I think this is the most important topic in this article. Government projects cost so much and take so long because there is always a disconnect between the institution paying for the work and the institution doing the work. One can’t reliably measure the other’s capabilities and knowledge and so it becomes a murky relationship (one that is also easily exploited by persons on both sides willing to make their paychecks fatter).
In the 'old days' when we built lots of large infrastructure projects like the New York subway, various energy megaprojects, the interstate highway system, etc. nearly all technical functions were done in-house at the government or quasi-government agency responsible.
Now we have become 'leaner' and pared down many government agencies to project management only (sometimes just business management - projects is contracted out too), but it's not that easy to manage construction of a subway or a 500 kV transmission line if you don't actually have the base of relevant knowledge internally. Suddenly you have 25-year-olds fresh of out of engineering school being christened 'Senior Project Manager' and put in charge of a large, very complex technical project when 40 years ago, they would have been doing basic design and learning their trade as an engineer under the direction of a phalanx of senior engineers. Then we pat ourselves on the back for 'saving' loads of money by reducing headcount in the public sector when actual total cost of ownership has escalated.
The people actually doing the nuts-and-bolts engineering and construction work have no ownership in the project because the second that contractual completion is declared it's off to the next one.
Right now I am working for a power company that refuses to hire its own project or commissioning engineers, instead contracting management, oversight and quality control of its construction projects to a litany of 3rd parties. Unsurprisingly, it means very few if any people in our company have the expertise to understand what's going on when a project is off the rails. The result is endless delays while senior management wrings their hands and brings in yet more consultants to manage the other consultants.
This happens in the Private Sector as well. I work for a manufacturing company with 6+ facilities (two major, third major greenfield in design and 3 minor facilities) We have 3 engineers for the whole company. We mostly just manage the contracted engineering firms. It sucks for me as a "junior" Senior Project Engineer because I rarely get a chance to learn what my contractors are doing, too busy managing them and coordinating. Naturally, in order to be a better PM I need to know their skills at least at a 500' level. Hard to learn to code PLCs when I'm too busy managing 5 PLC programmers on a project for a month or two, then moving onto something else that might not even have a PLC involved.
This is so true. I have nothing to say except you are just hitting so many nails on the head.
This is incorrect. There are plenty of efficient, well run government institutions and projects. There are also plenty of inefficient and badly run (for the consumer) market-based companies.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mjx3S3UjmnA
Well made video that helps understand the interlocks - if you like antique systems!
Seems that using lots of inexpensive redundant sensors would achieve the necessary fault tolerance and avoid frequent maintenance shutdowns. It sounds like they have instead elected to implement a monolithic system with a lot of expensive hardware at both the station and car levels. I guess that's how they (don't) roll in New York.
That’s the source of a lot of error in project estimates, since it is trivial to come up with plans before considering the details.
Phrasing it as a software project: “I don’t understand why it is so hard to find information on the internet. All of the pages are available through HTTP web servers, aren’t they? What’s wrong with just downloading them all?”
The third-rail is not continuous, not all segments are energized all the time, and a single train can make simultaneous contact with multiple 3rd rail segments. It's probably not impossible to do, but it's also probably not trivial.
I agree that I could also think of several ways to implement it and I'm only a software dev.
The Subway is like something from a bygone era:
> All track on the New York subway (and on most American rail) is broken into sections, here about 1,000 feet long. An electric current is constantly running in a loop through each section. When a train enters a section, it short-circuits the loop, which allows the system to know that the section is occupied. The signals behind it automatically turn red.
> Fixed-block signaling systems, in use since the late 1800s, keep trains from getting too close to one another. The neat thing about subway signals, as opposed to the ones you find on the road, is that they actually force you to stop. When a signal is red, a footlong metal T called (appropriately) a “train stop” protrudes above the track; each train car has a corresponding “trip cock” on its wheel frame connected to the emergency brakes. If you were to drive by a stop signal the train stop would hit the trip cock and you’d screech to a halt.
What we need is a reorganization of the public transport sector with competent long term planning and the funds to achieve it.
But as long as corruption, incompetence, cronyism and a complete lack of the public willing to pay for it. It won't happen.
And the safety devices you describe are what keeps stories like "subways crash, 500 killed" from being commonplace. What exactly happens when a couple of Boring Company vehicles crash in a tube at 200kph? How do you extract them? What happens to them, and what happens to the other 75 vehicles approaching in the tubes behind them at 200kph? Has any thought at all been given to this?
Suppose the average rider's trip is 10 stops. At every stop where the rider does not get off, there is inefficiency because they sitting there, taking up a seat on a train that is stopped. You're not only wasting their time, you're also wasting train capacity.
The naive solution is to make the train longer. Which works, but it's costly because you also have to make the platform longer. In a subway system, that's expensive. And the worst part is, you have to do it for every station the train will stop at, even the ones that aren't as busy.
This is, of course, why express trains exist. Eliminate some stops and you reduce all these problems. But the more stops you eliminate, the fewer people can use the express (because it doesn't stop where they're going), so there's an unavoidable compromise.
In the days before automation, this was probably the best that could be done. But now that automation exists, new approaches are possible.
Since you no longer need a driver per train, you now have the option of making trains smaller. And it's also possible to group people together by starting point and destination. So in theory you could make every train an "express train", one with zero stops other than starting point and destination. No seats wasted on making people wait in a non-moving train while others get on/off. So you can eliminate an inefficiency that you never could before.
Of course, every train needs headway for safety reasons. More smaller trains instead of fewer larger trains means that's harder. So it's not without its own, different limitations. Maybe automation has fast enough reaction time (or other tricks) that can cut down on the physical space needed for headway.
Anyway, the point is that much smaller vehicles might actually increase efficiency, and this is what the Boring Company seems to be planning to do.
Those hardwired safety mechanisms certainly work, but are primarily needed to overcome human error. We're all willing to fly on planes with autopilot, and self-driving vehicles in tunnels will be safer.
Elon is talking about building 30 or more levels in dense cities. A guy who lands rocket boosters for reuse has certainly thought through the details of an underground transportation system.
What crap. For nearly 100 years the subway has been just fine, and after 10-15 years of corruption and mismanagement we're expected to believe the only solution is a multi-billion dollar upgrade with technology that didnt even exist the last time the system was functioning properly?
I dont think lack of computer controlled trains is the problem here:
https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2018/05/09/nyregion/subw...
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/18/nyregion/new-york-subway-...
>Signal problems and car equipment failures occur twice as frequently as a decade ago, but hundreds of mechanic positions have been cut because there is not enough money to pay them — even though the average total compensation for subway managers has grown to well over $200,000 a year.
Daily ridership has nearly doubled in the past two decades to 5.7 million, but New York is the only major city in the world with fewer miles of track than it had during World War II. Efforts to add new lines have been hampered by generous agreements with labor unions and private contractors that have inflated construction costs to five times the international average.
New York’s subway now has the worst on-time performance of any major rapid transit system in the world, according to data collected from the 20 biggest. Just 65 percent of weekday trains reach their destinations on time
Fewer miles of track is a legacy of that time period, as subway replacements for demolished elevated lines never came, and then elevated lines had to be demolished because they were a safety hazard.
As far as construction costs go, the problem is actually that the MTA is not involved in construction union negotiations at all, and the firms are more than happy to oblige the unions and pass on the cost to their captive consumer. The barrier to entry for new firms is quite high due to byzantine NYS bidding rules as a result of '20s era reform, and even if you could have a new firm start up they'd be hiring from the same pool of workers; it's not as if specialized construction workers can be hired on visa.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-...
> At the heart of the issue is the obscure way that construction costs are set in New York. Worker wages and labor conditions are determined through negotiations between the unions and the companies, none of whom have any incentive to control costs. The transit authority has made no attempt to intervene to contain the spending.
CBTC has been an utter shit show in San Francisco. The transit consultants LOVE it. The riders who get to put up with extremely delicate equipment? Not so much.
CBTC is used all day, every day by cities all over the world without issue. I've personally taken hundreds, if not thousands, of trips on train systems with this technology and it works perfectly.
If SF is having problems with CBTC it says a lot more about SF than CBTC.
Sure it would be be nice to supply that information in some open API somewhere though.
At unfamiliar stations just be conforted that's it's monotonic :).
How did wifi change that?
https://ny.curbed.com/2018/1/2/16840622/mta-nyc-subway-count...
The OP article is still relevant for understanding the dysfunctions of the MTA.
Not mentioned in the article is that the NYC subway system is controlled by Albany, not NYC.
