Why Isn't East Side Access Running? (Russia, Hope: home, contractor, wage)
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Where did you get that the inability to split service was the issue? I haven't heard anything of the sort. Instead, I heard it was the desire for further testing of the signaling system despite the waiver issued, but that was from reddit with transit nerds.
I am speculating, given how thin staffing is, that may be the problem. In other words they can have the terminal and tracks ready and still may not be able to do it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by OyCrumbler
There's a general non sequitur you're suggesting where somehow not using a terminal operation means that there will be no train station in the core employment area.
I'm saying a core location is not bad in NYC.
Quote:
Originally Posted by OyCrumbler
Terminal berths are a very inefficient process and the radical expense of Grand Central Madison is mostly due to how massively cavernous the terminal station has to be in order to handle high peak frequency runs. There's only a set of double tracks with one meant to be railway north and the other railway south and these trains are of fairly good length. Going into a terminal station with long trains and high frequency means that you need many different berths and a very large and complex, bi-level interlocking for those double tracks where you have each train coming in from the railway south track into an open berth and then meanwhile needs to cross over multiple other tracks leading into other terminal berths in order for the next train to go out railway north. This in construction means a huge volume that needs to be excavated and stabilized to fit the massive interlocking and the large number of terminal berths in order to actually be able to use the track capacity of the railway to any reasonable extent.
Thank you, a good explanation.
Quote:
Originally Posted by OyCrumbler
The way this is solved in cities in the developed world like in Tokyo, Osaka, Seoul, Paris, Milan, Taipei, Seoul, Berlin and most recently London is that these sort of commuter rail/regional rail networks generally do not use terminals in the city core but instead do through-running to connect elsewhere to run the trains out of the core before turnarounds are a more efficient operation and better bang for the buck as tunneling more and then building for smaller stations is much cheaper and more efficient than large interlockings and many terminal berths and would provide far greater utility value in terms of more one-seat ride possibilities to final destinations and distribute any potential transfers to more stations in the core. These are often given the name RER systems after the one in Paris or S-Bahn system after the ones in multiple cities in Germanic language countries. I highlight London's Crossrail specifically because for similar costs, and the UK also has infrastructure cost control issues, because it had a similar base infrastructure to work with and similar scale of project cost and yet delivered something far more useful because it opted not to do an incredibly expensive terminal station in the main core with a massive interlocking leading to and from a double-decked twin tunnel station.
Does this mean everyone would take one train out, and then there would be a large transfer station elsewhere, so I would switch to another train to finish my trip?
Quote:
Originally Posted by OyCrumbler
Try doing this again, but try it with the possibility that you did the math wrong and not the person writing the article.
What do you think the right math is? An expansion from $3-4 billion to over $11 billion is more than 120%.
I am speculating, given how thin staffing is, that may be the problem. In other words they can have the terminal and tracks ready and still may not be able to do it.
I'm saying a core location is not bad in NYC.
Thank you, a good explanation.
Does this mean everyone would take one train out, and then there would be a large transfer station elsewhere, so I would switch to another train to finish my trip?
What do you think the right math is? An expansion from $3-4 billion to over $11 billion is more than 120%.
Oh, I see, you're just shooting the breeze and that's not what's actually been verified as the issue.
No one is saying the location is bad. What I'm saying is that building it as a terminal station is bad and a large part of why this single station extension is so incredibly costly.
What it means is that instead of putting money into one single giant station in the most expensive and busiest part of the city in order to accommodate terminal train operations, you instead keep building the railway tunnels, which is relatively cheap per mile and likely amortizes to even cheaper per mile the more you tunnel and instead build multiple much smaller stations out (*including* one roughly where Grand Central Madison is now) until you are out of the core or can connect it to other existing tracks heading out of the city. This means you actually get more stations where you can get out and either transfer or are now within short walking distance of your final destination so in many senses, this is even better. This is essentially what London did with the Crossrail project while we built East Side Access (and what was already done in many other cities throughout the 20th century and early 21st century before either project).
Failing that, you can also build an interim solution of a much smaller interim terminal station with diamond crossovers both before the terminal station platforms and past the terminal station platforms into longer tail tracks to eventually tunnel out which will have not all, but a majority of the transit capacity of the larger terminal station with large interlocking and many berths and primed for extension in the future to become through-running without as much disruption.
Article also didn't say 120%, but 160%. Their math is right for $4.3 billion to $11.2 billion, but they rounded it so there's no decimal points.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 01-04-2023 at 03:21 PM..
Russian infrastructure projects in the last decade or so haven't done well, but that's likely due to some pretty naked corruption going on there on a much larger scale. It is nowhere near in the same ballpark of what China has done in infrastructure in the last decade. If you want to see more efficient project build outs and lower costs in developed countries with democratic governments and rule of law, then Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Spain, France, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Austria, Germany, and in recent years Australia and Canada are better showcases.
These places also generally have unions and some of them have very large union presences, so it's not the existence of unions or a large unionized workforce per se that's really at the heart of the issue rather than how they operate with other factors within the US. The US also has more issues than just contractors milking money and there's a question of how it became so much needed to be outsourced to get anything done. I think there's a tendency to ask for a quick scapegoat when it's more like decades of systemic buildup of issues and a large backlog of deferred maintenance and expansion and having directed investments to subsidize far less efficient projects that's the larger context in which these other issues occur.
I'd be pretty surprised if East Side Access doesn't open in the next few months given the fairly minor details that remain to be worked out. That being said, one of the larger issues about East Side Access is that it was the wrong way to do this in the first place. This mentality of balkanized fiefdoms among the commuter rail agencies as well as the outdated concept of city core terminal runs is the largest problem with things like ghost employees racking up hours or questionable regulations for the crew numbers for each tunnel boring machine being rounding errors in comparison. This should have never been done as a a double decker, two-tunneled system with a massive interlocking that feeds into all these terminal berths. That was always and is the stupid part. What's done is done though and this is ultimately more capacity added, but how it was added was foolish and hopefully there will be some lesson learned from this.
It should be a requirement that anyone who has a large modicum of power in the MTA must have lived as an adult in a city with modernized, efficient mass transit system and have taken some time to study such in general. This means no New Yorkers who haven't lived as an adult elsewhere outside of the US should qualify for at least the next decade or so. I think this played a very large role in why Andy Byford had such a rapidly successful though short stint at NYCTA.
I thought he was great. Had a solid track record with systems in Sydney and Toronto, a real get-the-work-done type of guy. But...the other Andy didn't like him because the way he wanted to do things would not make the sun shine on the governor the way the governor wanted it to.
Russian infrastructure projects in the last decade or so haven't done well, but that's likely due to some pretty naked corruption going on there on a much larger scale. It is nowhere near in the same ballpark of what China has done in infrastructure in the last decade. If you want to see more efficient project build outs and lower costs in developed countries with democratic governments and rule of law, then Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Spain, France, Norway, Denmark, Finland, Switzerland, the Netherlands, Austria, Germany, and in recent years Australia and Canada are better showcases.
These places also generally have unions and some of them have very large union presences, so it's not the existence of unions or a large unionized workforce per se that's really at the heart of the issue rather than how they operate with other factors within the US. The US also has more issues than just contractors milking money and there's a question of how it became so much needed to be outsourced to get anything done. I think there's a tendency to ask for a quick scapegoat when it's more like decades of systemic buildup of issues and a large backlog of deferred maintenance and expansion and having directed investments to subsidize far less efficient projects that's the larger context in which these other issues occur.
I'd be pretty surprised if East Side Access doesn't open in the next few months given the fairly minor details that remain to be worked out. That being said, one of the larger issues about East Side Access is that it was the wrong way to do this in the first place. This mentality of balkanized fiefdoms among the commuter rail agencies as well as the outdated concept of city core terminal runs is the largest problem with things like ghost employees racking up hours or questionable regulations for the crew numbers for each tunnel boring machine being rounding errors in comparison. This should have never been done as a a double decker, two-tunneled system with a massive interlocking that feeds into all these terminal berths. That was always and is the stupid part. What's done is done though and this is ultimately more capacity added, but how it was added was foolish and hopefully there will be some lesson learned from this.
It should be a requirement that anyone who has a large modicum of power in the MTA must have lived as an adult in a city with modernized, efficient mass transit system and have taken some time to study such in general. This means no New Yorkers who haven't lived as an adult elsewhere outside of the US should qualify for at least the next decade or so. I think this played a very large role in why Andy Byford had such a rapidly successful though short stint at NYCTA.
You don't know what you're talking about.
Andy Byford left because Il Duce (aka governor Cuomo) always the bride at every wedding or corpse at every funeral couldn't help himself, always interfering and or sabotaging the guy's work.
Mr. Byford did much huge work lining things up to repair subway tunnels under East River damaged by super storm Sandy. Just as things were about to kick off Il Duce steps in with his own handpicked plan (developed by Columbia University students) and pushes Andy Byford aside. WTF? No self respecting guy is going to stand for that BS and being fed up AB quit.
But that was Il Duce Cuomo all over. Besides having a big mouth and being too fond of sound of his own voice (like his father) he always has to be center of attention and or all ways are his alone, period.
A poor young guy who busted his a$$ on Moynihan train station was pushed aside when Cuomo swooped in and began taking credit and or otherwise interfering. In end poor guy ended up committing suicide.
Yeah, AB was gone, but so was Il Duce Cuomo short time later as well. Albany (with help likely from national party) were sick of his sh*t and thus cooked up those sexual harassment charges to force Il Duce out of office. Once that happened you haven't heard *Boo* about those women or their alleged claims of harassment
have you? Albany got what it wanted, Cuomo was no longer governor and that was all that matter.
Andy Byford left because Il Duce (aka governor Cuomo) always the bride at every wedding or corpse at every funeral couldn't help himself, always interfering and or sabotaging the guy's work.
Mr. Byford did much huge work lining things up to repair subway tunnels under East River damaged by super storm Sandy. Just as things were about to kick off Il Duce steps in with his own handpicked plan (developed by Columbia University students) and pushes Andy Byford aside. WTF? No self respecting guy is going to stand for that BS and being fed up AB quit.
But that was Il Duce Cuomo all over. Besides having a big mouth and being too fond of sound of his own voice (like his father) he always has to be center of attention and or all ways are his alone, period.
A poor young guy who busted his a$$ on Moynihan train station was pushed aside when Cuomo swooped in and began taking credit and or otherwise interfering. In end poor guy ended up committing suicide.
Yeah, AB was gone, but so was Il Duce Cuomo short time later as well. Albany (with help likely from national party) were sick of his sh*t and thus cooked up those sexual harassment charges to force Il Duce out of office. Once that happened you haven't heard *Boo* about those women or their alleged claims of harassment
have you? Albany got what it wanted, Cuomo was no longer governor and that was all that matter.
I did follow the reason for why Byford left and nothing in the post I wrote indicated that I did not. I said he had a short, but successful stint. I did not go into why it was short or go into a tirade about my dislike for Andrew Cuomo's governorship. It's pretty odd to claim that I don't know what I'm talking about given what was written. I'm trying to understand how you parsed that sentence so differently from my intention and its explicit, literal meaning.
I did follow the reason for why Byford left and nothing in the post I wrote indicated that I did not. I said he had a short, but successful stint. I did not go into why it was short or go into a tirade about my dislike for Andrew Cuomo's governorship. It's pretty odd to claim that I don't know what I'm talking about given what was written. I'm trying to understand how you parsed that sentence so differently from my intention and its explicit, literal meaning.
This thread is about transit programs, gone wrong, I’m not governorships gone wrong. More likely, if senior levels have been more involved, things would have gone better. I doubt this was gubernatorial misfeasance; the corruption was likely at far lower levels.
This thread is about transit programs, gone wrong, I’m not governorships gone wrong. More likely, if senior levels have been more involved, things would have gone better. I doubt this was gubernatorial misfeasance; the corruption was likely at far lower levels.
No democrat for statewide or many local elections can win without extensive help of various unions. People (gasp) even governors see what they look for and nothing happens unless or until sh*t hits the fan.
That NYT piece laid out a very good case for examining just what was going on with MTA's ESA project in terms of no show jobs, excessive OT and so forth. Neither Albany, state assembly nor any one else said *boo*. Now why do you think that happened?
Only time a governor, mayor, or anyone else takes actions that might harm unions is when things are exposed so egregious it could affect outcome of next election.
You hear lots of noise every time Newsweek, NYT or whoever exposes OT fraud with MTA or other unions. But are the laws changed? No they are not; some are made an example of because union has to give up something, but other than that it's business as usual.
This thread is about transit programs, gone wrong, I’m not governorships gone wrong. More likely, if senior levels have been more involved, things would have gone better. I doubt this was gubernatorial misfeasance; the corruption was likely at far lower levels.
It is probably some of each. Someone I know from my former work life, exec level, well-respected, went to work for the MTA. Governor at the time (AC) sent word that he wanted XYZ done. The man I know spoke up to say why he thought that might be a problem as far as use of public money. Gov phoned his superior that day and said "Get rid of him." The man is now working in the private sector.
I do agree with Bugsy Pal that unions and their influence play a significant part.
No democrat for statewide or many local elections can win without extensive help of various unions. People (gasp) even governors see what they look for and nothing happens unless or until sh*t hits the fan.
That NYT piece laid out a very good case for examining just what was going on with MTA's ESA project in terms of no show jobs, excessive OT and so forth. Neither Albany, state assembly nor any one else said *boo*. Now why do you think that happened?
Unfortunately, leaders such as Robert Moses have been demonized in print quite viciously. See The Power Broker by Robert Caro. While he was not perfect, things got done. The parkway system and early expressways, such as the Long Island Expressway are not gold-plated. However, they were built and they work.
The tubes were dug in late 60s no? Trains from Long Island should have been going to midtown from the get go,
The truth is that contractors milked this project to death over decades. Politicians allowed it. People got rich on your dime. The governor named a bridge after his father for gods sake.
When you fail a project, someone has to be held accountable right? Not in USA, here it’s called capitalism. That’s how you make money, build mansions and have a Ferrari collection.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
