Guess Metro North has some repairs to make…
https://www.yahoo.com/news/fire-halts-train-yorks-grand-central-terminal-001131622--nfl.html?ref=gs
That’s not really true in the broader perspective. Sure, you can say New York’s MTA has kept up in only the last 20 years, but the reality is that the New York City Subway was falling apart for decades due to deferred maintenance and other problems decades before the City took it over. Hardly anything was rehabilitated since the IND system was developed.
In the 1970s the system was in a crisis. It was literally falling apart and catching fire all day every day. It was orders of magnitude worse than the DC Metro. After the NYC financial crisis was mostly resolved the MTA started on a rebuilding program that is still going on today, over 45 years later.
After the 1980s (except for Sandy, which wasn’t their fault), the NYC Subway has been steadily improving and returning to a state of good repair. Metro has done the opposite.
Riding the subway every day during the 1970’s, I can assure you the crises was not that bad. Fortunaely, the system had been bujilt to such high standards that even deferred maintenance did not stop the trainis from running. And before the city took the IRT and BMT systems over, maintenance on the BMT was as high a standard as one could wish, but the IRT was in bankrupcy and did just what was needed to keep things running. The service was generally reliable. Today, in Jerusalem, I could use that reliability for our bus system. Not entirely the bus system’s fault, traffic problems, incidents, etc. The light rail runs more reliably, but it also has had outages or partial outages. In the 1970’s, Metro North and its predessor operation under Conrail, had problems more often than the subway system, stemming from the PC days. A number of times, say about four during the entire decade. returning from my office near the White Plains North Statiop, we unloaded at Wakefield, and walked over to the Gund HIll Road Station to catch the 2 or 5 sbuway train to comploete oiur journey to Manhattan. And one morning one of my two partners picked me up at the 241wst Street White Plains Rd. (Av.) tp drove tje wokl. In the 80’s and up to the time I left in 1996, Metro North, as well as the subway, got lots and lots better.
Hard copy sent regular airmail yesterday:
דוד לויד בן יעקב יהודה קלפר, ישיבת בית אורות, שמואל בן עדיה 1, הר הזיתים, ירושלים 97400
David Lloyd ben Yaacov Yehuda Klepper, Yeshivat Beit Orot, Shmuel ben Adiya 1, Mt. of Olives, Jerusalem 97400 ISRAEL
16 Iyar 5776, 24 May 2016 Email: daveklepper@yahoo.com 15.05.16,טז’ אייר תשע"ה
Wait a week or two, then send a letter to the Times, Post, and Newsday that describes the idea. Stress in the letter the importance of giving as many people as possible the idea of the changes, in the same spirit as the pamphlets or handouts you propose.
I received form a reply from NYCTA already. I honestly expect a positive reply, and would not contact the newspapers. Indeed, my second mailing would be to Mayor de Blaso, and the Borough Presidents of Manhattan, Brooklyn, and Queens, ---- if necessary. Newspapers would be the last resort.
Should explain, the letter was also e-mailed via the comment section of the NYCTA website’s Canarsie Line Tunnel recfonstruction page.
REceived formletter email reply:
Recently you requested personal assistance from our on-line support center. Below is a summary of your request and our response. |
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| # Subject |
Canarsie Tunnel Reconstruction Project # Discussion Thread |
Response By Email (Fernando Polanco) (05/26/2016 12:34 PM) This is in response to your e-mail regarding the Canarsie Tunnel Reco |
You know, I think the wrong person’s running the subway.
Don’t be surprised if you get a job offer David!
A close friend who has better connections with the actual Subway bosses than I have, proposed a different solution. He favored keeping one tunnel open, like I do, but his reduced service It involved taking west of Union Square on 14th Street out of service, running a basic say every quarter hour service most of the time, but then fleeting only westbound trains during the morning rush with no eastbound service and doing the reverse in the evening rush. The two trackis west of Unions Square (yes there is a sizzors crossover arangement a U. Sq.) would store the fleet during the mid-day for the evfening rush hour. He was tole it was a workable plan but the quality of empoloyees would not be up to it.
I disagree with that last statement, and think his plan is not workable, because the rush hour is long enough that some trains do make two trips during the rush on the L, and so a car shortage would result. And the problem of what replaces the 14th service itself remains, with 14th Street having very heavy traffic during rush hours and the M14 bus thus very slow. The objection raised against his plan could be waged against mine, but I am ready with an answer, Specifically, time table accuracy and response to events depends primarily on the people at the model boards at the Command Center, and they had better well be qualified to use the signal and switch controls properly to implement my plan or the TA and the City have worse problems than Sandy!
Isn’t WMATA the only transit agency run by the Federal Government?
That’s more of a function of geography than politics since the District of Columbia is not part of any state.
I didn’t think it was.
http://www.wmata.com/about_metro/board_of_directors/ and other pages appear to indicate that the entity that runs it is separate from a United States Government agency (accountable to any branch of the Government directly, that is); the Feds even appoint only 1/3 of the directors. In fact I had thought that one of the ongoing threats being made about the “safety” problems on the Metro was that some government agency or other was going to ‘take over’ and administer carefully-unspecified parts of the operation ‘until safety was restored’ (or the cows come home, or the double-toothpicks freeze over…)
I do not remember whether there is an equal Federal-level intervention being thought about for Atlanta, and I’m too lazy to go back and check posts here (which is where I got that hazy memory in the first place).
Elsewhere there has, I think, been more than usual care to keep Federal control out of transit, to the extent where states form compacts to provide transit that might otherwise ‘legitimately qualify’ as interstate commerce (it certainly is more legitimate than the basis for concern with passengers in ‘interstate commerce’ that prompted the Heart of Atlanta opinions!)
Updating on my suggestions to NYCTA on the 14th Street tunnel reconstruction. Received an informative critique, and on that basis have modified to suggest the C and not the E to Canarsie, with the E running to Euclid instead of the C. Also, instead of dividng the truncated L into three parts, have three truncated “fleeted” L trains closely spaced every 15 minutes. The big question is whether cab signals and ATC can be installed in time between W4 and East New York via the Williamsburg Bridge and the Broadway elevated. Will see if anything good comes of my suggestions.