More here: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/21/nyregion/mta-subway-financial-cuts.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur
Staggering and depressing figures. Something clearly needs to change with the MTA and the NYC metro in the future.
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N.Y. Subway, Facing a $16 Billion Deficit, Plans for Deep Cuts (NY Times)
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More here: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/07/21/nyregion/mta-subway-financial-cuts.html?smid=fb-nytimes&smtyp=cur
Staggering and depressing figures. Something clearly needs to change with the MTA and the NYC metro in the future.
This sucks cuz it will be very pricey on us riders. It's bad enough the tolls on the bridges are skyrocketing but now Subways and Buses will be expensive.
It seems like public transit agencies in many states are not properly funded, thus always facing a deficit year after year.
Here in Maryland, the Maryland Transit Administration, the public transit agency for the Baltimore metro area hasn't been properly funded for decades.
Here in Maryland, the Maryland Transit Administration, the public transit agency for the Baltimore metro area hasn't been properly funded for decades.
Sigh.
Feds won't help. State's been resistant to help for like...40 years. City's fucked around with the MTA for longer.
I want to believe people will understand that this is an existentially important function in NYC/NYS and it has to be funded come hell or high water, but everything sucks in 2020 so probably it'll collapse and/or be privatized and we'll blame pensions and unions and stuff more than decades of disinvestment and underfunding.
Feds won't help. State's been resistant to help for like...40 years. City's fucked around with the MTA for longer.
I want to believe people will understand that this is an existentially important function in NYC/NYS and it has to be funded come hell or high water, but everything sucks in 2020 so probably it'll collapse and/or be privatized and we'll blame pensions and unions and stuff more than decades of disinvestment and underfunding.
Cuomo does not give a fuck about the MTA. Man shit is already so bad on my line. I'm dreading having to go back into the city if work from home ever tapers down. The service is already harsh and it's largely due to it being so old. I wish some private organizations could take matters into his hands and raise $ for it and fix it. But maybe that'll make it even worse with all the corruption. I'll never see a modern MTA in my lifetime.
Has any NY gubernatorial candidate ever attempted to run on a pro-public transit platform for NYC in the past?
Wouldn't this fall on the state to take care of? Aren't they interested in the ability of the most powerful breadwinner to shuffle it's workers around?
The state would rather die than send any money to the city. Municipalities have politicians run to secede from the state just on the premise of not having to have their upstate, LI or even Staten Island tax money be used to pay for *anything* in the city proper (extra crazy given SI literally is the city, lol).
this is clearly coronavirus related, as basically every state is gonna have severe budget crises for the next few years due to spending money on overpriced PPE (instead of just the federal government giving it to them), a lack of taxes and increased health safety measures which are all very costly. there's not much that can be done about all this to avoid it really, you can't really blame this on the state government
There should be increased funding going to the U.S. Federal Transit Administration that is then given to public transit agencies:
Federal Transit Administration
Improving public transportation for America’s communities.
www.transit.dot.gov
OP
OP
This really depends on the case study. The gold standard is still Hong Kong's MTR. This video is concise and informative.
This is like saying that Education or Roads face deficits...the funding comes from the government! So just increase funding! You can then increase revenue (if you wish) to match, like ride fares, etc.
There is no mass public/rapid transit that is even a realistic comparison to the NYC subway, much less the combination of NYC subway/bus and commuter rail (LIRR, Metro North). The NYC subway has more track mileage, more riders, more coverage than (I think) every single system, more stations, and it's the oldest.
And if it's not literally number 1 in all of these things, it's definitely top 5 in all of them. It does these things in one of the most densely packed locales on Earth, with the some of the most socioeconomic diversity on Earth - every race, every ethnicity, every level of wealth, every lifestyle, everyone rides the subway. It also does this 24 hours a day (at least up to the start of the pandemic).
It isn't perfect, it can improve, there's waste and fraud in the system, there's people that are overpaid, etc. But those things are much less relevant than the sheer amount of time it's spent being fucked over by state and federal budgets (similarly to virtually every single municipal service in the city that wouldn't be disinvested in ANYWHERE ELSE except for the fact that it's in NYC and it might actually help poor people/minorities/etc). I hate seeing these things get screwed and then people go at everyone except the entities that should be making sure it has money and making sure it doesn't have to operate as a strictly for-profit service.
And if it's not literally number 1 in all of these things, it's definitely top 5 in all of them. It does these things in one of the most densely packed locales on Earth, with the some of the most socioeconomic diversity on Earth - every race, every ethnicity, every level of wealth, every lifestyle, everyone rides the subway. It also does this 24 hours a day (at least up to the start of the pandemic).
It isn't perfect, it can improve, there's waste and fraud in the system, there's people that are overpaid, etc. But those things are much less relevant than the sheer amount of time it's spent being fucked over by state and federal budgets (similarly to virtually every single municipal service in the city that wouldn't be disinvested in ANYWHERE ELSE except for the fact that it's in NYC and it might actually help poor people/minorities/etc). I hate seeing these things get screwed and then people go at everyone except the entities that should be making sure it has money and making sure it doesn't have to operate as a strictly for-profit service.
It's rough. I think Seoul/Shanghai are the only mass transit systems in the world that is on par with/better than NYC, providing the same level of constant service, and has a similar scale.
But yeah I feel the same as you on everything else. The way this system has been treated has been a fucking disgraced.
Not that surprising when the city is where the poor minorities live, if it wasn't for Manhattan no one would give a shit about NYC.
Truth.
And the idea that the city's wealth and standing is some self perpetuating mechanism even though home ownership is beyond a pipe dream for 99% of the population and rent keeps getting more and more fucked, so why not let the one thing that lets people who work the jobs that make it a desirable place to live completely fall apart. After all it's not like infrastructure is the thing that holds it all together.
yeah if the subway collapses somehow I'll have no reason to live here.
Exactly. What is even the point of living in NYC if there is no public transportation? Almost no way I could afford to live in walking distance of my work place, owning a car is so incredibly expensive, and driving to work everyday sounds like the worst.
The MTA has been properly funded for decades compared to international peers. The best transit systems in the world have no public subsidies on construction or operations.
It is a bloated, top heavy, piece of shit bureaucracy with incredibly inefficient labor because no politician ever pushed through or backed labor reforms (work rules from the 1910s are still in effect). The operations side still employs conductors, a billion dollars a year for a useless job. The capital construction side of the organization is military levels of waste.
The current crisis does in fact suck but this is merely an acceleration of its bankruptcy rather than the cause.
The best public transit systems in the world may be publicly owned, but they are profitable.
Free transit systems provide shit quality of service, world over. There needs to be political pressure to keep fares low and quality high from ridership. This pressure does not exist where the fare is free.
MTA was running billion dollar deficits before Covid, despite direct real estate and insane toll subsidies.
HK MTR is the best. (Profitable)
Any MRT on the mainland is better. (Suspected Profitable)
Taipei MRT is better. (Profitable)
Tokyo's (two) metros are better. (Profitable)
Paris Metro is better. (Not profitable, similar farebox recovery ration to MTA)
London TFL is better. (Operations Profit)
Barcelona is better (and best at expansion in the world right now)
Moscow is better. (Who knows)
Toronto is marginally better. (Don't know)
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yeah, in america maybe. most other places with well-functioning public transit are, by nature, public. this comes down to american politics and culture not funding public transport in favour of private transit, usually cars. in fact privatisation of public transport infrastructure often leads to absurd pricing and inefficient exploitative shitshows, like the misery that is UK rail atm. or then you can stupid shiny private billionaire projects like hyperloops, when the actual buses and trains most people actually use are being starved out by local governments
it's wretched
More people here have been biking to work or for whatever during the pandemic and bike sales have increased hugely. The entire 2nd Ave Subway project should have been scrapped in the first place and so far all they have had to show for it after five years is three stations in the UES. All of that money could have gone towards fixing the system
The Transport system in Berlin is privately organized but owned by the City. However, Berlin is investing 32 billions € for public transportation. I guess that's the big differentiation.
it's on the coronavirus. Transit still relies heavily on fare income and that went poof for a few critical months. NYS is already completely broke from stalled economic activities as well, the only one who can fix this mess is the federal government so of course we know how fucked we are.
Mass transit only makes sense if there is sufficient population density to support efficient operation. Most of the US is sparsely populated compared to Europe and Asia except for a few cities, and those cities have transit systems that are funded by states that are also mostly sparsely populated, so priorities are different. So you really can't compare.
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Any train later than 8 minutes must be reported to the government
Any train later than 30 minutes will be fined
There are no timetables since trains come so often
Everything is getting cut, not just infrastructure, because of COVID.
And having taken the bus and subway recently, its probably OK to lower on the priority list these days because so many people are relying on other modes of traffic and/or WFH, and it's looking way less crowded than its ever been.
Thank you sharing, that was very enlightening and I have subscribed to the channel.
The rest of NY state generally has a pretty big hate-boner for Cuomo because he's 'too liberal' and wants to take their guns away. Imagine if he gave a whole bunch of state money to us coastal elites.
It isn't the oldest, London's is older, of a similar size, far more reliable and on top they have a way better bus system.
The Subway was in a death spiral way before COVID.
this is just what NYC need when we're like... attempting to get people to go back into the city come Fall! lower MTA budget which will invariably cause more delayed and packed trains! good job!!!!!!!