Many modern subway systems have similarly huge networks with far higher traffic than NYC but manage to maintain low failure rates and CLEAN tracks simply because they value and prioritize maintenance and quality of service. Some are private, some are public.
It truly baffles me why NYC and actually the SF BART both fail so utterly to even attempt to provide quality service.
I live in Europe and to me it seems that its a general American mentality of everybody having a car
The problem seems more attitude wise. We want great infrastrure while paying low taxes. This contradiction, of course, isn't really solvable as can be seen in the generally pretty rotten state of infrastructure in the US.
http://interactive.nydailynews.com/project/mta-funding/
(the Petroleum tax and State & Local operating assistance combined are less than 10%)
Metropolitan Mass Transportation Operating Assistance Fund: This is a pot of tax money collected for the MTA and other downstate transportation systems. It’s made up of revenue, such as statewide tax on petroleum companies, a sales tax in the 12-county MTA region and corporate franchise taxes and fees both statewide and in the MTA region. MMTOA this year will collect a total of $2.3 billion - 72% of which goes to the MTA.
That fund isn't "purely" statewide.
But the broader point still holds if statewide taxes are contributing all of 20%, the MTA is quite locally funded.
Upstate depends on the MTA region's economic engine for its tax base. Making sure that economy runs smoothly (and that the employees and consumers necessary to that economy can get to and from their jobs and stores) should be a priority for rational, well-informed actors.
I would guess, though, that only a tiny percentage are well informed about what percentage of state taxes come from vs go to various regions. Can't comment on rationality, but with the wrong assumptions, rationality can be counterproductive and irrationality is no better.
NY safe is a great example how far the influence of NYC goes in state government and it wound up getting done despite practically the entire rest of the state being opposed to it.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Green-Star-Map-05-Feb-14....
NYC blaming NY for it's problems is an incredibly out of touch with reality attitude. If something NYC wants isn't getting done at the state level it's probably because NYC's goals do not line up with those of its own elected representation, not because the rest of the state is standing in your way.
The city proper (served by the subway) represents about 20% of the population.
The metro area including parts of Connecticut and NJ (not represented in NY State gov't) is about 20M people. Even if they were all in state, that's still a bit under half the state's total population. And the metro area outside the city proper is still heavily dominated by car culture.
NY State also has several other much smaller but still significant population centers, including Albany, Syracuse, and Buffalo. These areas are not served by the MTA and are also automobile-centric, despite having been founded and initially become boom towns in part due to the Erie Canal (that is, before the railroad dominated shipping and travel, let alone cars).
Some things the city gets its way about, especially when its interests align with those of its suburbs or the smaller urban centers of the state. When it comes to non-car-centric transportation initiatives, however, it generally doesn't.
Apparently union labor rates are 3-5x more expensive in transit than Europe. Considering how labor heavy it is to do repair work on old subway lines it means you need an insane budget to do any more work. And guess what, as soon as the budget gets raised the union notice and want a larger slice.
So many examples of this. Another is the way NY subway cars have 3 staff minimum. Whereas London, Paris, Berlin have one. Assume they make 3x the money and you need 3x more than other cities and you have a 10x cost increase in operational labor costs. Plus the complexity of ensuring you always have 3 people there with no sickness etc, as if you lose one you can't run the train at all.
It's really insane and will take a mayor with serious backbone to fight.
I think union membersip is more widespread in western Europe than in the US, but I feel they could even be a bit more powerful here. They can barely keep the power balance in most industries, and have to fight long for modest raises (compensating inflation at best). Even when the economy is prosperous like in Germany, it seems they can't get many concessions.
But still there is some power balance between unions and employers, and this balance is considered the normal system how wages are negotiated in many fields.
In the US, unions seem a bit like rackets. For example, some places are only allowed to hire union members (per deal with the union). Woah, I wouldn't think this is allowed in Europe. Instead of painfully negotiating a 1% raise over a couple of years (by hinting at the possibility of announcing a warning strike), they seem to dictate ridiculous policies to make a few people rich.
Can someone explain this difference? Is it just anti-union propaganda that makes them look bad in the US? Or did they kill off the European style unions a long time ago and just left the rackets?
Nobody does propaganda quite as well as Americans.
Actually, it is a 2 person crew for full-length trains and a single person for half-length trains.
"It's really insane and will take a mayor with serious backbone to fight."
The MTA is a state agency and the mayor has almost no say in contract negotiations.
(there are plenty of well-documented reasons why NYC comes up short on money for its transit system, and "unions are the devil" is an insufficient explanation for them)
Oh and the person in charge of selecting the escalators for BART was eventually hired by the escalator company. It’s a perfect example of everything wrong with public goods in America.
I live in a city with one of the most cost-effective public transport systems. People in Tokyo tend to think of the railways as an extension of themself / their home / their city. Whereas I imagine most Americans tend to look at such systems from an external perspective: hence "they".
So there's nothing special about the Japanese (or bad about New Yorkers)
70% of SF households own a car, so still a majority by a long shot [1].
[1] http://www.governing.com/gov-data/car-ownership-numbers-of-v...
http://www.bayareacensus.ca.gov/counties/SanFranciscoCounty....
40% drive alone, while a bare majority 51% use a car, bus or van for transport (including carpools).
It's so popular, nobody does it anymore.
People also cycle a lot. Most Caltrain services almost always have two bike cars.
We get crappy subway and infrastructure b/c of the efficient public sector workers and unions.
For example, in Spain we high speed rail between major cities which is great but regional and local rail is terrible.
> The core problem with the NYC subway system is a management culture that does not value long term problem solving, instead preferring quick fixes and short term band aids
Do they have the time and budget horizon to do long-term planning ?
To me it seems like SF and NY subways are underfunded
Transport for London budgeted 2.26 billion pounds for the London Underground in 2016. Even at peak exchange rates from 2014, that's $3.8 billion. The MTA spent $8.18 billion on the subway in 2017. The London Underground handles about 5 million rides per day, versus a bit under 6 million per day for the NYC subway. So the NYC MTA spends 120% more to serve about 20% more subway riders.
The management culture you're referring to stems from the TWU, which actively fights efforts to impose long-term planning and solutions, in favor of quick, short-term responses that pad their bills.
The government doesn't push back against these, because (for a variety of reasons that are beyond the scope of this article), New York city and state government are not really accountable to their own constituents. To give you an idea of how bad it is, the mayor of New York hasn't ridden public transit regularly in decades and doesn't even know basic transit ridership facts[0].
The former Speaker of the NYS Assembly (who was convicted for corruption a few years ago) was one of the strongest advocates for cutting the bus service that his own district was entirely dependent on[1]. Because of said corruption, he was essentially untouchable, so there was no democratic avenue for holding him accountable.
Corruption in NYS is widespread; it's the most corrupt state in the country[2], and it's no surprise that this corruption impacts the public transit infrastructure.
[0] https://twitter.com/2AvSagas/status/943158489064624128
[1] His district has essentially no subway coverage
[2] http://www.politifact.com/new-york/statements/2016/sep/19/el...
The union took the city hostage many times. Enough is enough.
You're going to get downvoted for this because there's a very strong pro-union contingent on Hacker News, and most people reading Hacker News aren't from New York.
That said, it's true that many of the problems that New York transit faces stem from the extreme incompetence and greed of the TWU. It's not even about protecting their members' interests; it's about the TWU protecting its own interests as a corporate entity.
If you're out in the evenings or need to work early in the morning on the weekends you're also out of luck. Train service ends early Sunday-Thursday, and starts late Saturday-Sunday. Going to a concert is an eternal crapshoot, the last train on our line during the week can be as early as 10PM. This all disproportionately affects service workers and people without consistent access to personal transit as well, which bothers me on a more fundamental level than the personal inconvenience in my life; I perceive it as a failure of the urban social contract.
Also, LA is basically the only one of the largest American cities that is actually expanding their system in a meaningful and relatively quick way. Alexandria (where I live) has been trying to get an infill station in Potomac Yards added for something like 20+ years.
Related to this. We're finally starting to get rid of the stupid metrocards and switching to a tap/scan system. I saw one at 34th on the A/C/E line (34th & 8th West side entrance), just one turnstile had it so guessing they are just testing it there. Baby steps.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/23/nyregion/metrocard-subway...
I live a half mile from a metro stop (out in the suburbs) and I STILL would rather drive into DC whenever I need to go into the city. It's faster, more reliable, and more convenient even with the hassle of driving in DC and finding/paying for parking.
Oh dear -- that's a scary thought. Here in DC it's unanimously understood that the metro is a train wreck, literally and figuratively.
American cities are so far behind. D.C. is probably one of the best metros, but NYC and Chicago, while having quite extensive systems for very large cities, have no budget to expand or move them into the future.
For cities that large, these systems have to be maintained. They cannot afford to cut train lines, unless they want to end up with grueling traffic like you have in LA.