8 ms·

My main concern as NYer is the governments inability to build transit, and not for lack of money. NY will find it relatively easy to institute a new tax on dri

My main concern as NYer is the governments inability to build transit, and not for lack of money. NY will find it relatively easy to institute a new tax on drivers, but will the billions collected actually make transit better in any tangible way? NYC is also hamstrung by having its streets controlled locally by our DOT, but our transit & bridges controlled by a state agency. We just caved (again) entirely to the transit unions in the last contract negotiation. We have subway lines & trains wired up for 1 man operation but run them staffed with 2 due to union work rules. We have for years instead of building elevators, paid 3rd party access-a-ride minibus/van drivers to provide Uber-like service to anyone in need. We are planning to spend something like $3B/mile to expand a single train line a few stops further north. The MTA estimates they can put in platform doors like other developed world cities in only 1/3 of stations, at an average cost of $50M/station. We spent something close to $10B building an entire new terminal for LIRR underneath an existing Metro North terminal when there was enough capacity to serve both out of the existing station. Bureaucratic squabbles between divisions of MTA serving LI & NY/CT were mitigated by spending $10B. Oh and for the average LIRR rider, despite having 2 Manhattan terminals they can get a train to, the net service has actually been reduced in terms of trains per day. We basically need a modern era Robert Moses to consolidate NYC DOT/MTA/Port Authority and whatever other agencies and bring us into the modern era.

Hikikomori 3y ago
>We basically need a modern era Robert Moses to consolidate NYC DOT/MTA/Port Authority and whatever other agencies and bring us into the modern era. Idk about that, maybe a less racist one. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_Broker https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_Broker https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236323/episode/part-one-the-man-who-ruined-99056594/ https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236...
- steveBK123 3y ago
  Yeah, he was a terrible guy and all. But stuff got built. The current inability to build anything is almost a direct result. They delegated decision making to an alphabet soup of agencies at different levels of jurisdiction so it's impossible to get anything done. Because there are so many agencies, you can't for example easily put in a busway because you need NYC DOT, MTA, NYS DOT, city council and mayor to all be on board. Too many people have veto, so nothing gets done. Living in NYC for long, it quickly becomes apparently the vast majority of our built infrastructure was built from 1930-1960 and has frozen in time since.
  - steveBK123 3y ago
    Another great example is the fact that the BQE cantilever is probably going to collapse before anyone can agree on how to replace it and do so. So far we have reduced a lane to minimize wear & tear, reduced max tonnage for trucks going over it, and are installing advanced automated ticketing to ticket big trucks attempting to go over it. That's well and good, but salt water corrosion and bureaucratic inertia are going to get some people killed at this rate. And let's not pretend it can simply be done away with. Where do we expect all the goods & services flowing in/out of the city via truck to go otherwise.. local roads through city streets.. how is this not a significantly worse outcome? Right now we have a lot of vetos with different agendas - anti-car degrowrethers, NIMBY rich BK Heights owners praying on their lottery ticket if their park expands & view improves, and bureaucrats happy to not have to spend $BBillions to replace the thing. Sometimes living in NYC feels like the opposite of an headline I once saw re: Japan & Italy, where their strategy was described as "Beautiful decline"... for NYC its Ugly Decline. "I don't own a car" is often a mantra of folks who think we can simply do away with infra like the BQE for example. People live frictionless lives in their apps, clicking buttons and goods just magically appear at their doorstep. The gritty truth of how those goods get there is another story. On another note, we apparently are incapable of putting trash in bins, for many reasons. One of which is that the DSNY unions would need to be negotiated with. So for our great push to reduce the rat infestation in the city, we've done the dumbest, least effective, most costliest stuff instead. Rather than mandating containerized garbage or moving up trash collection times to be overnight, what did the city do? Mandate buildings put out trash after 8pm instead of 6pm. Mind you it's not picked up until 6am. So the rats have a 10 hour feast instead of a 12 hour feast, how does this make a difference? And what is the cost? Every single building in the city now needs staff schedules shifted or expanded such that their super/porter/maintenance guy is around after 8pm to take out trash. For the city, it's "free", they don't have to budget anything. But for residents, its yet another cost of living with really no benefit.
    - MrMan 3y ago
      [dead]
    - master_crab 3y ago
- bradleyjg 3y ago
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  - nemo44x 3y ago
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agotterer 3y ago
Quite a few of our transit problems today are actually because of the choices Robert Moses made. However, he certainly is responsible for the rapid growth of the transit system and did a great job consolidating power and getting stuff done. * He had the chance to buy the land and put transit along many highways in queens and Long Island but said that people would prefer to drive so he passed on the opportunity. Acquiring those rights today would be unaffordable and likely impossible. * Moses didn’t want black people going to Jones Beach (his pride and joy). To prevent them from visiting he built the overpasses on the highways that go to the beach lower so that buses from the city couldn’t fit. I highly recommend the book The Power Broker which is a deep dive on the history of Robert Moses. The book is very long and can be a bit dry at times. But I learned a lot about the history of New York and why some things that we enjoy and suffer through today are the way they are.
- steveBK123 3y ago
  I'm well aware of his history, and it's always interesting to me how few bad things people can point to that he actually did.. when weighed against all the transit/bridges/tunnels/highways build under his watch. I mean the first thing is a crime of omission, made in basically every other city of the country - where have we seen land be purchased along highways to build transit done anywhere in this country? Even new bridges built by allegedly progressive administrations continue to neglect putting in train tracks. The second one is obviously morally wrong, though even that is in dispute. Many "parkways" built at that time had similarly short bridges, look to the Merritt Parkway in CT for example. Also, you can presently get there by bus - https://new.mta.info/guides/beaches/jones-beach https://new.mta.info/guides/beaches/jones-beach In fact, it seems it was accessible by bus when it opened, including having bus drop offs advertised in the opening story - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-09/robert-moses-and-his-racist-parkway-explained https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-09/robert-mo...
  - timeon 3y ago
    So what do you think about Jane Jacobs?
Reason077 3y ago
To be fair, London has looked at the platform screen doors thing a few times too and dismissed it as unaffordable. New lines get PSDs but there doesn’t seem to be a realistic prospect of retrofitting existing ones any time soon.
- steveBK123 3y ago
  And yet NYC having built only a handful of stations in the last 40 years, couldn't be bothered to include them even there.
  - f33d5173 3y ago
    I imagine the difficulty would be in ensuring that the train lines up exactly with the doors. In that cade, retrofitting would need to apply to the train and control system, not just the platform itself.
    - steveBK123 3y ago
      There in lies the rub. Doing things is always harder than not doing things. Agreed. They built a new line on second Ave with cavernous station mezzanines and couldn’t be bothered with doors there either. Track, signals, trains were all new.
    - devb 3y ago
      That's not the issue. Union Square on the Park Avenue line and the old South Ferry on the 7th Avenue line both had platform "gap fillers" installed decades ago that require the train to stop at an exact location each and every time: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/14th-street-union-square-moving-platforms https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/14th-street-union-square... Every station has lining boards that the conductor must check before opening the doors to ensure that the entire train is stopped along the platform: https://www.topic.com/conduct-yourself https://www.topic.com/conduct-yourself
      - Reason077 3y ago
bradleyjg 3y ago
We basically need a modern era Robert Moses to consolidate NYC DOT/MTA/Port Authority and whatever other agencies and bring us into the modern era. You’d first need a strong governor to jam the necessary enabling legislation through Albany and DC. They only strong governor we’ve had in decades was too insecure to allow an independent personality anywhere around and forced out Andy Byford instead of promoting him.
bradleyjg 3y ago
We spent something close to $10B building an entire new terminal for LIRR underneath an existing Metro North terminal when there was enough capacity to serve both out of the existing station. Bureaucratic squabbles between divisions of MTA serving LI & NY/CT were mitigated by spending $10B. Oh and for the average LIRR rider, despite having 2 Manhattan terminals they can get a train to, the net service has actually been reduced in terms of trains per day. Not just trains per day. The synchronization at Jamaica has been totally destroyed. Commute times during peak hours on several lines have increased by 20%. That’s a lot of hours of human life destroyed by incompetence.
QIYGT 3y ago
Even if the money is lit on fire, the reduction in cars entering the city will be a huge benefit.
- steveBK123 3y ago
  I just don't think the pricing is going to meaningfully impact the cars entering the city, nor is it going to reduce the main congestion of ride hailing vehicles on every inch of Manhattan street. The charge is $23 peak / $17 off-peak. Existing city tunnel tolls are already $17ish. The fact that Uber publicly supports congestion pricing tells you everything you need to know about how it's going to impact ride hail congestion of our city streets. https://www.uber.com/blog/new-york/uber-supports-congestion-pricing/ https://www.uber.com/blog/new-york/uber-supports-congestion-... There's already a measly $2.75 per ride fee added on for congestion, which is trivial given choosing an Uber vs subway costs $20-50 more than taking the subway.
  - pkulak 3y ago
    Pricing always effects demand. If it’s not enough, double it next year. Keep doing it until you can have conversation in the greatest city in NA without being drowned out by car horns.
returningfory2 3y ago
I agree with your points, but I don’t think they undermine congestion pricing. Even if you take all the congestion tolls and, like, toss them in the Hudson River, the program is still worthwhile. Just getting people to pay to drive into Manhattan is good in-and-of-itself.
- steveBK123 3y ago
  I'm not convinced the congestion IN the city is caused by people coming in from OUT of the city. The density of for hire vehicles in the ride hailing era is tremendous. Further, given how expensive tolls already are to get into the city, whats another $20 for many people? A lot of reactions I've heard from people have been either "great it will keep those bridge & tunnel people out" or "great, now I can pay the toll and have less traffic". Neither of these seem like the congestion pricing is going to work as intended. It probably needs to be 3x the price, and have onerous per-ride charges for ride hail users. I think we can also expect a lot of arbitrage of people congesting up the area just outside the zone to hop onto transit there, which would be fine if we planned to actually build any or expand service to accommodate! Great if you live in SoHo, bad if you live in Harlem.
- winternett 3y ago
  The last time I drove into downtown Manhattan, just inches form the bridge, I was immediately pulled over by NYPD and given an excessive $150 ticket for the window tints on my car. I demonstrated to the officer that Range Rover made them that way from the factory *limo tint" and that it was legal in my home state, but they had shown that they apparently have always had the inclination to pull people over for bogus minor things in cities like it as an entry tax anyway as the "officer" said "He could drag me and my entire family in the car down to the precinct if he wanted to"... This way they probably don't need to pay police salaries and they just automate the unexpected tax probably. States are the new mafia... Phony "protection fees" and miscellaneous taxes are now more real than before, maybe because the old guard has now transitioned into NY GoV/council/desk jobs?
  - steveBK123 3y ago
    So that's pretty wild because within the city, they are epically indifferent to enforcement. There's been a recent epidemic of defaced / quasi legal out of state registered / fake or illegally purchased paper temp tags so people could avoid tolls and tickets.. largely unenforced by cops as they are often the perpetrators.. https://www.streetsblogprojects.org/ghost-tags-part-1-the-dealers https://www.streetsblogprojects.org/ghost-tags-part-1-the-de...
markdown 3y ago
> We have subway lines & trains wired up for 1 man operation but run them staffed with 2 due to union work rules. It's a city of 8M people. What's the difference between 1 and 2 here, really?
- steveBK123 3y ago
  The inability to find efficiencies is what leads to ever spiraling costs. And further we have worst of both worlds. We paid for tech infrastructure costs to support lower staffing but are still paying for all the full staffing.
  - markdown 3y ago
    But it's an absurd claim to make that this multi-billion dollar operation that carries millions of people isn't doing well because trains have one extra person on each train.
- SkyPuncher 3y ago
  It’s a weird point, I don’t get it. The argument is basically “NYC is flooded with transit money, but they can’t use it. Oh by the way, why are there 2 sub drivers?” The issue OP is making is much larger than 1x or 2x on each train.
ryandrake 3y ago
> We are planning to spend something like $3B/mile to expand a single train line a few stops further north. > The MTA estimates they can put in platform doors like other developed world cities in only 1/3 of stations, at an average cost of $50M/station. > We spent something close to $10B building an entire new terminal for LIRR I'd love to see the itemized bills that add up to these values. We all know this isn't what labor and materials cost. Defenders will say "oh, it pays for environmental studies, and lawyers, and consultants..." OK, itemize those too. Let everyone see the numbers for everything and that it adds up to $10B without $7B mysteriously disappearing, un-accounted for.
- brewdad 3y ago
  As a public agency, are these numbers not available? If not, why? I wouldn’t expect them to buy a special section in The NY Times to publish them to the world but surely the numbers are available to someone willing to put in a little work to find them.
  - woodruffw 3y ago
    The MTA is a state (not city) authority, not an agency. It's effectively a quasi-private corporation[1] with board members who are appointed by elected officials, with special carveouts that allow them to be less transparent than an equivalent agency would be. The use of authorities in NY law is pretty old, but Robert Moses was the one responsible for really widely encouraging their use; it wouldn't be unreasonable to argue that the MTA's culture of secrecy and opacity is largely a product of Moses' own power plays. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_state_public-benefit_corporations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_state_public-benefit_...
- pcurve 3y ago
  MTA costs make the Boston Big Dig look like a bargain, even at $22 billion. I'm convinced, if they contract this out to first-tier construction firms from oversea that specialize in underground infrastructure (e.g. Europe, Japan, Korea), they can get the job done at 1/3rd the cost.
wldcordeiro 3y ago
> We just caved (again) entirely to the transit unions in the last contract negotiation. We have subway lines & trains wired up for 1 man operation but run them staffed with 2 due to union work rules. I don't think this is a good point to make when we've literally had several disastrous derailments thanks to poor regulations and rules around safety and train companies attacking unions. The transit unions are absolutely right to demand 2 workers for fail safes, "efficiency" isn't the be-all-end-all goal especially when you're talking about trains full of people who could die in an accident.
- steveBK123 3y ago
  They are not redundant and fail safe. One sits at the front & controls the driving. The other sits in the middle of train, 5 cars back & controls doors. Nothing about having the two of them creates redundancy.
  - eggy 3y ago
    The train is not moving or being driven when the doors need to open and close. Why can't one person do it? I am sure there is an interlock, but this makes the tasks sequential, so the doors must be closed before taking off.
    - steveBK123 3y ago
      Yes, that's my point. One person very much can do it. There are train lines that have their signals & stations setup for this, and the trains prepared for this mode of operations. The MTA keeps caving to the unions so that the trains remain staffed with 2.
      - zuminator 3y ago
        What's more although the train operator (driver) can open and close doors, the conductor (doorman) is not certified to operate trains and thus provides no emergency redundancy except perhaps in terms of crowd control.
- 3y ago
USB5 3y ago
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websap 3y ago
Yup the state of the subway infrastructure is worrisome.
throwaway743 3y ago
Please, let's not have another Robert Moses. Dude was power hungry scumbag
closeparen 3y ago
Congestion pricing is good insofar as it deters driving. We do need to get our heads out of our asses with respect to the logistics of converting dollars to transit infrastructure, but that's basically independent. Congestion pricing revenue could be given to your favorite charity, redistributed as a citizen's dividend, or lit on fire. The important thing is that as the marginal driver the amount you have to part with is painful enough to you to change your behavior. In any other US metro area, there is perhaps a realist argument that roads work fine for 98% of trips and trains are too much of a boondoggle for their marginal contribution to capacity. But this is Manhattan. Forget for a moment about urbanism, environmentalism, etc. If the MTA melted down tomorrow, no appreciable portion of its riders could fall back on driving, as a matter of geometry.
- nayuki 3y ago
  You're right. Congestion pricing affects the psychology of the driver, regardless of where the money goes - even if it's set on fire (thus causing a minuscule amount of deflation). To assign the congestion money to a specific project, like public transit, is an act of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_accounting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_accounting . I would say that putting the money into the city's general fund is the least bad solution. This is because if congestion monies were put to a specific program like public transit / subsidies for the poor / etc., it becomes more complicated to ensure that those programs receive enough funding but also not too much.
- philwelch 3y ago
  I’d go a little further than that. If you enact a Pigovian tax (i.e. a tax intended to reduce some unwanted behavior), there’s a conflict of interest in relying on that revenue for anything because then there is an incentive to try and keep the tax rates lower in order to protect the revenue source.
  - closeparen 3y ago
    Exactly. ”A tax on drivers” as the parent put it is actually a failure scenario here. Everybody gets low-grade immiserated by the tax but congestion is not reduced enough to improve quality of life.
hahahasotrue 3y ago
I can hear China laughing at us right about now!

Hikikomori 3y ago

>We basically need a modern era Robert Moses to consolidate NYC DOT/MTA/Port Authority and whatever other agencies and bring us into the modern era. Idk about that, maybe a less racist one. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_Broker https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Power_Broker https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236323/episode/part-one-the-man-who-ruined-99056594/ https://www.iheart.com/podcast/105-behind-the-bastards-29236...

steveBK123 3y ago
Yeah, he was a terrible guy and all. But stuff got built. The current inability to build anything is almost a direct result. They delegated decision making to an alphabet soup of agencies at different levels of jurisdiction so it's impossible to get anything done. Because there are so many agencies, you can't for example easily put in a busway because you need NYC DOT, MTA, NYS DOT, city council and mayor to all be on board. Too many people have veto, so nothing gets done. Living in NYC for long, it quickly becomes apparently the vast majority of our built infrastructure was built from 1930-1960 and has frozen in time since.
- steveBK123 3y ago
  Another great example is the fact that the BQE cantilever is probably going to collapse before anyone can agree on how to replace it and do so. So far we have reduced a lane to minimize wear & tear, reduced max tonnage for trucks going over it, and are installing advanced automated ticketing to ticket big trucks attempting to go over it. That's well and good, but salt water corrosion and bureaucratic inertia are going to get some people killed at this rate. And let's not pretend it can simply be done away with. Where do we expect all the goods & services flowing in/out of the city via truck to go otherwise.. local roads through city streets.. how is this not a significantly worse outcome? Right now we have a lot of vetos with different agendas - anti-car degrowrethers, NIMBY rich BK Heights owners praying on their lottery ticket if their park expands & view improves, and bureaucrats happy to not have to spend $BBillions to replace the thing. Sometimes living in NYC feels like the opposite of an headline I once saw re: Japan & Italy, where their strategy was described as "Beautiful decline"... for NYC its Ugly Decline. "I don't own a car" is often a mantra of folks who think we can simply do away with infra like the BQE for example. People live frictionless lives in their apps, clicking buttons and goods just magically appear at their doorstep. The gritty truth of how those goods get there is another story. On another note, we apparently are incapable of putting trash in bins, for many reasons. One of which is that the DSNY unions would need to be negotiated with. So for our great push to reduce the rat infestation in the city, we've done the dumbest, least effective, most costliest stuff instead. Rather than mandating containerized garbage or moving up trash collection times to be overnight, what did the city do? Mandate buildings put out trash after 8pm instead of 6pm. Mind you it's not picked up until 6am. So the rats have a 10 hour feast instead of a 12 hour feast, how does this make a difference? And what is the cost? Every single building in the city now needs staff schedules shifted or expanded such that their super/porter/maintenance guy is around after 8pm to take out trash. For the city, it's "free", they don't have to budget anything. But for residents, its yet another cost of living with really no benefit.
  - MrMan 3y ago
    [dead]
  - master_crab 3y ago
bradleyjg 3y ago
[flagged]
- nemo44x 3y ago
  [flagged]

agotterer 3y ago

Quite a few of our transit problems today are actually because of the choices Robert Moses made. However, he certainly is responsible for the rapid growth of the transit system and did a great job consolidating power and getting stuff done. * He had the chance to buy the land and put transit along many highways in queens and Long Island but said that people would prefer to drive so he passed on the opportunity. Acquiring those rights today would be unaffordable and likely impossible. * Moses didn’t want black people going to Jones Beach (his pride and joy). To prevent them from visiting he built the overpasses on the highways that go to the beach lower so that buses from the city couldn’t fit. I highly recommend the book The Power Broker which is a deep dive on the history of Robert Moses. The book is very long and can be a bit dry at times. But I learned a lot about the history of New York and why some things that we enjoy and suffer through today are the way they are.

steveBK123 3y ago
I'm well aware of his history, and it's always interesting to me how few bad things people can point to that he actually did.. when weighed against all the transit/bridges/tunnels/highways build under his watch. I mean the first thing is a crime of omission, made in basically every other city of the country - where have we seen land be purchased along highways to build transit done anywhere in this country? Even new bridges built by allegedly progressive administrations continue to neglect putting in train tracks. The second one is obviously morally wrong, though even that is in dispute. Many "parkways" built at that time had similarly short bridges, look to the Merritt Parkway in CT for example. Also, you can presently get there by bus - https://new.mta.info/guides/beaches/jones-beach https://new.mta.info/guides/beaches/jones-beach In fact, it seems it was accessible by bus when it opened, including having bus drop offs advertised in the opening story - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-09/robert-moses-and-his-racist-parkway-explained https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-07-09/robert-mo...
- timeon 3y ago
  So what do you think about Jane Jacobs?

Reason077 3y ago

To be fair, London has looked at the platform screen doors thing a few times too and dismissed it as unaffordable. New lines get PSDs but there doesn’t seem to be a realistic prospect of retrofitting existing ones any time soon.

steveBK123 3y ago
And yet NYC having built only a handful of stations in the last 40 years, couldn't be bothered to include them even there.
- f33d5173 3y ago
  I imagine the difficulty would be in ensuring that the train lines up exactly with the doors. In that cade, retrofitting would need to apply to the train and control system, not just the platform itself.
  - steveBK123 3y ago
    There in lies the rub. Doing things is always harder than not doing things. Agreed. They built a new line on second Ave with cavernous station mezzanines and couldn’t be bothered with doors there either. Track, signals, trains were all new.
  - devb 3y ago
    That's not the issue. Union Square on the Park Avenue line and the old South Ferry on the 7th Avenue line both had platform "gap fillers" installed decades ago that require the train to stop at an exact location each and every time: https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/14th-street-union-square-moving-platforms https://www.atlasobscura.com/places/14th-street-union-square... Every station has lining boards that the conductor must check before opening the doors to ensure that the entire train is stopped along the platform: https://www.topic.com/conduct-yourself https://www.topic.com/conduct-yourself
    - Reason077 3y ago

bradleyjg 3y ago

We basically need a modern era Robert Moses to consolidate NYC DOT/MTA/Port Authority and whatever other agencies and bring us into the modern era. You’d first need a strong governor to jam the necessary enabling legislation through Albany and DC. They only strong governor we’ve had in decades was too insecure to allow an independent personality anywhere around and forced out Andy Byford instead of promoting him.

bradleyjg 3y ago

We spent something close to $10B building an entire new terminal for LIRR underneath an existing Metro North terminal when there was enough capacity to serve both out of the existing station. Bureaucratic squabbles between divisions of MTA serving LI & NY/CT were mitigated by spending $10B. Oh and for the average LIRR rider, despite having 2 Manhattan terminals they can get a train to, the net service has actually been reduced in terms of trains per day. Not just trains per day. The synchronization at Jamaica has been totally destroyed. Commute times during peak hours on several lines have increased by 20%. That’s a lot of hours of human life destroyed by incompetence.

QIYGT 3y ago

Even if the money is lit on fire, the reduction in cars entering the city will be a huge benefit.

steveBK123 3y ago
I just don't think the pricing is going to meaningfully impact the cars entering the city, nor is it going to reduce the main congestion of ride hailing vehicles on every inch of Manhattan street. The charge is $23 peak / $17 off-peak. Existing city tunnel tolls are already $17ish. The fact that Uber publicly supports congestion pricing tells you everything you need to know about how it's going to impact ride hail congestion of our city streets. https://www.uber.com/blog/new-york/uber-supports-congestion-pricing/ https://www.uber.com/blog/new-york/uber-supports-congestion-... There's already a measly $2.75 per ride fee added on for congestion, which is trivial given choosing an Uber vs subway costs $20-50 more than taking the subway.
- pkulak 3y ago
  Pricing always effects demand. If it’s not enough, double it next year. Keep doing it until you can have conversation in the greatest city in NA without being drowned out by car horns.

returningfory2 3y ago

I agree with your points, but I don’t think they undermine congestion pricing. Even if you take all the congestion tolls and, like, toss them in the Hudson River, the program is still worthwhile. Just getting people to pay to drive into Manhattan is good in-and-of-itself.

steveBK123 3y ago
I'm not convinced the congestion IN the city is caused by people coming in from OUT of the city. The density of for hire vehicles in the ride hailing era is tremendous. Further, given how expensive tolls already are to get into the city, whats another $20 for many people? A lot of reactions I've heard from people have been either "great it will keep those bridge & tunnel people out" or "great, now I can pay the toll and have less traffic". Neither of these seem like the congestion pricing is going to work as intended. It probably needs to be 3x the price, and have onerous per-ride charges for ride hail users. I think we can also expect a lot of arbitrage of people congesting up the area just outside the zone to hop onto transit there, which would be fine if we planned to actually build any or expand service to accommodate! Great if you live in SoHo, bad if you live in Harlem.
winternett 3y ago
The last time I drove into downtown Manhattan, just inches form the bridge, I was immediately pulled over by NYPD and given an excessive $150 ticket for the window tints on my car. I demonstrated to the officer that Range Rover made them that way from the factory *limo tint" and that it was legal in my home state, but they had shown that they apparently have always had the inclination to pull people over for bogus minor things in cities like it as an entry tax anyway as the "officer" said "He could drag me and my entire family in the car down to the precinct if he wanted to"... This way they probably don't need to pay police salaries and they just automate the unexpected tax probably. States are the new mafia... Phony "protection fees" and miscellaneous taxes are now more real than before, maybe because the old guard has now transitioned into NY GoV/council/desk jobs?
- steveBK123 3y ago
  So that's pretty wild because within the city, they are epically indifferent to enforcement. There's been a recent epidemic of defaced / quasi legal out of state registered / fake or illegally purchased paper temp tags so people could avoid tolls and tickets.. largely unenforced by cops as they are often the perpetrators.. https://www.streetsblogprojects.org/ghost-tags-part-1-the-dealers https://www.streetsblogprojects.org/ghost-tags-part-1-the-de...

markdown 3y ago

> We have subway lines & trains wired up for 1 man operation but run them staffed with 2 due to union work rules. It's a city of 8M people. What's the difference between 1 and 2 here, really?

steveBK123 3y ago
The inability to find efficiencies is what leads to ever spiraling costs. And further we have worst of both worlds. We paid for tech infrastructure costs to support lower staffing but are still paying for all the full staffing.
- markdown 3y ago
  But it's an absurd claim to make that this multi-billion dollar operation that carries millions of people isn't doing well because trains have one extra person on each train.
SkyPuncher 3y ago
It’s a weird point, I don’t get it. The argument is basically “NYC is flooded with transit money, but they can’t use it. Oh by the way, why are there 2 sub drivers?” The issue OP is making is much larger than 1x or 2x on each train.

ryandrake 3y ago

> We are planning to spend something like $3B/mile to expand a single train line a few stops further north. > The MTA estimates they can put in platform doors like other developed world cities in only 1/3 of stations, at an average cost of $50M/station. > We spent something close to $10B building an entire new terminal for LIRR I'd love to see the itemized bills that add up to these values. We all know this isn't what labor and materials cost. Defenders will say "oh, it pays for environmental studies, and lawyers, and consultants..." OK, itemize those too. Let everyone see the numbers for everything and that it adds up to $10B without $7B mysteriously disappearing, un-accounted for.

brewdad 3y ago
As a public agency, are these numbers not available? If not, why? I wouldn’t expect them to buy a special section in The NY Times to publish them to the world but surely the numbers are available to someone willing to put in a little work to find them.
- woodruffw 3y ago
  The MTA is a state (not city) authority, not an agency. It's effectively a quasi-private corporation[1] with board members who are appointed by elected officials, with special carveouts that allow them to be less transparent than an equivalent agency would be. The use of authorities in NY law is pretty old, but Robert Moses was the one responsible for really widely encouraging their use; it wouldn't be unreasonable to argue that the MTA's culture of secrecy and opacity is largely a product of Moses' own power plays. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_state_public-benefit_corporations https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_York_state_public-benefit_...
pcurve 3y ago
MTA costs make the Boston Big Dig look like a bargain, even at $22 billion. I'm convinced, if they contract this out to first-tier construction firms from oversea that specialize in underground infrastructure (e.g. Europe, Japan, Korea), they can get the job done at 1/3rd the cost.

wldcordeiro 3y ago

> We just caved (again) entirely to the transit unions in the last contract negotiation. We have subway lines & trains wired up for 1 man operation but run them staffed with 2 due to union work rules. I don't think this is a good point to make when we've literally had several disastrous derailments thanks to poor regulations and rules around safety and train companies attacking unions. The transit unions are absolutely right to demand 2 workers for fail safes, "efficiency" isn't the be-all-end-all goal especially when you're talking about trains full of people who could die in an accident.

steveBK123 3y ago
They are not redundant and fail safe. One sits at the front & controls the driving. The other sits in the middle of train, 5 cars back & controls doors. Nothing about having the two of them creates redundancy.
- eggy 3y ago
  The train is not moving or being driven when the doors need to open and close. Why can't one person do it? I am sure there is an interlock, but this makes the tasks sequential, so the doors must be closed before taking off.
  - steveBK123 3y ago
    Yes, that's my point. One person very much can do it. There are train lines that have their signals & stations setup for this, and the trains prepared for this mode of operations. The MTA keeps caving to the unions so that the trains remain staffed with 2.
    - zuminator 3y ago
      What's more although the train operator (driver) can open and close doors, the conductor (doorman) is not certified to operate trains and thus provides no emergency redundancy except perhaps in terms of crowd control.
3y ago

USB5 3y ago

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websap 3y ago

Yup the state of the subway infrastructure is worrisome.

throwaway743 3y ago

Please, let's not have another Robert Moses. Dude was power hungry scumbag

closeparen 3y ago

Congestion pricing is good insofar as it deters driving. We do need to get our heads out of our asses with respect to the logistics of converting dollars to transit infrastructure, but that's basically independent. Congestion pricing revenue could be given to your favorite charity, redistributed as a citizen's dividend, or lit on fire. The important thing is that as the marginal driver the amount you have to part with is painful enough to you to change your behavior. In any other US metro area, there is perhaps a realist argument that roads work fine for 98% of trips and trains are too much of a boondoggle for their marginal contribution to capacity. But this is Manhattan. Forget for a moment about urbanism, environmentalism, etc. If the MTA melted down tomorrow, no appreciable portion of its riders could fall back on driving, as a matter of geometry.

nayuki 3y ago
You're right. Congestion pricing affects the psychology of the driver, regardless of where the money goes - even if it's set on fire (thus causing a minuscule amount of deflation). To assign the congestion money to a specific project, like public transit, is an act of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_accounting https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mental_accounting . I would say that putting the money into the city's general fund is the least bad solution. This is because if congestion monies were put to a specific program like public transit / subsidies for the poor / etc., it becomes more complicated to ensure that those programs receive enough funding but also not too much.
philwelch 3y ago
I’d go a little further than that. If you enact a Pigovian tax (i.e. a tax intended to reduce some unwanted behavior), there’s a conflict of interest in relying on that revenue for anything because then there is an incentive to try and keep the tax rates lower in order to protect the revenue source.
- closeparen 3y ago
  Exactly. ”A tax on drivers” as the parent put it is actually a failure scenario here. Everybody gets low-grade immiserated by the tax but congestion is not reduced enough to improve quality of life.

hahahasotrue 3y ago

I can hear China laughing at us right about now!