations in NYC have a bit more in terms of infrastructure, but a lot of the time there is basically nothing down there (and they are dark and filthy) and I can't imagine they are a significant source of strain on the system compared to the other parts (tracks, signals, rolling-stock, bridges, tunnels etc) 1 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metro_systems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_metro_systems
- madamelic 7y ago
  >I don't think there are even chairs? It isn't that they didn't have chairs, it's that they can't have chairs. The homeless problem in NYC is bad and it just happens subway stops are better than above ground when winter comes. Call it mean, I think it is unfair but homeless people belong elsewhere than the subway.
  - VWWHFSfQ 7y ago
    NYC's homeless problem isn't even as bad as comparatively tiny places like Seattle or Portland where it's completely disgusting and sad. I left Seattle in 2009 and went back for a month last year and the homeless population looked like it had doubled despite so much investment and modernization happening in downtown over the last decade.
    - delfinom 7y ago
      Because that investment and modernization drives out the less fortunate onto the streets. Nobody is investing in affordable housing, it's all luxury apartments to sell to foreign buyers and maybe that one kid who made a few million selling his startup. Then they dress up the surronding area to pump their investment's value.
gshdg 7y ago
It’ll be decades before all of the trains from the ‘70s and ‘80s (pre-recorded-announcement systems) are replaced and all trains have recorded announcements and decent speakers. Heck, we’re only just now starting to replace the last of the trains (R32s) from the early 1960s (the trains that were supposed to replace them ended up instead replacing some ‘70s trains (R44s) that turned out to have a construction or design flaw that caused them to fail earlier than expected). And the agency is basically bankrupt. Decades to next upgrade the crappy waste of money digital displays seems to me to be a reasonable conjecture.
thatfrenchguy 7y ago
> Everybody knows that NYC subway isn't as modern as a lot of systems but don't forget that it's by far the largest subway system in the world and also one of the oldest. Paris and London’s subway are older, around the same size, and much much much more modern than NYC. Underinvestment is what makes NYC’s metro shitty.
- VWWHFSfQ 7y ago
  Paris and London's subway systems are not comparatively sized. Paris has more than 100 fewer stations than NYC. It's about 60% the size. London is even smaller.
  - foldr 7y ago
    Note that the count of 270 stations usually given for London excludes the DLR and the Overground, which are effectively part of the same system. The DLR has 45 stations and the Overground 112. It's perhaps debatable how much of the Overground should be included in the count, but the DLR certainly should.
- rayiner 7y ago
  London spends half as much per passenger mile as NYC. A mile of subway in Paris or London costs 1/7 as much to build as in NYC. What makes NYC’s metro shitty is that New Yorkers are running it.

bogomipz 7y ago

Or the regularly inaccurate station countdown clocks which took 11 years to roll out.

reaperducer 7y ago

If the MTA upgraded its facilities at the rate that people on HN want, then there would be articles on HN complaining about the MTA wasting money on needless upgrades. Analog life is never going to be what people on HN want it to be.

Eric_WVGG 7y ago
sorry, I can't tell if you're saying that HN people want MTA upgrades or not. As far as I'm concerned, low-tech solutions in the meatspace are frequently the best ones. Signage of static assets like subway maps should be paper. We've got these short-and-wide red LED signs for "next train in 4 minutes", those should be digital, but they're getting phased out in favor of LCD screens, that's dumb. Those big new screens showing ads… I guess if they bring in more revenue, great? But if they double as notices for service interruptions, the serious stuff ought to show up more frequently than once every 12 screens… All anyone wants is some common sense and not expensive change for change's sake. Low-res digital subway maps are stupid, full stop.

deleted 7y ago

[deleted]