It's a shame that the focus is always on the capital outlay and not on the cost benefit potential to be realized (both economic and non-economic). This sort of spending should always be seen as an investment.
For instance, modern/improved signaling and train control technology will allow you to run rolling stock at greater speeds with more frequency, requiring less on-track maintenance. In other systems, undergoing recent upgrades (for example) you can run a train every 3 minutes as opposed to 6. As a commuter knowing you only have to wait a max (n)minutes as opposed to max 2(n) can be the difference between deciding to take a train or using some other means of transport, especially if you can shave a few minutes off your commute as well.
It gives the operators much more control over how they design services and run their business. It's a key enabler.
> It's a shame that the focus is always on the capital outlay and not on the cost benefit potential to be realized (both economic and non-economic). This sort of spending should always be seen as an investment.
Every major city hires economists, often from universities, to do cost/benefit analysis of major capital projects. To say the focus is always on cost is nonsense. I've had to do cost-benefit analysis work before on earmarks. One of my professors did cost/benefit in Nashville for bringing the Titans to town in the late 90s. He recommended against it, in fact I think most economists on the board did...but they ignored it because cost is more often ignored or understated (by politicians,) contrary to your post. Look at the "big dig" in Boston for instance, or the California high speed rail, both exploded over 5x their expected budget.
Those are just examples, there are many others. I am willing to bet this number is a low ball, especially when contractors, regulators, etc get involved.
> As a commuter knowing you only have to wait a max (n)minutes as opposed to max 2(n) can be the difference between deciding to take a train or using some other means of transport
Agreed. In my mind, the most important step to make is to increase frequency to the point where passengers think of trains in terms of frequency of arrivals, not by a specific timetable.
At longer wait times, you plan around getting to the station early, hoping the train isn't late, hoping it's not too overcrowded, etc., each of which is a mental barrier to taking the train.
At shorter wait times, all of these concerns disappear because "oh well, there's another one in 3 minutes".
While I mostly agree with you, I think it's right to focus on capital outlay on one level: getting to the bottom of why it's so huge. Comparable cities like London and Paris complete large projects spending a fraction of the money, and they have to contend with unions and high rise building just like New York does. Increasingly it seems like New York State politics are corrupt to the core, and the MTA is just a reflection of that.
> It's a shame that the focus is always on the capital outlay and not on the cost benefit potential to be realized (both economic and non-economic). This sort of spending should always be seen as an investment.
The reason the focus is on cost is that New York transit has a long history of spending far more than it needs to, due to rampant corruption[0].
If you look at this like an investment, then you also need to do the same sort of due diligence you would with any other investment, including asking why the costs are outrageously out of proportion with what they should be.
You can't ignore things like: whether the debt can be afforded and paid back. Because these are public ventures, you practically know they'll never produce a suitable return on investment.
Did you know that the NYC subways were originally built and run by two private companies that competed with each other? Did you know that the city froze their rates for two decades then took them over when they were no longer making desired improvements (wonder why)?
The subway never had a communications-based signalling system before, yet its functionality is waning compared to recent history. Will CBTC actually deliver the benefits you describe? Possibly not, if the system is afflicted by some unidentified other problem, i.e. falling speed limits.
I'm a developer in the Midwest and my team participated in the signaling contest for the MTA Genius Challenge[1]. I handled gathering the raw data from our hardware and generating visualizations for testing, troubleshooting, and eventually presentation. Using a variety of hardware (ranging hardware on the train and through the subway tunnel, Ulta-wideband[2] transmitters for sending data, ect), we developed a Communications-based train control[3] system that would allow for moving block signaling[4].
It was a fascinating few months of problem solving and troubleshooting. I have fond memories of sitting at a folding table on the 7th Ave platform during a cold week in January.
That said, I don't envy those still working on this project. There are so many problem -- old signaling hardware that breaks down frequently and has to be manufactured by the MTA because no one produces the parts anymore, slower train speeds, track fires, train malfunctions, passenger-related delays... the list goes on and on. I hope they're able work it all out because I really enjoyed riding and working on the subways, even if only for a couple of months.
$19B for a new signaling system? A true "sweeping overhall" will include a hell of a lot more than that. There was a times article a few weeks ago that sketched out a much more ambitious overhall, and pegged the price at $100B, which still sounded low to me.
I'm a subway commuter, I really love the subway system, and my emotions want to invest in it. And we should plan big. I think the greater NYC area could double or triple in population as the world grows and be more stimulating and productive than it's ever been. I guess my honest question is whether the subways are a prerequisite for that outcome, or if more WeWorks, satellite offices, telecommuting and suburban financial centers are more sane.
My answer would be to remember that subways serve a purpose beyond just commuting to work; they provide a means to travel easily across a city for recreation, leisure, and cultural activities too.
There is much value in providing the means for citizens to enjoy the breadth of opportunities their city provides, rather than making it difficult for them to leave their immediate neighbourhood.
His proposal, which hasn't been fully released as of this writing at least, seems to have other modifications as well. The article mentions at least bathrooms and elevators.
He also plans to complete this overhaul in 5 years - previous estimates had suggested it could take 50 years. That sounds ambitious, and i'm guessing there must be significant cost associated with completing it relatively quickly.
Figure that with your belief that NYC could handle more, let's say 2.5 times that, to get 20 million riders of the system.
$100 billion / 20 million riders = $5000 in capital expense to upgrade the system. That's a lot of riders going on a lot of subway rides to recoup that!
A new above ground track comes nowhere near the cost of updating a subway system below an extremely dense metropolis that will attempt to keep running 24/7/365?
Not much of a shocker there. That’s a true apples to oranges.
It is true that corruption has resulted in exorbitant cost over runs by the MTA but I think this is a silly comparison.
Works out to ~$2,111 per resident. About the same cost as a few years of car insurance. That's including babies and stuff though, I'm not sure what it works out to distributed among the regular ridership (which would also include non-resident commuters).
Yeah, expected to "cost" $19B, which means about $7B will actually be spent on improving the infrastructure; while the rest will be back-channeled to the coffers of various construction company executives, politicians, middlemen, gangsters, etc.
About 1.5 aircraft carriers or 3 bay bridge eastern span replacements. I have various costs in my head to conceptualize how much things cost in terms of what we could’ve bought. The last aircraft carrier the US bought cost about $13 billion. The bay bridge eastern span cost 6.4 billion.
For smaller costs a good one is submarines: about $2.4 billion.
I did the math once and the war in Iraq directly cost about the replacement value of the nyc subway but can’t recall the figures well.
I'm not sure how the military devices help understand those numbers much. Presumably, the idea is to take something whose impact is large and intuitively understood and identify it with the price, so that other things which are nonintuitive with similarly large prices can be understood. (My preferred version of this is "$1M is about the life's work of a median American", in the sense of being the median salary over a lifetime minus what a human needs to survive. $1M is a lot of money, but I can kind of imagine what a man can build in his life.)
But military devices seem like things whose value is very unintuitive. (I've made similar criticism of people who say "oh, $6B? That's just three B2 bombers.") Obviously, we have no real conception of how complicated and expensive such devices are to build. But more importantly, few of us have a good grasp of the value to world stability delivered by rarely-used weapons that play a mostly deterrent role.
I can imagine a world in which basically all of Manhattan's streets are open only to autonomous vehicles. I wonder what sorts of redesigns we would do if all trips were effectively one-way and most cars were the size of a Smart fortwo.
I think we're many years and a couple trillion in infrastructure retooling from this reality. But when my infant daughter is my age, I think this is what NYC will be like, assuming society as we know it keeps progressing, while diffusing the many potential catastrophes we've set up for ourselves.
Imagine removing street-side parking. Not all at once. First on some key streets, then every 5 or so streets, and so on. Eventually, perhaps a couple of decades from now, there could be no daytime street-side parking (autonomous vehicles "sleeping" in the erstwhile parking spots at night).
On many streets in NYC removing street-side parking will triple bandwidth. This could be piloted now, though without autonomous vehicles. And perhaps some such streets could be limited to access by buses, taxis, and limousines (uber, lyft, ...).
Of course, selling this to voters will be impossible for a while yet. Once we get autonomous cars though, this concept will become very tempting.
I think that bicycles and other human powered (also
with electric assist) vehicles or small electric vehicles like scooters are the best short term future we can ask for. And working public transport - who cares if it's autonomous out not. There are already places that work with these.
I find it strange that you mention Smart Fortwo, which is not particularly small when one compares it to VW Golf for example. Toyota IQ would be better example, it's not much bigger than Fortwo, but has four seats.
The problem is always density. For example, the new 345 class train that will be used on the Crossrail Elizabeth Line in London is as long as 82 Smart fortwos placed back to back, but carries up to 1500 people.
Cars are extremely convenient and comfortable, but an extremely space inefficient way of moving large numbers of people. Even with autonomous vehicles, you still have hard limits on how many vehicles per hour you can physically move through any point.
Andy Byford failed in fixing Toronto's transit problems although I don't think it was his fault and more likely a dysfunctional city council and an uncompromising transit union. Hopefully, he can help NYC fix their problems.
I just got back from Tokyo. What an incredible network of trains/subways. I know every city has its own challenges but if there are any questions, ask the Japanese because they seem to have figured it all out. Moving 10 million people a day in Tokyo is a testament to their know-how.
There's lesson to be learned everywhere, including Tokyo. But it's hardly a perfect system. The main trains and stations are absurdly busy (to a degree where it won't work in the US). Signage is awful, and many station are confusing.
If you're looking to build something at the same scale of Tokyo (in terms of KMs of track, and daily ridership) I think you need to do better. The system feels like it's bursting at the seams.
On a smaller scale, Taipei's subway is pretty damn impressive. Hong Kong's octopus and airport express are still gold standards in payment and airport link. Finally, in many way's Shanghai takes the cake, in large part because of how it went from nothing to this massive system (largest by distance, I believe), in a relatively short time. I believe Shanghai has roughly the same daily ridership as Tokyo and, although it's also insane at peak hour, it's better than the worst of the Yamanote line.
Honestly $19B doesn't sound so bad considering in Boston we can't even build a 3 mile above ground extension to the Green Line for less than $2 Billion.
At that price… I’ve just been watching a video about Launch Loops, and a well-costed design for one of those with existing tech costs only $2bn, which implies it would be nearly ten times cheaper to make a 2,000km long, 80km tall maglev train fling you all the way around the planet (wonder how hard it is to aim for the right spot on the way down?) than to do public transport right in what ought to be a perfect location. From what I remember when I visited, possibly also faster.
Andy Byford, who made a name for himself running transport systems in London, Sydney and Toronto, is now in charge of turning around New York's Subway.
$19 billion for a train signaling system and 50 elevators seems outrageously expensive.
There are less than 1,000 trains in the entire system and their movements are highly constrained. A WiFi based system could both easily communicate with and locate (WPS) each train. Modeling the entire system in real-time seems doable. Lastly there would need a UI for the driver (or eliminate the driver completely) and various hardware interconnections.
The core of the system would appear to be a WiFi network, servers, tables and custom interconnects to train controls, trip stops, switches, etc. Sure it has to be incredibly reliable but $19 billion?!
CBTC is more complicated than "a wifi network and servers" unfortunately. And it's not a great business.
Firstly, no, WiFi is not going to work. WiFi runs in the junk bands like Bluetooth does. It's designed to run in unregulated spectrum, not be reliable, which is why WiFi is a synonym for "why does my internet not work today". Just think of interference from the riders phones, for example.
You also need to know the location of the trains to a much higher degree of accuracy than what WiFi would allow. The trains use transponders on the track that antennae pass over. It's closer to NFC than WiFi. When the train knows where it is, it can communicate that info to the control rooms but trains spend a lot of time inside tunnels which are not exactly famous for their excellent radio propagation properties. There's a lot of testing and planning work required to figure out where to install antennas and cable uplinks. Remember that track maintenance hours are severely constrained on any live transit system so reducing the amount of equipment to install is important.
Then you have redundancy. When your home wifi router goes on the fritz it's annoying but not that big a deal. If a part of the train monitoring network goes black, done naively that would shut down an entire line, which is catastrophic. So you want redundancy, you want spare parts inventories, you need to train staff how to do the replacements etc. Every train needs to be brought back to shop and refitted, usually using custom equipment and designs because trains are not standardised across the world.
That's just the hardware.
The software needs to be developed and tested too. Again, no standardisation in how transit systems work, so each deployment is a custom job requiring the engineers to have a good understanding of each railway with all its quirks and complexities, especially in exotic signalling and switching arrangements.
Still, in the end, $19 billion is too much. The NY premium.
I've toyed with the idea of doing a popular subway improvement project where we'd make battery-powered devices (arduino, rpi, whatever -- the biggest cost irl would be labor) to plant on subway cars and stations for tracking trains. A proof of concept could be done with just a few tens of such devices. They'd use the subway wifi to transmit train locations.
Of course, there are complications. There's no such thing as a head train car -- these things get mixed and matched. So ensuring that every train has such a device might mean ensuring that every car has one or that every train gets a car that has one, and this seems difficult. But even so, this could cost just in the millions done right.
MTA union, it's an extremely powerful union. The L line for example is set up to be fully automated, but they are still required to have staff for the train.
The skytrain has never had drivers. Its first section was completed in 1986. "The signalling technology used on all three SkyTrain lines to run trains automatically was originally developed by Alcatel, and loaded from a 3.5" diskette."
I remember a few years ago reading an article about how in some parts of the NYC system it's impossible to know where the subway car physically is from a central control room. This has other impacts, like not being able to reliably update the forward station on arrival.
[+] [-] triggercut|7 years ago|reply
For instance, modern/improved signaling and train control technology will allow you to run rolling stock at greater speeds with more frequency, requiring less on-track maintenance. In other systems, undergoing recent upgrades (for example) you can run a train every 3 minutes as opposed to 6. As a commuter knowing you only have to wait a max (n)minutes as opposed to max 2(n) can be the difference between deciding to take a train or using some other means of transport, especially if you can shave a few minutes off your commute as well.
It gives the operators much more control over how they design services and run their business. It's a key enabler.
[+] [-] partiallypro|7 years ago|reply
Every major city hires economists, often from universities, to do cost/benefit analysis of major capital projects. To say the focus is always on cost is nonsense. I've had to do cost-benefit analysis work before on earmarks. One of my professors did cost/benefit in Nashville for bringing the Titans to town in the late 90s. He recommended against it, in fact I think most economists on the board did...but they ignored it because cost is more often ignored or understated (by politicians,) contrary to your post. Look at the "big dig" in Boston for instance, or the California high speed rail, both exploded over 5x their expected budget.
Those are just examples, there are many others. I am willing to bet this number is a low ball, especially when contractors, regulators, etc get involved.
[+] [-] ruytlm|7 years ago|reply
Agreed. In my mind, the most important step to make is to increase frequency to the point where passengers think of trains in terms of frequency of arrivals, not by a specific timetable.
At longer wait times, you plan around getting to the station early, hoping the train isn't late, hoping it's not too overcrowded, etc., each of which is a mental barrier to taking the train.
At shorter wait times, all of these concerns disappear because "oh well, there's another one in 3 minutes".
[+] [-] untog|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] laurencerowe|7 years ago|reply
That's only 20 trains per hour. London's Victoria Line now runs at up to 36 trains per hour, a train every 100 seconds.
(Something I think about while waiting 20 minutes for a BaRT on a weekend.)
[+] [-] chimeracoder|7 years ago|reply
The reason the focus is on cost is that New York transit has a long history of spending far more than it needs to, due to rampant corruption[0].
If you look at this like an investment, then you also need to do the same sort of due diligence you would with any other investment, including asking why the costs are outrageously out of proportion with what they should be.
[0] https://nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-cons...
[+] [-] cryptonector|7 years ago|reply
Did you know that the NYC subways were originally built and run by two private companies that competed with each other? Did you know that the city froze their rates for two decades then took them over when they were no longer making desired improvements (wonder why)?
[+] [-] closeparen|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] unknown|7 years ago|reply
[deleted]
[+] [-] Toxygene|7 years ago|reply
It was a fascinating few months of problem solving and troubleshooting. I have fond memories of sitting at a folding table on the 7th Ave platform during a cold week in January.
That said, I don't envy those still working on this project. There are so many problem -- old signaling hardware that breaks down frequently and has to be manufactured by the MTA because no one produces the parts anymore, slower train speeds, track fires, train malfunctions, passenger-related delays... the list goes on and on. I hope they're able work it all out because I really enjoyed riding and working on the subways, even if only for a couple of months.
1 - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMjSi0ftLjA
2 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultra-wideband
3 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Communications-based_train_con...
4 - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moving_block
[+] [-] randyrand|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] wwarner|7 years ago|reply
I'm a subway commuter, I really love the subway system, and my emotions want to invest in it. And we should plan big. I think the greater NYC area could double or triple in population as the world grows and be more stimulating and productive than it's ever been. I guess my honest question is whether the subways are a prerequisite for that outcome, or if more WeWorks, satellite offices, telecommuting and suburban financial centers are more sane.
[+] [-] ruytlm|7 years ago|reply
There is much value in providing the means for citizens to enjoy the breadth of opportunities their city provides, rather than making it difficult for them to leave their immediate neighbourhood.
[+] [-] beachy|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] dr_|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] patrickg_zill|7 years ago|reply
Figure that with your belief that NYC could handle more, let's say 2.5 times that, to get 20 million riders of the system.
$100 billion / 20 million riders = $5000 in capital expense to upgrade the system. That's a lot of riders going on a lot of subway rides to recoup that!
[+] [-] zcbenz|7 years ago|reply
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chūō_Shinkansen
[+] [-] codyb|7 years ago|reply
Not much of a shocker there. That’s a true apples to oranges.
It is true that corruption has resulted in exorbitant cost over runs by the MTA but I think this is a silly comparison.
[+] [-] cma|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] gowld|7 years ago|reply
https://www.nerdwallet.com/blog/insurance/cheapest-car-insur...
But that number is only valid if the project delivers. Big if.
[+] [-] ancientworldnow|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] mindcrime|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] lewis500|7 years ago|reply
For smaller costs a good one is submarines: about $2.4 billion.
I did the math once and the war in Iraq directly cost about the replacement value of the nyc subway but can’t recall the figures well.
[+] [-] jessriedel|7 years ago|reply
But military devices seem like things whose value is very unintuitive. (I've made similar criticism of people who say "oh, $6B? That's just three B2 bombers.") Obviously, we have no real conception of how complicated and expensive such devices are to build. But more importantly, few of us have a good grasp of the value to world stability delivered by rarely-used weapons that play a mostly deterrent role.
[+] [-] kolbe|7 years ago|reply
https://www.mercurynews.com/2018/05/03/letter-bay-bridge-cos...
[+] [-] repsilat|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] acjohnson55|7 years ago|reply
I think we're many years and a couple trillion in infrastructure retooling from this reality. But when my infant daughter is my age, I think this is what NYC will be like, assuming society as we know it keeps progressing, while diffusing the many potential catastrophes we've set up for ourselves.
[+] [-] cryptonector|7 years ago|reply
Imagine removing street-side parking. Not all at once. First on some key streets, then every 5 or so streets, and so on. Eventually, perhaps a couple of decades from now, there could be no daytime street-side parking (autonomous vehicles "sleeping" in the erstwhile parking spots at night).
On many streets in NYC removing street-side parking will triple bandwidth. This could be piloted now, though without autonomous vehicles. And perhaps some such streets could be limited to access by buses, taxis, and limousines (uber, lyft, ...).
Of course, selling this to voters will be impossible for a while yet. Once we get autonomous cars though, this concept will become very tempting.
[+] [-] hawski|7 years ago|reply
I find it strange that you mention Smart Fortwo, which is not particularly small when one compares it to VW Golf for example. Toyota IQ would be better example, it's not much bigger than Fortwo, but has four seats.
[+] [-] stephen_g|7 years ago|reply
Cars are extremely convenient and comfortable, but an extremely space inefficient way of moving large numbers of people. Even with autonomous vehicles, you still have hard limits on how many vehicles per hour you can physically move through any point.
[+] [-] hourislate|7 years ago|reply
I just got back from Tokyo. What an incredible network of trains/subways. I know every city has its own challenges but if there are any questions, ask the Japanese because they seem to have figured it all out. Moving 10 million people a day in Tokyo is a testament to their know-how.
[+] [-] latch|7 years ago|reply
If you're looking to build something at the same scale of Tokyo (in terms of KMs of track, and daily ridership) I think you need to do better. The system feels like it's bursting at the seams.
On a smaller scale, Taipei's subway is pretty damn impressive. Hong Kong's octopus and airport express are still gold standards in payment and airport link. Finally, in many way's Shanghai takes the cake, in large part because of how it went from nothing to this massive system (largest by distance, I believe), in a relatively short time. I believe Shanghai has roughly the same daily ridership as Tokyo and, although it's also insane at peak hour, it's better than the worst of the Yamanote line.
[+] [-] meddlepal|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Spooky23|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] Alex3917|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] ben_w|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] kbos87|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] somberi|7 years ago|reply
Andy Byford, who made a name for himself running transport systems in London, Sydney and Toronto, is now in charge of turning around New York's Subway.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-43561378
[+] [-] spikels|7 years ago|reply
There are less than 1,000 trains in the entire system and their movements are highly constrained. A WiFi based system could both easily communicate with and locate (WPS) each train. Modeling the entire system in real-time seems doable. Lastly there would need a UI for the driver (or eliminate the driver completely) and various hardware interconnections.
The core of the system would appear to be a WiFi network, servers, tables and custom interconnects to train controls, trip stops, switches, etc. Sure it has to be incredibly reliable but $19 billion?!
Seems like a great business opportunity.
[+] [-] repolfx|7 years ago|reply
Firstly, no, WiFi is not going to work. WiFi runs in the junk bands like Bluetooth does. It's designed to run in unregulated spectrum, not be reliable, which is why WiFi is a synonym for "why does my internet not work today". Just think of interference from the riders phones, for example.
You also need to know the location of the trains to a much higher degree of accuracy than what WiFi would allow. The trains use transponders on the track that antennae pass over. It's closer to NFC than WiFi. When the train knows where it is, it can communicate that info to the control rooms but trains spend a lot of time inside tunnels which are not exactly famous for their excellent radio propagation properties. There's a lot of testing and planning work required to figure out where to install antennas and cable uplinks. Remember that track maintenance hours are severely constrained on any live transit system so reducing the amount of equipment to install is important.
Then you have redundancy. When your home wifi router goes on the fritz it's annoying but not that big a deal. If a part of the train monitoring network goes black, done naively that would shut down an entire line, which is catastrophic. So you want redundancy, you want spare parts inventories, you need to train staff how to do the replacements etc. Every train needs to be brought back to shop and refitted, usually using custom equipment and designs because trains are not standardised across the world.
That's just the hardware.
The software needs to be developed and tested too. Again, no standardisation in how transit systems work, so each deployment is a custom job requiring the engineers to have a good understanding of each railway with all its quirks and complexities, especially in exotic signalling and switching arrangements.
Still, in the end, $19 billion is too much. The NY premium.
[+] [-] cryptonector|7 years ago|reply
I've toyed with the idea of doing a popular subway improvement project where we'd make battery-powered devices (arduino, rpi, whatever -- the biggest cost irl would be labor) to plant on subway cars and stations for tracking trains. A proof of concept could be done with just a few tens of such devices. They'd use the subway wifi to transmit train locations.
Of course, there are complications. There's no such thing as a head train car -- these things get mixed and matched. So ensuring that every train has such a device might mean ensuring that every car has one or that every train gets a car that has one, and this seems difficult. But even so, this could cost just in the millions done right.
[+] [-] wokky|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] stephencoyner|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] exabrial|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] hak8or|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] petermcneeley|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] triggercut|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] sjg007|7 years ago|reply
[+] [-] rossdavidh|7 years ago|reply