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A comment on NYC subway and bus services have entered 'death spiral', experts say. Parent comment

Re:NYC subway and bus services have entered 'death spiral', ... by InitialLastName on Tuesday November 20, 2018 @05:27PM (#18498422)
The issue is really that the MTA is funded and controlled by the State of New York, while it predominantly serves the City of New York. Since the population (especially the voting population) of the city is <0.5 of the state population, but the city is an outsized chunk of the state's total economy, the state uses funding of the transit system as a weapon to get the city to acquiesce to other demands.

Hence why the NYC mayor is so intent on funding worthless streetcars and ferries; they let him get out from under the thumb of the state.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:NYC subway and bus services have entered 'death spiral', ... by victor106 on Tuesday November 20, 2018 @05:37PM (#18498493)
MTA was looted by the state. It is reasonably profitable but all those profits are being spent by the state for other non MTA activities.

https://www.cityandstateny.com/articles/policy/infrastructur...

The best public transport model is the one in London.

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Re:NYC subway and bus services have entered 'death spiral', ... by rayiner on Tuesday November 20, 2018 @10:18PM (#18499924)
Incorrect. According to the NYT, redirection of MTA funds amounts to about $1.5 billion over 20 years. That’s $75 million per year, or what MTA spends in 2 days.
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Re:NYC subway and bus services have entered 'death spiral', ... by mistersquid on Tuesday November 20, 2018 @05:40PM (#18498519)
>Since the population (especially the voting population) of the city is <0.5 of the state population[…]

I did a quick and dirty check on Google for "new york state population" [0] and " "new york city population" [1] and the percentage I get is 43%.

[0] https://imgur.com/a/2zkmdjm

[1] https://imgur.com/a/904hwM2

EDIT: As did a few others, I read "<0.5" as "<0.5%".

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:NYC subway and bus services have entered 'death spiral', ... by dexterdog on Tuesday November 20, 2018 @05:45PM (#18498559)
I read his statement as .5% first as well and then realized that he meant 50% because otherwise there would have to be 1.6B people in NY state to make the number work.
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Re:NYC subway and bus services have entered 'death spiral', ... by iooi on Tuesday November 20, 2018 @05:44PM (#18498548)
You're both right: 43% < 0.5, 1 = 100%
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Re:NYC subway and bus services have entered 'death spiral', ... by vesinisa on Tuesday November 20, 2018 @06:13PM (#18498745)
.5 = ½ = 50%
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Re:NYC subway and bus services have entered 'death spiral', ... by eric_h on Tuesday November 20, 2018 @05:33PM (#18498467)
> Hence why the NYC mayor is so intent on funding worthless streetcars and ferries

I'm assuming you're using the "worthless" adjective only for the streetcars - I use the NYC Ferry regularly (a stop opened near my apt last year) and it's way better than the subway. I have to walk a bit further on the other side, but it's still way more comfortable.

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Re:NYC subway and bus services have entered 'death spiral', ... by deminature on Tuesday November 20, 2018 @07:40PM (#18499230)
Streetcars aren't even necessarily worthless. They're called trams in Australia and Sydney has recently rolled out a network after seeing how heavily utilized they are in Melbourne, and how convenient they are for short-distance travel. Pretty much everyone who works in the city has a tram trip somewhere in their commute. Provided the tracks run past places people need to go, there's no reason they need to be worthless.
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Re:NYC subway and bus services have entered 'death spiral', ... by icebraining on Wednesday November 21, 2018 @03:33PM (#18505825)
Same in Brussels. And in Lisbon they're also touristic attractions: http://www.lisbonstopover.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/06/lx-...
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Re:NYC subway and bus services have entered 'death spiral', ... by umichguy on Wednesday November 21, 2018 @02:55AM (#18500914)
Melbourne trams are awesome! Sure, they're not everywhere or go everywhere but for near the city center and some main routes they make so much sense.
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Re:NYC subway and bus services have entered 'death spiral', ... by eugmill on Tuesday November 20, 2018 @05:42PM (#18498534)
I use it as well but it moves far fewer people at a much higher running cost. I love the ferry but it's not a viable replacement.
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Re:NYC subway and bus services have entered 'death spiral', ... by ricardoreis on Tuesday November 20, 2018 @07:01PM (#18499035)
No one would consider suggesting it as a "replacement" for surface transport.

However, it is a valuable augment to the surface system. The point is that it helps "connect the dots" (providing more options for people to get from A to B) - hence making the system more effective as a whole.

[ Parent | on HN ]
Re:NYC subway and bus services have entered 'death spiral', ... by bradleyjg on Tuesday November 20, 2018 @05:38PM (#18498505)
It may be useful for you but in the grand scheme all the new ferries cover only a trivial percentage of the total number of daily trips.
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Re:NYC subway and bus services have entered 'death spiral', ... by CydeWeys on Tuesday November 20, 2018 @06:12PM (#18498738)
And the ferries are heavily subsidized and very expensive to operate, and they pollute quite heavily.

They don't compare remotely favorably to the subway along any axis except start-up cost (it's cheaper to buy a boat and build some piers than to build a subway tunnel).

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Re:NYC subway and bus services have entered 'death spiral', ... by ricardoreis on Tuesday November 20, 2018 @07:02PM (#18499045)
except start-up cost

Which is, well, hugely significant when you think about it.

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Re:NYC subway and bus services have entered 'death spiral', ... by bradleyjg on Tuesday November 20, 2018 @09:38PM (#18499791)
Even if you could afford to run enough ferries to make a dent, which you can’t, they simply don’t have the bandwidth.

Some people tried to make the math work for the L shutdown and even if you had a line of ferries just following each other as close as safely possible it wouldn’t be nearly enough. Subways are incredibly efficient at moving large numbers of people.

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Re:NYC subway and bus services have entered 'death spiral', ... by CydeWeys on Tuesday November 20, 2018 @08:11PM (#18499407)
Cities should have a planning timeframe for infrastructure improvements with a horizon longer than a couple years.
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Re:NYC subway and bus services have entered 'death spiral', ... by ricardoreis on Wednesday November 21, 2018 @05:02AM (#18501435)
Well, yeah. And they should probably be having discussions based on something beside snarky retorts and popcorn-throwing too, I guess.

But I guess those discussions will need to happen elsewhere.

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Re:NYC subway and bus services have entered 'death spiral', ... by zjaffee on Tuesday November 20, 2018 @06:32PM (#18498876)
People keep saying that the street car will be worthless, but I simply don't buy it. It connects all of the fastest growing neighborhoods in the city, where there have been increasing large amounts of effort around economic development within the areas that these places connect, where it will massively increase the value and in turn ability to build real estate along the waterfront, as one of the key determiners of land value in NYC is access to transit.
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Re:NYC subway and bus services have entered 'death spiral', ... by cc439 on Tuesday November 20, 2018 @09:05PM (#18499664)
What does a streetcar do that buses (or articulated buses) can't if they're provided the same traffic priority?
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Re:NYC subway and bus services have entered 'death spiral', ... by repolfx on Wednesday November 21, 2018 @02:39PM (#18505378)
Trams run on metal rails because steel has a much lower rolling resistance than rubber, and suffers less wear and tear. So you can carry more people more frequently with less maintenance.
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Re:NYC subway and bus services have entered 'death spiral', ... by acjohnson55 on Tuesday November 20, 2018 @09:12PM (#18499696)
To me, the problem is poor connectivity to the rest of the train network.
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Re:NYC subway and bus services have entered 'death spiral', ... by ricardoreis on Tuesday November 20, 2018 @06:47PM (#18498959)
Hence why the NYC mayor is so intent on funding worthless ferries;

Worthless? The ferries are one of the few unequivocally positive things to have happened to the city in recent decades.

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Re:NYC subway and bus services have entered 'death spiral', ... by nicoburns on Tuesday November 20, 2018 @09:33PM (#18499775)
Surely the city could give extra funds to the MTA if it wanted to?
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Re:NYC subway and bus services have entered 'death spiral', ... by scarejunba on Tuesday November 20, 2018 @10:20PM (#18499935)
The state would take them out. It controls the MTA.
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