8 ms·

Building for the future, rather than the now.

toomuchtodo 6y ago
Re-evaluate the future you're building for if it's unreasonably expensive to build for it. Sometimes it's cheaper to destroy demand or otherwise not build for density you don't need. This is way different (massively over budget and/or behind schedule public projects) then dropping extra fiber in a trench because you're there already ("Dig Once"). For example, Strong Towns [1] seems to champion the whole "the suburbs are unsustainable" perspective, but never the "public works projects in HCOL metros are too expensive for the resulting density" thesis. Market forces will likely work it out in this case though (people leaving HCOL locations for lower density locations where per dollar quality of life is higher, with major cities having to do more with less, or do less with less [tax revenue] [2]). [1] https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/27/nyregion/mta-virus-budget-money.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/27/nyregion/mta-virus-budget...
- ardit33 6y ago
  Have you been at the current Penn Station, in NYC? That's how a 'build for now' station looks like. It is a total shitshow during rush hour, and especially during holidays. Everyone in NYC hates it and we are currently building an extension at the old post office, as it is not fit for usage anymore. The old one (the one that got demolished in the 60s) was miles ahead in both space and aesthetics. Also, almost nobody hates the Grand Central Station, even though it gets overran with tourists as it is a beautiful peace of work.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - Gibbon1 6y ago
    Best comment about the new now old Penn Station. 'One entered the city like a god; one scuttles in now like a rat'
  - jcranmer 6y ago
    That's not why Penn Station is a shitshow. Penn Station basically has three main problems: 1. Amtrak insists on trying to do an airplane-like boarding situation for trains, rather than the traditional practice of telling people what track their train will be on several minutes in advance and letting them wait on the platform. This means you have boarding lines and expectant crowds in places that aren't designed to handle that kind of capacity. 2. Each of the services that call at Penn Station has its own segregated platforms, mezzanine, and ticketing areas, and the connectivity between these is poor and confusing. Although, this is probably driven in large part by... 3. Madison Square Garden was built on top of Penn Station, and a substantial portion of the above-ground infrastructure is dedicated to supporting that tenant rather than the transportation infrastructure. Penn Station used to have a more normal major-station layout when it was still part of the Pennsylvania Railroad, but that was ruined by the building of Madison Square Garden on top of it.
    - bobthepanda 6y ago
      Everything below ground level is original, save for the relatively newer Central and Western corridors. Penn Station's major issue was that when it was designed and built, intercity traffic was a big deal and commuter traffic was not, and it was designed accordingly. Today the central platforms Amtrak uses are massively oversized and the commuter-rail only platforms to the side take 3-5 full minutes to clear a train.
    - wffurr 6y ago
      The platforms by the tracks in Penn Station are narrow, dank, and poorly lit. I think that's why you see the boarding method there. Better platforms would make a huge difference.
selectodude 6y ago
Station overcrowding can be fixed. Stuff that never gets built because it's too expensive can't. It's important to not let perfect be the enemy of the good, no more so than public infrastructure.
- spyspy 6y ago
  > Station overcrowding can be fixed Yeah, usually by totally rebuilding the station. Easier said than done when you already have a skyscraper built over top of you. NYC is trying to revamp a lot of its current stations that see magnitudes of traffic more than they were designed to on a daily basis, and that's a massive undertaking.
  - Ericson2314 6y ago
    What about digging more parallel tunnels and keeping with smaller stations? That's good for track maintenance too.
    - Schiendelman 6y ago
      Have you seen the location this is in? That should help answer, you would be trying to dig under skyscrapers.
- Schiendelman 6y ago
  What way of fixing station overcrowding are you thinking of?
  - selectodude 6y ago
    Running more trains, mostly.
    - Schiendelman 6y ago
      The 7 is already projected to run at peak frequencies in the existing plan; signal upgrades help a bit but not a lot at a terminal station. The rest of the 7 isn't capable of running trains much more often.
nerfhammer 6y ago
Except for the train tunnels themselves which are only double tracked instead of quad tracked
- skissane 6y ago
  In Sydney, Australia's original underground rail system, the "City Circle", which began construction in the 1920s, they built "stub tunnels" at one of the stations, St James. St James station is actually built with two island platforms, to support being an interchange between two lines. However, only one of those lines was actually built. The other line, they covered it over to turn the two platforms into one big platform, and that line's tunnels go off some distance and then they abruptly end. The idea was, when the second line (Eastern Suburbs line) was later built, they could do it with minimal disruption to the operations of the station. Great thinking ahead, except plans changed and when (decades later) they eventually decided to build the Eastern Suburbs line, they chose a completely different alignment. So they just had these stub tunnels sitting underground, disused. During World War II they were converted to being an air raid shelter. They've seen some other random uses over the years, such as being used to film TV shows, part of them is used as a maintenance train siding, etc. Now the government is seeking proposals for the private sector to redevelop them into something useful. When the Eastern Suburbs line was finally built on a different alignment in the 1970s, they did something similar – it has two underground platforms at Central Station, but they actually built four underground platforms. Two of them active, the other two with stub tunnels not going anywhere. Once again, this was to support another planned railway line, the Southern Suburbs line, which has never built either. For many years, the never-used platforms were used as archival document storage for the government rail authority. Now, Sydney is building a new metro line. The Metro line is not going to use these platforms, it is using newly constructed underground platforms. But these never-used platforms are going to be converted into utility rooms for the Metro line. Similarly, at Redfern station, there is a big pit in the ground which holds half-constructed platforms for the Southern Suburbs line. I doubt those platforms will ever be used for that purpose. So anyway, planning ahead is a great idea, but often it just turns into a waste.
asdff 6y ago
A mezzanine level is expensive and only serves to delay people. It doesn't get more people into more trains. Only more frequent and longer trains can do that, and that is dependent on the length of the platform and how many trains can move through a given tunnel an hour, the mezzanine is extraneous. It makes people not want to take the train by introducing bottlenecks by making you go through another set of stairs or escalator. But I'm sure the expenses associated with the mezzanine lines a bunch of people's pockets, so I wouldn't expect sensible design to come into fold anytime soon in our contractor-graft based country.
- DrBazza 6y ago
  In London (where I commute), without 'mezzanine levels' or their equivalent, there's nowhere to queue and everyone would squeeze onto the platform which is a safety issue and then the police and/or the railway staff would close the station. This happens frequently when we have problems with the track or trains. London has terminus stations - the platform the train arrives on is where the train stops, and then starts on its return journey. Trains to your destination are therefore limited by signalling and traffic, typically a 10-15 minute turn around time. On average, in London during rush hour, you have a train to your home station every 20 minutes. Perhaps in the US all major stations are through stations, but in the UK, especially London, we just don't have that, and mezzanines are at the very minimum, a safety requirement, because the platform your train leaves from, has other passengers waiting for other trains before your one. Platforms are not large, and trains are very, very busy, and frankly, if you've only ever caught a train in the US you are in for a huge surprise commuting in the UK. If the US ever adopted trains like the rest of the world has, the best time for building mezzanines, and huge stations is "yesterday".
  - arthurdenture 6y ago
    You're comparing regional rail terminal stations, which serve many lower-frequency lines, to subway platforms, which typically serve a single higher-frequency line. (2-10 minutes between trains.) That's the scenario where a mezzanine is less useful.
  - asdff 6y ago

Re-evaluate the future you're building for if it's unreasonably expensive to build for it. Sometimes it's cheaper to destroy demand or otherwise not build for density you don't need. This is way different (massively over budget and/or behind schedule public projects) then dropping extra fiber in a trench because you're there already ("Dig Once"). For example, Strong Towns [1] seems to champion the whole "the suburbs are unsustainable" perspective, but never the "public works projects in HCOL metros are too expensive for the resulting density" thesis. Market forces will likely work it out in this case though (people leaving HCOL locations for lower density locations where per dollar quality of life is higher, with major cities having to do more with less, or do less with less [tax revenue] [2]). [1] https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/27/nyregion/mta-virus-budget-money.html https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/27/nyregion/mta-virus-budget...

ardit33 6y ago
Have you been at the current Penn Station, in NYC? That's how a 'build for now' station looks like. It is a total shitshow during rush hour, and especially during holidays. Everyone in NYC hates it and we are currently building an extension at the old post office, as it is not fit for usage anymore. The old one (the one that got demolished in the 60s) was miles ahead in both space and aesthetics. Also, almost nobody hates the Grand Central Station, even though it gets overran with tourists as it is a beautiful peace of work.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- Gibbon1 6y ago
  Best comment about the new now old Penn Station. 'One entered the city like a god; one scuttles in now like a rat'
- jcranmer 6y ago
  That's not why Penn Station is a shitshow. Penn Station basically has three main problems: 1. Amtrak insists on trying to do an airplane-like boarding situation for trains, rather than the traditional practice of telling people what track their train will be on several minutes in advance and letting them wait on the platform. This means you have boarding lines and expectant crowds in places that aren't designed to handle that kind of capacity. 2. Each of the services that call at Penn Station has its own segregated platforms, mezzanine, and ticketing areas, and the connectivity between these is poor and confusing. Although, this is probably driven in large part by... 3. Madison Square Garden was built on top of Penn Station, and a substantial portion of the above-ground infrastructure is dedicated to supporting that tenant rather than the transportation infrastructure. Penn Station used to have a more normal major-station layout when it was still part of the Pennsylvania Railroad, but that was ruined by the building of Madison Square Garden on top of it.
  - bobthepanda 6y ago
    Everything below ground level is original, save for the relatively newer Central and Western corridors. Penn Station's major issue was that when it was designed and built, intercity traffic was a big deal and commuter traffic was not, and it was designed accordingly. Today the central platforms Amtrak uses are massively oversized and the commuter-rail only platforms to the side take 3-5 full minutes to clear a train.
  - wffurr 6y ago
    The platforms by the tracks in Penn Station are narrow, dank, and poorly lit. I think that's why you see the boarding method there. Better platforms would make a huge difference.

selectodude 6y ago

Station overcrowding can be fixed. Stuff that never gets built because it's too expensive can't. It's important to not let perfect be the enemy of the good, no more so than public infrastructure.

spyspy 6y ago
> Station overcrowding can be fixed Yeah, usually by totally rebuilding the station. Easier said than done when you already have a skyscraper built over top of you. NYC is trying to revamp a lot of its current stations that see magnitudes of traffic more than they were designed to on a daily basis, and that's a massive undertaking.
- Ericson2314 6y ago
  What about digging more parallel tunnels and keeping with smaller stations? That's good for track maintenance too.
  - Schiendelman 6y ago
    Have you seen the location this is in? That should help answer, you would be trying to dig under skyscrapers.
Schiendelman 6y ago
What way of fixing station overcrowding are you thinking of?
- selectodude 6y ago
  Running more trains, mostly.
  - Schiendelman 6y ago
    The 7 is already projected to run at peak frequencies in the existing plan; signal upgrades help a bit but not a lot at a terminal station. The rest of the 7 isn't capable of running trains much more often.

nerfhammer 6y ago

Except for the train tunnels themselves which are only double tracked instead of quad tracked

skissane 6y ago
In Sydney, Australia's original underground rail system, the "City Circle", which began construction in the 1920s, they built "stub tunnels" at one of the stations, St James. St James station is actually built with two island platforms, to support being an interchange between two lines. However, only one of those lines was actually built. The other line, they covered it over to turn the two platforms into one big platform, and that line's tunnels go off some distance and then they abruptly end. The idea was, when the second line (Eastern Suburbs line) was later built, they could do it with minimal disruption to the operations of the station. Great thinking ahead, except plans changed and when (decades later) they eventually decided to build the Eastern Suburbs line, they chose a completely different alignment. So they just had these stub tunnels sitting underground, disused. During World War II they were converted to being an air raid shelter. They've seen some other random uses over the years, such as being used to film TV shows, part of them is used as a maintenance train siding, etc. Now the government is seeking proposals for the private sector to redevelop them into something useful. When the Eastern Suburbs line was finally built on a different alignment in the 1970s, they did something similar – it has two underground platforms at Central Station, but they actually built four underground platforms. Two of them active, the other two with stub tunnels not going anywhere. Once again, this was to support another planned railway line, the Southern Suburbs line, which has never built either. For many years, the never-used platforms were used as archival document storage for the government rail authority. Now, Sydney is building a new metro line. The Metro line is not going to use these platforms, it is using newly constructed underground platforms. But these never-used platforms are going to be converted into utility rooms for the Metro line. Similarly, at Redfern station, there is a big pit in the ground which holds half-constructed platforms for the Southern Suburbs line. I doubt those platforms will ever be used for that purpose. So anyway, planning ahead is a great idea, but often it just turns into a waste.

asdff 6y ago

A mezzanine level is expensive and only serves to delay people. It doesn't get more people into more trains. Only more frequent and longer trains can do that, and that is dependent on the length of the platform and how many trains can move through a given tunnel an hour, the mezzanine is extraneous. It makes people not want to take the train by introducing bottlenecks by making you go through another set of stairs or escalator. But I'm sure the expenses associated with the mezzanine lines a bunch of people's pockets, so I wouldn't expect sensible design to come into fold anytime soon in our contractor-graft based country.

DrBazza 6y ago
In London (where I commute), without 'mezzanine levels' or their equivalent, there's nowhere to queue and everyone would squeeze onto the platform which is a safety issue and then the police and/or the railway staff would close the station. This happens frequently when we have problems with the track or trains. London has terminus stations - the platform the train arrives on is where the train stops, and then starts on its return journey. Trains to your destination are therefore limited by signalling and traffic, typically a 10-15 minute turn around time. On average, in London during rush hour, you have a train to your home station every 20 minutes. Perhaps in the US all major stations are through stations, but in the UK, especially London, we just don't have that, and mezzanines are at the very minimum, a safety requirement, because the platform your train leaves from, has other passengers waiting for other trains before your one. Platforms are not large, and trains are very, very busy, and frankly, if you've only ever caught a train in the US you are in for a huge surprise commuting in the UK. If the US ever adopted trains like the rest of the world has, the best time for building mezzanines, and huge stations is "yesterday".
- arthurdenture 6y ago
  You're comparing regional rail terminal stations, which serve many lower-frequency lines, to subway platforms, which typically serve a single higher-frequency line. (2-10 minutes between trains.) That's the scenario where a mezzanine is less useful.
- asdff 6y ago