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If_I_Had_a_Poodle
11/22/09

In reply to New York City Just Gives Up on Subway Service
Everything you said about the misallocation of resources (more highways, less mass transit) is true for schools, too

Local funding of local transit and local schools with national funding of highways is a recipe for a big country filled with long roads driven by itinerant illiterates.
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Proofer3
11/21/09

In reply to New York City Just Gives Up on Subway Service
Thank you for reminding me how much I love Griffin Dunne, and what an unappreciated film After Hours is.
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raincoaster
11/22/09

@Proofer3: You and me both. I wanted to live in that world when I was growing up and now, sadly, I do.
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badasscat
11/21/09

In reply to New York City Just Gives Up on Subway Service
Fares are simply taxes—incredibly regressive taxes, just like the sales taxes that New York City residents suffer to fund our own transit while suburban New Yorkers bitch about the prospect of being charged to clog our streets with their cars

Yeah, and we do that because if you think subway fares are ridiculous, look at LIRR or Metro North fares once in a while. And then look up how fast they've risen over the past few years.

You guys in the city really don't know how good you've got it.

You think $100 a month is a lot to pay for a monthly ticket? Try doubling it. For traveling the same distance in the same amount of time. And how about a 23% increase over the last 3 years?

And you wonder why we want to drive?
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cassandra
11/22/09

@badasscat: seriously, the LIRR charges something like $8, one way, for destinations in the five boroughs - forget actual Long Island. How can anyone afford that on a daily basis?

Pareene, I thought you were totally wrong about Bloomberg (and you are). But you are absolutely correct about the MTA.
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garbanzo314
11/21/09

In reply to New York City Just Gives Up on Subway Service
Can we also outsource all labor within the MTA to a non-union shop. The TWU has stood in the way of implementing new technology (they fought automated announcements in favor giving unintelligible conductors something to do), has made it impossible to fire workers for anything short of murder, and has hopefully featherbedded the system with way too much labor. And did we mention the sweetheart pension and benefit deals. In other municipal news, did anyone notice as part of the news about Bloomberg's city staff cuts that the benefits to salary ratio of city employees is 37% (in the private sector, it's less than 25% typically). Just goes to show that unions are bleeding the taxpayer dry.
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seekingwhat
11/20/09

In reply to New York City Just Gives Up on Subway Service
I'm building an MTA bus depot in Staten Island right now. The stuff I could type here would probably get me fired but... OH MY GOD! THE WASTE!!!
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i'm a bottle
11/20/09

@seekingwhat: I can believe it.
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sensitivitycop
11/20/09

In reply to New York City Just Gives Up on Subway Service
I lived in NYC for 18 year during the Abe Beame, Ed Koch, and David Dinkins years, and still visit NYC 4 times a year. When I do I rely heavily on the subway. Here is why you don't get federal money - because your public transit still runs better and more affordable than anywhere else in the country. I live in LA and my 45 minute commute in my 18 mpg car is still much cheaper, faster, more efficient and more flexible than public transportation - in fact it is much, much cheaper - even when gas was over $4 a gallon. Most politicians in DC comes to NYC a few times a year and they still marvel at how efficient your transit system operates compared to their own, no matter where they're from - and when they come to NYC, it's usually Manhattan and Manhattan is a delightfully easy place to get around in by train. So, maybe some serious, long-term service cuts in Manhattan would make what you feel more obvious to those of us whose systems really suck
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pollyannacowgirl
11/20/09

@sensitivitycop: It's true that our subway system is pretty amazing, all things considered. However, there's PLENTY of room for improvement.

And it's just plain mean that you would wish serious, long-term service cuts on us because your system sucks worse.
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sensitivitycop
11/20/09

@pollyannacowgirl: I don't really wish it on you - I have lots of friends there and I still visit often and I look forward to a rush hour laughing at all the fools in their cars and taxi's while I zip to my destination 30 feet below them. I was just making a point that it's gonna take something really drastic to get the feds attention. And while I agree that there is always room for improvement, my experience is that New Yorkers (myself included when I lived there) tend to view the world as if from inside a bubble and sometime fail to appreciate just how good they really have it. Trust me - try living in Los Angeles and you'll never complain about the MTA again. In terms of improvement, I would have chosen to bitch about the lack of underground cross-town and eastside options in Manhattan - a problem for at least 3 generations now. Wondering why the Feds don't pity a transit system that the rest of us think is pretty awesome just sounded kind of whiney.

#tips
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allyzay
11/20/09

@sensitivitycop: It doesn't strike me that the commentary regarding the federal transit funding has so much to do with specifically singling out the MTA for all of the overage but rather the unbalanced nature of the funding in general, favoring highways in the Bronx to mass transit options (as an example relevant to the MTA). They're not giving funds to these programs in general - which is a massive problem.
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If_I_Had_a_Poodle
11/22/09

@sensitivitycop: In theory, Obama is a president who understands and cares about cities, but evidence of that has yet to become manifest
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If_I_Had_a_Poodle
11/22/09

@allyzay: That's exactly right. In the same way that Wyoming, which has as many people as one NYC apartment building, gets 2 senators just like NY state, so the $$/per capita spent in nowhere places on highways, which support the endless recreation of sprawl upon sprawl upon sprawl, are like 100000000x what is spent on mass transit, even as federal tax dollars are taken from the smart productive places (ie cites) to subsidize the flat and empty stupid places

Organize and protest: Demand that cities get the benefits of their people's labor and that we stop sending federal tax dollars from the places where progressive people live and work to the places where the haterz dwell.
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OMG! Ponies!
11/20/09

In reply to New York City Just Gives Up on Subway Service
$205 monthly LIRR pass plus $89 monthly Metrocard equals the reason I now drive.
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ErrolFinch
11/20/09

In reply to New York City Just Gives Up on Subway Service
This post made my day -- that's just how furious I am at the MTA (Most Terrible Assholes). I'm sure if I think hard enough I can come up with a less efficiently run enterprise, but I don't have the rest of my life to come up with it. Not only does my line NEVER run on a regular schedule/route on the weekends, for about the last 3 years, but now I have to be on my train before 10 p.m. or get stuck going home during the late-night service that is not supposed to start until midnight.

Oh, and stop hating on the workers because they have good benefits. You want good benefits, too? Join a union! Just not the UAW.
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garbanzo314
11/21/09

@ErrolFinch: I'm paying for these union benefits, and every dollar that goes into some sleeping token clerk's pension is a dollar not spent upgrading or extending the system. It's not like a lottery or found money -- this is not a victimless crime.

My tax dollars should fund government that efficiently provides quality services in a low cost manner. In a labor free market, if you don't treat your employees well, they go somewhere else. The level of benefits should be based on that, not a giveaway for political reasons. I never understand all these pro-union arguments, because in the end, someone has to pay and it's usually us.
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cassandra
11/22/09

@ErrolFinch: Oh, you mean these benefits? With the 80% claiming "disability" while golfing?

[www.nytimes.com]
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cassandra
11/22/09

@ErrolFinch: "Virtually every career LIRR employee — as many as 97 percent in one recent year — applies for and gets disability payments soon after retirement, a computer analysis of federal records by The New York Times has found. Since 2000, those records show, about a quarter of a billion dollars in federal disability money has gone to former L.I.R.R. employees, including about 2,000 who retired during that time. "
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SuchAndSuch
11/20/09

In reply to New York City Just Gives Up on Subway Service
Good post, except for the throwaway about how the MTA board is trying to get out of the court-ordered wage increases. First off, have you EVER met an MTA worker in any subway station who you felt was actually doing a good job, let alone deserved a raise? I've seen prisoners pressing license plates with more enthusiasm and pride.

Secondly, that wage increase was awarded by a $900/hr arbitrator (chosen by the TWU, and 4x the hourly rate of the last guy) who turned right around and donated his entire $100K plus fee to....the TWU!

[tiny.cc]

Fuck the MTA: board, workers, everyone. Fire 'em all and start over!
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Cosmonautical
11/20/09

In reply to New York City Just Gives Up on Subway Service
it's difficult to properly express how happy i am that others are so pissed off about this.

i live off the Morgan L, so i'm dealing with it constantly. getting home from manhattan on the weekend? surely you jest!

dearest MTA: kill yourself (or disband yourself, whatever).
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FitnessMadeSimple
11/20/09

In reply to New York City Just Gives Up on Subway Service
Thank you for this, Pareene. This is my favorite post you've ever written.

Also, MTA: everyone knows you are full of shit when you stall at the same stations every day for five minutes at a time and claim there is train traffic ahead.
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Edited by FitnessMadeSimple at 11/20/09 3:15 PM FitnessMadeSimple was starred

Mike Byhoff
11/20/09

@FitnessMadeSimple: I once heard that they were waiting for passengers to transfer from other trains and that there was train traffic ahead.

WHICH ONE IS IT!?
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FitnessMadeSimple
11/20/09

@Mike Byhoff: Well, I take the 6 express to the Bronx, and they pull this crap all the time. They stop at Parkchester, where the 6 local stops across the platform. If a 6 local pulls in at the same time or just after the express, they'll hold the express there for the NEXT local, so they can also transfer. They tell us there is train traffic ahead, but it is clearly bullshit, as they're suddenly able to move as soon as the passengers board from the following local. It is infuriating.
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happymisanthrope
11/21/09

@FitnessMadeSimple: More infuriating is when they use that announcement after you've been waiting 20 minutes for a train to arrive at the station.
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rachelgbishop
11/20/09

In reply to New York City Just Gives Up on Subway Service
Can we add to the end of the list, "find whoever is responsible for creating the clearly expensive ads featuring stupid puns granting us important knowledge such as that it's a bad idea to throw one's baby into the tracks, entirely cut their funding and have them shot?"
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MattGaymon
11/20/09

@rachelgbishop: If you throw things on the track then the train will run them over and they will burst into flames which is bad so it's better to put things that you don't want into the garbage can.
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allyzay
11/20/09

@rachelgbishop: My favorite is the one that instructs you not to cling to the side of a closed train that you've missed, like Spiderman, and to wait for the next train instead. It never even occurred to me to try that until I saw that ad!
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Unsolicited Advice
11/20/09

In reply to New York City Just Gives Up on Subway Service
I thought you loved centrally-planned bureaucracies? Good luck finding those "civil servants" by the way, that was good for a laugh.
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Pareene
11/20/09

@Unsolicited Advice: You're right! No one on earth has ever figured out how to competently manage a massive public transit system! Especially no one in Paris, or Tokyo, or London, where they had to cancel all the subways because there were no "civil servants" :(
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Unsolicited Advice
11/20/09

@Pareene:

I'd come up there and argue, but I think Septa's on strike again.
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allyzay
11/20/09

@Pareene: Last time I was in London, I got stranded at Euston at like 10 or 11pm with a pile of tarty, tacky MILFs - literally, hundreds of them - screaming out the lyrics to "Angels". Then I had to take a gypsy cab back, in which I found a cell phone, so I did the right thing and got in touch with the last person dialed to get the phone back to this person and they wouldn't leave for hours after coming to get their phone at a terrible barbeque restaurant, as if British people even understand the very concept of a barbeque! FUCK London's transit system.
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secondavenuesagas
11/20/09

In reply to New York City Just Gives Up on Subway Service
The MTA announced their plans for fare hikes in 2011 and 2013 at least a year ago. It's part of their plan to keep the system afloat.

You bring up a lot of good points here, Pareene, but you also bring up some issues that obscure the point. The MTA board has been overhauled, and it's an ongoing process. More oversight, as you note, has been instituted. The EZPass issue has been resolved, and the two sets of books charge was proven IN A COURT OF LAW to be false. Plus, the guy who charged them off is a now-disgraced politician who was indicted for his actions while in office.

Still, we have Albany sending over $200 million to widen highways in the Bronx but they can't find money for transit. There's where the system is broken, that's why we keep having to pay higher fares, and that's where you should direct your rage. Don't conflate populist stories about the problems at the MTA with deep institutional issues with New York's approach to transit.
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lobstr
11/20/09

In reply to New York City Just Gives Up on Subway Service
It's so weird to sit in a smelly shitty subway station in Milan and yet look up and see a digital board telling me the next Linea A train is 2:01 away. I don't understand why NYC can't just strike a deal with SONY or Mitsubishi and let them brand some dumb monitors and get 'em down there already -- the technology exists, wtf.
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DTurkin
11/20/09

@lobstr: Because that would mean actually investing in the network. As much as I hate London and it's Underground, you'll always know when the next train is due, and be able to phone someone to let them know you will be late.

I feel sorry for those living outside of Manhattan on the weekends.
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