4 ms·

Barriers would make the New York City subway safer

25 points by jyunwai 3y ago

downvotetruth 3y ago
Hard to believe Adams is clueless about plastic guns [such as the Liberator (edit)]. Gun detectors are pure graft unless he is planning a full TSA strip search to use the subway.
- GenerWork 3y ago
  If you're talking about "plastic guns" like a Glock, the barrel is still metal, and parts of the trigger assembly may be metal as well. If a metal detector at the airport can trip due to a belt buckle, why couldn't it trip due to a gun barrel?
  - deleted 3y ago
    [deleted]
  - dehugger 3y ago
    OP is probably talking about 3D printed devices. There are devices made of nothing but polymer (and maybe a spring? although I believe elastic can be substituted) that do function. They don't get many shots, but they will still put some projectiles downrange before malfunctioning. Some even have profiles which look nothing like a handgun, you can't rely on a human operator to recognize them when scanning bags. Even more robust DIY guns like this use metal components for only the breech, and that's a very small component that could easily be confused for any number of other things.
    - GenerWork 3y ago
      Interesting. I haven't kept up with 3D printed firearms at all because it seemed like they were simply not useful due to the fact that they were made out of polymer.
    - wepple 3y ago
      I assumed even “3d printed” guns required a metal barrel. Can polymer withstand even a single round being fired? Are we talking 22LR only or something? Breach only makes a lot of sense. That would indeed be hard to detect, and would likely solve the above.
      - wepple 3y ago
        I stand very corrected. The Liberator mentioned in GPs post only has a single metal component, a nail used as firing pin. Apparently the 380 cartridge doesn’t explode upon firing
- tekla 3y ago
  Hard to believe anyone would care about something thats such an irrelevant issue on the Subway
danielfoster 3y ago
Having witnessed someone lose their legs to a subway train at Union Square (a station where the barriers are likely not currently feasible), these changes need to happen faster. Eliminating incidents of passengers entering the track area would also reduce delays. Either way, I’m sure there is a way to make barriers happen even at the most difficult stations. The MTA just has a culture of saying no. I am sure something would happen very quickly if bonuses were tied to finding a solution.
- marcellus23 3y ago
  > I’m sure there is a way to make barriers happen even at the most difficult stations There's always a way for any project, but it may be prohibitively expensive. One obstacle is that trains vary in door positions or widths. How would you solve that problem without buying entirely new rolling stock with a uniform door layout? And is that really the best way for the MTA to spend its money right now? And that's just one of the obstacles. I'm not disagreeing that the MTA is an inefficient bureaucratic nightmare, but when you really dig into the specifics of this project, it becomes pretty clear why it's not feasible without massive expensive changes to both stations and trains. I'd much rather the MTA spend its budget on actually improving train service, considering the system is still digging its way out of the deferred maintenance of the 20th century. Platform doors feel like security theater, especially considering the cost. Keep in mind that although subway crime went up during the pandemic, it was only to 2000s-era levels, and it's now on its way back down — as much as certain media outlets might try to convince you otherwise.
  - bluGill 3y ago
    Rolling stock doesn't le ast forever. Much of nyc rolling stock should be end of life anyway. Just order new trains and remodel stations and keep compatible trains on that line. Then in two years do the next line. In 30 years they have done everthing and are ready for what is next.
    - marcellus23 3y ago
      > Much of nyc rolling stock should be end of life anyway What makes you think that? The MTA has been ordering new cars pretty consistently for the past several decades. The rolling stock of the subway ranges from 1970s-era to brand new stock. Most of it is 21st century and perfectly good. > Just order new trains and remodel stations There's 6500 cars to replace and 400+ stations to remodel. Even if the MTA were capable of doing that on time and in-budget, it would be incredibly expensive, so I ask again: is that really the best way for the MTA to spend its budget? You're basically asking for the entire system to be rebuilt from the ground up, purely to support platform doors.
bluGill 3y ago
Platform doors are not that expensive elsewhere. Japan for example but nyc can't look there to see how things could be.
- gedy 3y ago
  I don't think there is a lack of knowledge, it's there is no incentive to be on time and under budget with the corrupt contractors and unions involved. You could maybe do this with some public competition where that was an incentive and could bypass the people and processes, but that's not going to happen.
- xadhominemx 3y ago
  It's much cheaper to do it from the get-go. Retrofitting these active stations and replacing all the existing rolling stock is much more expensive.
  - bluGill 3y ago
    Others have done this. retrofit is more difqicult but nothing unusual. They should be remodeling stations on a regular basis anyway.
Spunkie 3y ago
I normally can look at a government project and understand where bloat and delays come from... but 7 billion dollars for installing subway gates is absolute insanity.
- xadhominemx 3y ago
  Full height barriers would require extensive rework of many aspects of the subway system -- it's not just a matter of bolting walls to the floor. There are only a handful of people who are killed when they are pushed or fall onto the tracks at a station each year. A few billion dollars could save a lot more lives deployed elsewhere in NYC.
  - bityard 3y ago
    Okay, but is it not possible to spend much less to receive most of the benefit? The article, study, and GP are all talking about big full-height barriers. What would be the cost of a 4- or 5-foot fence with some automatic gates in it (per station)? Sure, some people could hop over it. Sure, it might not go the way to the end of the platform. But it would be _something_ and it would not cost anything like what they are proposing. It feels to me like someone was asked to come up with a reasonable solution, took a deliberate detour through Whataboutism-land, and came back with the most ludicrous price possible. Also, according to the MTA's own financial report (https://council.nyc.gov/budget/wp-content/uploads/sites/54/2023/03/MTA-Prelim-Report.pdf https://council.nyc.gov/budget/wp-content/uploads/sites/54/2...), the MTA has $5.6B in COVID-19 subsidy funding remaining, and they are expected to receive $15B in increased revenue from Congestion Pricing. So it sounds to me like they could probably afford even the ludicrously-priced barriers.
    - dtech 3y ago
      Your question is answered in the article, and also the solution they deemed most feasible which is already deployed in a station.
    - jcranmer 3y ago
      > What would be the cost of a 4- or 5-foot fence with some automatic gates in it (per station)? Per Alon Levy, from comparisons with installation costs elsewhere, about $10 million per station: https://pedestrianobservations.com/2022/01/20/platform-edge-doors/ https://pedestrianobservations.com/2022/01/20/platform-edge-...
xyst 3y ago
Compared to the cost of human lives lost to motor vehicle accidents. This is nothing. Redirect costs from increased tolls to building these barriers.
- oldnetguy 3y ago
  That money is going to be used to offset the loss of income due to all the people not paying their fare. They can't cover operating costs, how will they do this?
- rayiner 3y ago
  And this is why we don’t have good transit in America. Because the rail fans are innumerate.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
jauntywundrkind 3y ago
I haven't spent a ton of time in New York, don't know how bad things get. So grain of salt here. But I really dislike enclosing spaces. So much modern policy is about adding constraints, safety safety safety, and it all feels bad to me. As a bicyclist, I liked sharing the street more than I like being in a narrow dedicated bike lane, because the street was open & I could see clearly & now I'm between parked cars (with some pedestrians loading/unloading) and a sidewalk with pedestrians who sometimes go onto the path. Intersections are much harder to feel safe on, because now there are separate flows of traffic that re-encounter each other & have to figure stuff out. I just feel trapped and corralled. I loved being out and about. We're talking about adding huge fences to some of our bridges for suicide prevention. Beautiful spaces with gorgeous overlook. I feel a profound sense of loss that again we are corraling ourselves in, tightening one of the few open spaces around us. It's a bit daunting to me reimagining the subway, imagining it being a much more closed in confined system. The subway is such an interesting mix of busy platform and space, a juxtaposition, and it feels like we'd be losing that. We'd be losing openness and space. Losing sign of the trains themselves again doesn't seem like it matters deeply, is crucial, but it still makes me profoundly sad to imagine. More like an elevator than a train, solely an interior space, man elevating beyond the built environment into an abstracter form of infrastructure they cannot even see. I recognize good motives for all these things, recognize the cause. But I don't feel like there's recognition back, I don't feel like anyone else is out there advocating for open, for space. Civilization accrues, taking bits and pieces of the public space with it as the stuff builds up and the space gets retooled; that seems to be the direction of things. I feel so alone in caring for & loving openness, want so badly to see some weight given against walling ourselves in. Downvoted already, yeah thanks.
- petermcneeley 3y ago
  > I just feel trapped and corralled. It might be more than a feeling.
- dzhiurgis 3y ago
  Minimising noise and dust from tracks by isolating those environments would be glorious
petermcneeley 3y ago
> I thought: In 2024, why aren’t officials investing in technology that makes it difficult to push someone in front of a train or prevents deaths by suicide on the tracks? Is this really how we imagined 2024? I thought we were suppose to be vacationing on the moons of Jupiter in 2024. We probably made quite a few wrong turns to be posing questions like this in 2024. Perhaps instead of reaching for more whiskey as we start to feel the pain we could actually sober up.

25 points by jyunwai 3y ago

Hard to believe Adams is clueless about plastic guns [such as the Liberator (edit)]. Gun detectors are pure graft unless he is planning a full TSA strip search to use the subway.

GenerWork 3y ago
If you're talking about "plastic guns" like a Glock, the barrel is still metal, and parts of the trigger assembly may be metal as well. If a metal detector at the airport can trip due to a belt buckle, why couldn't it trip due to a gun barrel?
- deleted 3y ago
  [deleted]
- dehugger 3y ago
  OP is probably talking about 3D printed devices. There are devices made of nothing but polymer (and maybe a spring? although I believe elastic can be substituted) that do function. They don't get many shots, but they will still put some projectiles downrange before malfunctioning. Some even have profiles which look nothing like a handgun, you can't rely on a human operator to recognize them when scanning bags. Even more robust DIY guns like this use metal components for only the breech, and that's a very small component that could easily be confused for any number of other things.
  - GenerWork 3y ago
    Interesting. I haven't kept up with 3D printed firearms at all because it seemed like they were simply not useful due to the fact that they were made out of polymer.
  - wepple 3y ago
    I assumed even “3d printed” guns required a metal barrel. Can polymer withstand even a single round being fired? Are we talking 22LR only or something? Breach only makes a lot of sense. That would indeed be hard to detect, and would likely solve the above.
    - wepple 3y ago
      I stand very corrected. The Liberator mentioned in GPs post only has a single metal component, a nail used as firing pin. Apparently the 380 cartridge doesn’t explode upon firing
tekla 3y ago
Hard to believe anyone would care about something thats such an irrelevant issue on the Subway

danielfoster 3y ago

Having witnessed someone lose their legs to a subway train at Union Square (a station where the barriers are likely not currently feasible), these changes need to happen faster. Eliminating incidents of passengers entering the track area would also reduce delays. Either way, I’m sure there is a way to make barriers happen even at the most difficult stations. The MTA just has a culture of saying no. I am sure something would happen very quickly if bonuses were tied to finding a solution.

marcellus23 3y ago
> I’m sure there is a way to make barriers happen even at the most difficult stations There's always a way for any project, but it may be prohibitively expensive. One obstacle is that trains vary in door positions or widths. How would you solve that problem without buying entirely new rolling stock with a uniform door layout? And is that really the best way for the MTA to spend its money right now? And that's just one of the obstacles. I'm not disagreeing that the MTA is an inefficient bureaucratic nightmare, but when you really dig into the specifics of this project, it becomes pretty clear why it's not feasible without massive expensive changes to both stations and trains. I'd much rather the MTA spend its budget on actually improving train service, considering the system is still digging its way out of the deferred maintenance of the 20th century. Platform doors feel like security theater, especially considering the cost. Keep in mind that although subway crime went up during the pandemic, it was only to 2000s-era levels, and it's now on its way back down — as much as certain media outlets might try to convince you otherwise.
- bluGill 3y ago
  Rolling stock doesn't le ast forever. Much of nyc rolling stock should be end of life anyway. Just order new trains and remodel stations and keep compatible trains on that line. Then in two years do the next line. In 30 years they have done everthing and are ready for what is next.
  - marcellus23 3y ago
    > Much of nyc rolling stock should be end of life anyway What makes you think that? The MTA has been ordering new cars pretty consistently for the past several decades. The rolling stock of the subway ranges from 1970s-era to brand new stock. Most of it is 21st century and perfectly good. > Just order new trains and remodel stations There's 6500 cars to replace and 400+ stations to remodel. Even if the MTA were capable of doing that on time and in-budget, it would be incredibly expensive, so I ask again: is that really the best way for the MTA to spend its budget? You're basically asking for the entire system to be rebuilt from the ground up, purely to support platform doors.

bluGill 3y ago

Platform doors are not that expensive elsewhere. Japan for example but nyc can't look there to see how things could be.

gedy 3y ago
I don't think there is a lack of knowledge, it's there is no incentive to be on time and under budget with the corrupt contractors and unions involved. You could maybe do this with some public competition where that was an incentive and could bypass the people and processes, but that's not going to happen.
xadhominemx 3y ago
It's much cheaper to do it from the get-go. Retrofitting these active stations and replacing all the existing rolling stock is much more expensive.
- bluGill 3y ago
  Others have done this. retrofit is more difqicult but nothing unusual. They should be remodeling stations on a regular basis anyway.

Spunkie 3y ago

I normally can look at a government project and understand where bloat and delays come from... but 7 billion dollars for installing subway gates is absolute insanity.

xadhominemx 3y ago
Full height barriers would require extensive rework of many aspects of the subway system -- it's not just a matter of bolting walls to the floor. There are only a handful of people who are killed when they are pushed or fall onto the tracks at a station each year. A few billion dollars could save a lot more lives deployed elsewhere in NYC.
- bityard 3y ago
  Okay, but is it not possible to spend much less to receive most of the benefit? The article, study, and GP are all talking about big full-height barriers. What would be the cost of a 4- or 5-foot fence with some automatic gates in it (per station)? Sure, some people could hop over it. Sure, it might not go the way to the end of the platform. But it would be _something_ and it would not cost anything like what they are proposing. It feels to me like someone was asked to come up with a reasonable solution, took a deliberate detour through Whataboutism-land, and came back with the most ludicrous price possible. Also, according to the MTA's own financial report (https://council.nyc.gov/budget/wp-content/uploads/sites/54/2023/03/MTA-Prelim-Report.pdf https://council.nyc.gov/budget/wp-content/uploads/sites/54/2...), the MTA has $5.6B in COVID-19 subsidy funding remaining, and they are expected to receive $15B in increased revenue from Congestion Pricing. So it sounds to me like they could probably afford even the ludicrously-priced barriers.
  - dtech 3y ago
    Your question is answered in the article, and also the solution they deemed most feasible which is already deployed in a station.
  - jcranmer 3y ago
    > What would be the cost of a 4- or 5-foot fence with some automatic gates in it (per station)? Per Alon Levy, from comparisons with installation costs elsewhere, about $10 million per station: https://pedestrianobservations.com/2022/01/20/platform-edge-doors/ https://pedestrianobservations.com/2022/01/20/platform-edge-...

xyst 3y ago

Compared to the cost of human lives lost to motor vehicle accidents. This is nothing. Redirect costs from increased tolls to building these barriers.

oldnetguy 3y ago
That money is going to be used to offset the loss of income due to all the people not paying their fare. They can't cover operating costs, how will they do this?
rayiner 3y ago
And this is why we don’t have good transit in America. Because the rail fans are innumerate.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

jauntywundrkind 3y ago

I haven't spent a ton of time in New York, don't know how bad things get. So grain of salt here. But I really dislike enclosing spaces. So much modern policy is about adding constraints, safety safety safety, and it all feels bad to me. As a bicyclist, I liked sharing the street more than I like being in a narrow dedicated bike lane, because the street was open & I could see clearly & now I'm between parked cars (with some pedestrians loading/unloading) and a sidewalk with pedestrians who sometimes go onto the path. Intersections are much harder to feel safe on, because now there are separate flows of traffic that re-encounter each other & have to figure stuff out. I just feel trapped and corralled. I loved being out and about. We're talking about adding huge fences to some of our bridges for suicide prevention. Beautiful spaces with gorgeous overlook. I feel a profound sense of loss that again we are corraling ourselves in, tightening one of the few open spaces around us. It's a bit daunting to me reimagining the subway, imagining it being a much more closed in confined system. The subway is such an interesting mix of busy platform and space, a juxtaposition, and it feels like we'd be losing that. We'd be losing openness and space. Losing sign of the trains themselves again doesn't seem like it matters deeply, is crucial, but it still makes me profoundly sad to imagine. More like an elevator than a train, solely an interior space, man elevating beyond the built environment into an abstracter form of infrastructure they cannot even see. I recognize good motives for all these things, recognize the cause. But I don't feel like there's recognition back, I don't feel like anyone else is out there advocating for open, for space. Civilization accrues, taking bits and pieces of the public space with it as the stuff builds up and the space gets retooled; that seems to be the direction of things. I feel so alone in caring for & loving openness, want so badly to see some weight given against walling ourselves in. Downvoted already, yeah thanks.

petermcneeley 3y ago
> I just feel trapped and corralled. It might be more than a feeling.
dzhiurgis 3y ago
Minimising noise and dust from tracks by isolating those environments would be glorious

petermcneeley 3y ago

> I thought: In 2024, why aren’t officials investing in technology that makes it difficult to push someone in front of a train or prevents deaths by suicide on the tracks? Is this really how we imagined 2024? I thought we were suppose to be vacationing on the moons of Jupiter in 2024. We probably made quite a few wrong turns to be posing questions like this in 2024. Perhaps instead of reaching for more whiskey as we start to feel the pain we could actually sober up.