> Good operations can substitute for station size, and it’s always cheaper to get the system to be more reliable than to build more tracks in city center.
The main problem here is one of politics and human attention span.
It’s easier to drum up a bunch of support towards a construction project. It’s visible, some politicians get credit for it, and you can have a campaign that builds excitement to a crescendo before people move on to something else.
Good operations are invisible because everything operates as the margins and gets small wins. No one gets credit. If they slip just a little then no one notices, so you can borrow a little from operations to find something more visible, and it’s a boil the frog situation. And, finally, people just don’t have the attention span for caring about long-term operations.
I don’t know the solution and I’m not saying the above is good, but any solutions that don’t attempt to address the human and political aspects of public works are going to have trouble.
That was THE reason imo that Andy Byford was so promising as head of NYCTA - he seemed to be someone who would focus on the pragmatic human aspects. Sadly Cuomo made sure Byford had no chance of success.
The main problem here is one of politics and human attention span.
It’s easier to drum up a bunch of support towards a construction project. It’s visible, some politicians get credit for it, and you can have a campaign that builds excitement to a crescendo before people move on to something else.
Good operations are invisible because everything operates as the margins and gets small wins. No one gets credit. If they slip just a little then no one notices, so you can borrow a little from operations to find something more visible, and it’s a boil the frog situation. And, finally, people just don’t have the attention span for caring about long-term operations.
I don’t know the solution and I’m not saying the above is good, but any solutions that don’t attempt to address the human and political aspects of public works are going to have trouble.
That was THE reason imo that Andy Byford was so promising as head of NYCTA - he seemed to be someone who would focus on the pragmatic human aspects. Sadly Cuomo made sure Byford had no chance of success.