I know this isn't a popular idea but any thoughts on why privatizing them is a bad idea? It works in Japan. There are at least 10 train/subway companies in Tokyo alone. JR, Tokyu, Keikyu, Keio, Odakyu, Eidan, Seibu, Tobu, Toei, Keisei and they seem to be best in class by most measures.
The NYC subway system started as 3 organizations; only one of which was city owned. I am normally not for privatization but it is probably the only thing that can save the MTA. The NYT points out a lack of funding but really their funding has not dropped tremendously. Politicians do not have the right mindset to run this. Sure Democrats tend to spend more on infrastructure, but then support obscene union contracts. MTA police make 130k + The LIRR has conductors that clip tickets getting paid 80k base with tons of overtime and benefits. The maintenance workers are (un)lucky if they work more than 3 hrs a day. There is nothing that is going to change with this unless someone goes in and rips it apart as the union is politically powerful and politicians have other interests than running the subway properly.
But CRUD app developers are most precious resources on earth. Other people should not really exist after providing services, food, security and on demand rides etc.
My uncle is one of those people who sits in subway booths.
He does almost nothing.
He makes 80k a year.
My political ideology is deeply in favor of the working class. I believe in strong worker protections, in the unionization of labor in most industries, and that capital controls a disproportionate amount of wealth and power in this country.
But I must also insist that these costs are unfair and insane.
He's also getting about another 70k in benefits, for a total compensation well into the 6-figures.
People wonder "why is the subway so filthy?" Well, if you wanted to hire people to keep the subways clean, they would have to be paid $100K+ in total compensation.
Ok, so why not hire a private company to keep subways clean? A private company would be able to pay free-market compensation to hire cleaners.
"In terms of cleanliness, which is also an issue of public health - why doesn't MTA have a dedicated crew of 4 or 5 people with a power washer, soap and squeegees to move methodically through each station, working on the weekends or overnight? "
Can't have it, because the MTA is not in the moving-people-business, they are in the wealth-transfer-business.
In fact, MTA have been investing in vacuum cleaning systems for the tracks with the aim of reducing fires that lead to delays. You're being disingenuous. Here's an article:
So it's frankly absurd of the commenter to say that just 4-5 people could manage this task. One manager mentioned in the article leads a team of 300(!) cleaners.
They do have those teams. I've seen them work; they've got power washers, and they blast the stations. They cleaned my previous-local station once every few months, at least.
The stations don't stay clean because they move millions of people per day, not all of whom are clean. Today I saw a kid throwing up on her way into the station; she and her mother were somehow polite enough to pause above a drain to do so. Combine that with people tracking upstairs dirt in, and littering, intentional and accidental (I dropped a candy wrapper while getting my kid home; I'm not stopping to pick it up mid-tantrum), and you've got a pretty messy situation.
I used to work for a far less offensive agency in NYC, a public library system, and IT managers there make a cool $200K -- though most librarians who are in unions make much less. I wouldn't feel too bad if they were competent folks who deserve the market rates, but many of them didn't really deserve what they were getting.
Yes I know a real person that works for MTA police but no he didn't make 130k, he made 195k. Go on seethroughny.net and look it up. Try to find MTA police NOT making over 130k. Keep in mind this also includes 20 yr retirement with state tax free pension.
I don't doubt that such people exist, but it's definitely not the norm. If you start with a base salary of 70k or so (not terribly unreasonable if you've got seniority), you rack up overtime (usually at 1.5× multiplier), and you work lousy shifts like nights and holidays, making 130k isn't impossible.
Subway systems are a natural monopoly; privatising something when there's no real competition has limited benefits and can be actively harmful if it reduces accountability. It works in Japan because under the keiratsu system nominally private companies are still closely tied to the political system and each other, so they have accountability through that channel.
Also a lot of the value created by a subway shows in land values rather than being captured directly in fares - the article says the MTA is 60% funded by fares which is high but, well, not 100%. You need a mechanism for those who benefit (i.e. owners of buildings near subway stations) to fund the subways. In some countries the transport authority will essentially own large shopping mall complexes around each station and fund the subway that way; in Japan employers often pay for workers' subway tickets.
However, it doesn't work in London. There are a dozen train franchises, remnants of the privatized and sliced-up British Rail system. They are all atrocious in service quality, frequency, capacity and usually price when compared to the parts of the system that were never privatised (the Underground) or that were renationalised (the Overground).
The world's best subway by many measures is the MTR in Hong Kong. Not only is it entirely privately run but it turns a profit which they then take to build more lines. The MTR Corporation is also building London's new 73 mile Crossrail line which opens up next year after being under construction for less than 10 years. 13 Miles of Crossrail is in underground tunnels beneath the densest part of the city. In terms a New Yorker would understand, this project is like if the entire length of the 2nd avenue subway in Manhattan got built along with extensions into the Bronx and Brooklyn in 10 years and under budget.
I can't see NY selling off their subway to a private entity anytime soon but what if a Mayor allowed MTR or another corporation to come in and build a competing line in some part of the city? The amazingly efficient new line might light a fire under the ass of the broader NYC subway to start operating more efficiently. Or as the new line begins to make more profit it could buy NYC lines one by one until it's running most of it. This way the debt bomb of the MTA won't destroy the city because it won't affect all major transit lines.
I believe it works because it was already a good system before being privatized. Most of the cost of building the system and making it work well was done when it was private. Even now the best system in Tokyo, Tokyo Metro, is a joint venture by two different governments
On that same idea, I would love to see private buses replace the subway. There is a large van that takes 15-20 people from Queens to Chinatown that runs everyday 12 hours a day and it costs under $5.
Would love to see similar systems for Queens -> Times Square or Brooklyn -> wall street.
Trains just have so much higher capacity than roads. A single lane of highway traffic can handle about 2,000 cars per hour, and that of a surface street probably more like 1,000 cars per hour, while a track of railway can handle 24-30 trains per hour. Trains themselves can carry 1000-1500 people (albeit not comfortably on the high-end), which means you're looking at 25k-45k people/hour/lane on a train. You can't compete with that by road unless you have tons of buses converging on a dedicated busway for a trunk commute (something like this happens in the Lincoln Tunnel).
Yes, let’s have more deadly, congestion-inducing, loud and smog-producing private buses filling up our streets, rather than making a cheap, electrified mass transit system better.
The Queens to Chinatown bus fills a gap in services from Flushing to Chinatown. If that bus is really transporting multiple subway trains worth of people each day, that in my mind means we ought to build better mass transit between those two places. Not that we should cannibalize our working people-moving infrastructure for something worse.
