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> It's sad how little the US has invested in maintaining its public transit infrastructure compared to other countries. I'm on the fence about this, on average

> It's sad how little the US has invested in maintaining its public transit infrastructure compared to other countries. I'm on the fence about this, on average across the US, I'd agree. But where we do have decent transit, we seem to spend a lot. The NY MTA will spend $18B[1] in total in 2022, more than 6x the amount the state spends on all state roads in NY for 2018[2]. Despite this amount of money being spent, we have the general problems that you mention above, plus the fact that any expansion is prohibitively expensive. I just have to wonder, even if a lot more money were spent, would we actually see proportional improvements? [1] https://www.osc.state.ny.us/files/reports/osdc/pdf/report-10-2022.pdf https://www.osc.state.ny.us/files/reports/osdc/pdf/report-10... [2] https://cbcny.org/research/building-sound-fiscal-future-new-yorks-highway-and-mass-transit-systems https://cbcny.org/research/building-sound-fiscal-future-new-...

crote 4y ago
I do not live in NYC, so please correct me if I am wrong, but both can be true at the same time. Looking specifically at the NYC subway, they are both over-spending and under-spending at the same time. In a nice example of the Boots Theory[0], they are spending money by the boatloads to keep the dating infrastructure working. A lot of it dates back to the 1930s, and it is impossible to get replacement parts. A newer system would be far easier and cheaper to maintain - but in the short term replacing it would be an enormous cost. This is made even worse by it running 24/7. Without a maintenance window, doing proper preventative maintenance is pretty much impossible. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory
- mbiondi 4y ago
  I never heard of the Boots Theory before now, but I don't think it applies to the MTA. They buy the top of the line. And will build their own parts if it doesn't exist. It's not unusual for subway cars to run for millions of miles and last decades. The R32's were deployed in the 1930's and lasted until the early 2000's [0]. I am a New Yorker, and have seen the MTA do maintenance at night or over a weekend. Or, if things are desperate, during the day. I don't know the real issues either, but always assumed politics played a big part. [0] -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R32_(New_York_City_Subway_car) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R32_(New_York_City_Subway_car)
  - lmm 4y ago
    > They buy the top of the line. And will build their own parts if it doesn't exist. It's not unusual for subway cars to run for millions of miles and last decades. The R32's were deployed in the 1930's and lasted until the early 2000's [0]. That doesn't seem to contradict th idea that they've spent far more money maintaining obsolete equipment when buying new would be cheaper overall. (Not really "boots theory" though).
  - profile53 4y ago
    It’s worth noting their entire switching infrastructure is human run mechanical switches and the tech are dated enough the MTA can’t even reliably know where a given subway car is. By comparison, most subway systems have a computerized switching infrastructure with real time computerized tracking of cars, saving quite-literally millions of man hours a year of work.
mbiondi 4y ago
A lot of the MTA's budget is spent on interest on their debt (about $4 Billion / year). Page 23 of your report shows they currently have about $45 Billion in outstanding bonds. A cursory view seems to show about $6 Billion is to cover capital projects, which makes one wonder what the other 39 Billion was issued for.
- Someone 4y ago
  To cover the gap between expenses and decreased income and for pensions, it seems. http://www.columbia.edu/~kyl2120/mtaproject/ http://www.columbia.edu/~kyl2120/mtaproject/: “One big chunk of revenues, about $5.5 billion in 2013, comes from fares, which has steadily increased since in the last decade on the back of growing ridership and two fare hikes. But it’s been nothing drastic. Instead, the drama has come from the other major component for the MTA’s revenues: taxes, grants and subsidies that are routed through the city and state governments. In 2013, for instance, “grants, appropriation and taxes” brought in about $5.3 billion in revenues. Large components of these revenues are linked to taxes levied on real-estate transactions in New York. The Mortgage Recording Tax is among the prime sources, collected in New York City and the seven other counties within the MTA’s service area. 30 cents per 100 dollars of recorded mortgages, and 0.25 of one percent of certain other mortgages, are paid into this. In 2005, before the great recession, it raised $1.3 billion. And in 2009, in the depths of the great depression, it raised $350 million. It’s hard running an agency, especially one so big, with such volatile revenue sources,” explained Russianoff. “The others don’t come close to the Mortgage Recording Tax but they have their volatility as well.” […] But the same manpower is also turned into a sort of liability, partly due to the MTA’s own doing. “All the benefits have begun costing a lot and the MTA, for a long time, had a deal where they would basically give retirement benefits after 10 years,” explained Jain. “So people would go find other jobs, or they would retire and go find another job. And when the time comes, they’d be collecting retirement benefits.”

crote 4y ago

I do not live in NYC, so please correct me if I am wrong, but both can be true at the same time. Looking specifically at the NYC subway, they are both over-spending and under-spending at the same time. In a nice example of the Boots Theory[0], they are spending money by the boatloads to keep the dating infrastructure working. A lot of it dates back to the 1930s, and it is impossible to get replacement parts. A newer system would be far easier and cheaper to maintain - but in the short term replacing it would be an enormous cost. This is made even worse by it running 24/7. Without a maintenance window, doing proper preventative maintenance is pretty much impossible. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boots_theory

mbiondi 4y ago
I never heard of the Boots Theory before now, but I don't think it applies to the MTA. They buy the top of the line. And will build their own parts if it doesn't exist. It's not unusual for subway cars to run for millions of miles and last decades. The R32's were deployed in the 1930's and lasted until the early 2000's [0]. I am a New Yorker, and have seen the MTA do maintenance at night or over a weekend. Or, if things are desperate, during the day. I don't know the real issues either, but always assumed politics played a big part. [0] -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R32_(New_York_City_Subway_car) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R32_(New_York_City_Subway_car)
- lmm 4y ago
  > They buy the top of the line. And will build their own parts if it doesn't exist. It's not unusual for subway cars to run for millions of miles and last decades. The R32's were deployed in the 1930's and lasted until the early 2000's [0]. That doesn't seem to contradict th idea that they've spent far more money maintaining obsolete equipment when buying new would be cheaper overall. (Not really "boots theory" though).
- profile53 4y ago
  It’s worth noting their entire switching infrastructure is human run mechanical switches and the tech are dated enough the MTA can’t even reliably know where a given subway car is. By comparison, most subway systems have a computerized switching infrastructure with real time computerized tracking of cars, saving quite-literally millions of man hours a year of work.

mbiondi 4y ago

A lot of the MTA's budget is spent on interest on their debt (about $4 Billion / year). Page 23 of your report shows they currently have about $45 Billion in outstanding bonds. A cursory view seems to show about $6 Billion is to cover capital projects, which makes one wonder what the other 39 Billion was issued for.

Someone 4y ago
To cover the gap between expenses and decreased income and for pensions, it seems. http://www.columbia.edu/~kyl2120/mtaproject/ http://www.columbia.edu/~kyl2120/mtaproject/: “One big chunk of revenues, about $5.5 billion in 2013, comes from fares, which has steadily increased since in the last decade on the back of growing ridership and two fare hikes. But it’s been nothing drastic. Instead, the drama has come from the other major component for the MTA’s revenues: taxes, grants and subsidies that are routed through the city and state governments. In 2013, for instance, “grants, appropriation and taxes” brought in about $5.3 billion in revenues. Large components of these revenues are linked to taxes levied on real-estate transactions in New York. The Mortgage Recording Tax is among the prime sources, collected in New York City and the seven other counties within the MTA’s service area. 30 cents per 100 dollars of recorded mortgages, and 0.25 of one percent of certain other mortgages, are paid into this. In 2005, before the great recession, it raised $1.3 billion. And in 2009, in the depths of the great depression, it raised $350 million. It’s hard running an agency, especially one so big, with such volatile revenue sources,” explained Russianoff. “The others don’t come close to the Mortgage Recording Tax but they have their volatility as well.” […] But the same manpower is also turned into a sort of liability, partly due to the MTA’s own doing. “All the benefits have begun costing a lot and the MTA, for a long time, had a deal where they would basically give retirement benefits after 10 years,” explained Jain. “So people would go find other jobs, or they would retire and go find another job. And when the time comes, they’d be collecting retirement benefits.”