Privatize the New York City Subway System

[bobtehpanda]

Wiki has gone a long way from where it's been. Now it's often suggested to use as a launching point for further research like papers, mostly because while the actual content of the wiki page may be questionable, Wikipedia pages generally have hundreds and hundreds of citations of actual peer-reviewed things or credible sources.

[GojiMet86]

Wiki has gone a long way from where it's been. Now it's often suggested to use as a launching point for further research like papers, mostly because while the actual content of the wiki page may be questionable, Wikipedia pages generally have hundreds and hundreds of citations of actual peer-reviewed things or credible sources.

 

Either way, it's not going to change his mind.

[Via Garibaldi 8]

Either way, it's not going to change his mind.

I think a private-public venure could work very well for the .  It could allow them to focus on the more complex issues, while leaving the simplier things to others.

[RR503]

Either way, it's not going to change his mind.

Yeah. In general the "wiki isn't reliable" line is used as a crutch by those who are losing arguments...

 

Privatization of any sort makes me uneasy. For profit organizations are in the end beholden to their shareholders not the riding public and as such will choose their benefit over the common good. I think it's best to work with what we have rather than hire the mother of all consultants...

[Via Garibaldi 8]

Yeah. In general the "wiki isn't reliable" line is used as a crutch by those who are losing arguments...

 

Privatization of any sort makes me uneasy. For profit organizations are in the end beholden to their shareholders not the riding public and as such will choose their benefit over the common good. I think it's best to work with what we have rather than hire the mother of all consultants...

Don't be ridiculous.  Shareholders care about profits and if you're aggressive in making improvements to the subway station and getting tenants in those stations and making those spaces more attractive to maximize profit, then I don't see why the shareholders wouldn't be happy.  You can also be more competitive in construction costs and maintenance costs since you don't have to have everything union, again maximizing returns to shareholders.

[RR503]

Don't be ridiculous.  Shareholders care about profits and if you're aggressive in making improvements to the subway station and getting tenants in those stations and making those spaces more attractive to maximize profit, then I don't see why the shareholders wouldn't be happy.  You can also be more competitive in construction costs and maintenance costs since you don't have to have everything union, again maximizing returns to shareholders.

Mkhay. 

 

Look up disinvestment then come back. For many New Yorkers, the subway is a necessary part of their commutes. If they hang dead rats from the ceilings of the stations, people will still use it in volumes. If you're going to let them take over the real estate/station management side of things, you must realize they don't have to do jack s#!+ to make huge profits. In fact, if they cut upkeep (and thereby expenses) they'll make more money. Chew on that. 

[Via Garibaldi 8]

Mkhay. 

 

Look up disinvestment then come back. For many New Yorkers, the subway is a necessary part of their commutes. If they hang dead rats from the ceilings of the stations, people will still use it in volumes. If you're going to let them take over the real estate/station management side of things, you must realize they don't have to do jack s#!+ to make huge profits. In fact, if they cut upkeep (and thereby expenses) they'll make more money. Chew on that. 

Oh please.  You obviously don't realize that it's already happening.  You already have quite a few subway exits that are maintained privately, such as some of the entrances to the Bryant Park subway station along with Metro-North entrances on Madison Avenue, and they are kept in pristine condition.  If it's part of a building, they would be idiots not to keep it up.  It looks bad on them. 

[RR503]

Oh please.  You obviously don't realize that it's already happening.  You already have quite a few subway exits that are maintained privately, such as some of the entrances to the Bryant Park subway station along with Metro-North entrances on Madison Avenue, and they are kept in pristine condition.  If it's part of a building, they would be idiots not to keep it up.  It looks bad on them. 

 

Oh I do. Trust me. But there is a MASSIVE difference in really every respect between maintaining a staircase which may be used by hundreds or thousands of people a day and an entire station which may serve tens or hundreds of thousands. You're comparing peanuts to jackfruit. I also can't overemphasize the difference between a building maintaining a decent subway entrance to increase property value and a company administering a station complex. In one case, the subway is tertiary to their strategy rather than being primary. The entrance is basically acting as a loss leader for the larger building, and therefore can have its maintenance be justified as an investment in the property, but for obvious reasons, a company maintaining subway stations will not be able to operate 472 loss leaders. They will have to maximize profits within their stations alone -- entities they will almost certainly not hold the title to and therefore will have no stake in enhancing the value of. From here on, read my previous post. 

[Via Garibaldi 8]

Oh I do. Trust me. But there is a MASSIVE difference in really every respect between maintaining a staircase which may be used by hundreds or thousands of people a day and an entire station which may serve tens or hundreds of thousands. You're comparing peanuts to jackfruit. I also can't overemphasize the difference between a building maintaining a decent subway entrance to increase property value and a company administering a station complex. In one case, the subway is tertiary to their strategy rather than being primary. The entrance is basically acting as a loss leader for the larger building, and therefore can have its maintenance be justified as an investment in the property, but for obvious reasons, a company maintaining subway stations will not be able to operate 472 loss leaders. They will have to maximize profits within their stations alone -- entities they will almost certainly not hold the title to and therefore will have no stake in enhancing the value of. From here on, read my previous post. 

I read it. Your problem is you're uneasy about any sort of privatization... 

[Italianstallion]

Wikipedia is the LAST place to get information from. lol In any event, privitazation certainly can work if done correctly.

 

Way to deflect from your obvious error.  You can LOL all you want, but most long Wikipedia articles are curated and edited. In any event, I found reference on RATP's website to its being a public-sector company.

[RR503]

I read it. Your problem is you're uneasy about any sort of privatization... 

 

Any, no. If the corporation has an undeniable vested interest in doing what helps users (like in entrance privatization), go right ahead. Elsewhere, it worries me. Step back and remind yourself what happened last time we tried city-owned, privately operated subways. I get this time would in some ways be different, but still. 

[Via Garibaldi 8]

Way to deflect from your obvious error.  You can LOL all you want, but most long Wikipedia articles are curated and edited. In any event, I found reference on RATP's website to its being a public-sector company.

Either way, the only way that I see costs being curtailed is through the elimination of depending on the unions.  A semi-privatization of the system would allow for monies to be generated using other avenues such as naming rights.  The people like you that rail against privatization are too afraid of change, and that's precisely why we have a system that is 100+ years old that is falling apart. Can't keep doing business as usual.  The Europeans get it, but the Americans don't.

 

The costs are astronomical and bloated, the work is shoddy at best with cheap materials and is falling apart before you blink your eye, and before you say it isn't true, I direct you to that mess that is Fulton Street. One billion dollars spent and the station is already falling apart. You can barely open the friggin' doors to get into the station!

[Italianstallion]

Either way, the only way that I see costs being curtailed is through the elimination of depending on the unions.  A semi-privatization of the system would allow for monies to be generated using other avenues such as naming rights.  The people like you that rail against privatization are too afraid of change, and that's precisely why we have a system that is 100+ years old that is falling apart. Can't keep doing business as usual.  The Europeans get it, but the Americans don't.

 

Some Europeans. And some Americans.

[Via Garibaldi 8]

Some Europeans. And some Americans.

The ones making the decisions get it and that's what matters. I gotta tell you, traveling in Europe was such a breeze.  When work needed to be done, tracks were shut down, the work was done and that was the end of it, and unlike here they use quality materials, not this garbage that falls apart a few years after it's fixed.  The whole thing is a joke.  A lack of oversight too... It's a shame that this stuff is so expensive and we can't get it right here.  Something has to change.

[Italianstallion]

The ones making the decisions get it and that's what matters. I gotta tell you, traveling in Europe was such a breeze.  When work needed to be done, tracks were shut down, the work was done and that was the end of it, and unlike here they use quality materials, not this garbage that falls apart a few years after it's fixed.  The whole thing is a joke.  A lack of oversight too... It's a shame that this stuff is so expensive and we can't get it right here.  Something has to change.

 

Your comments have nothing to do with privatization. They have to do with the fact that public works, whether run by the govt or corporations, are well-funded and maintained.

[Via Garibaldi 8]

Your comments have nothing to do with privatization. They have to do with the fact that public works, whether run by the govt or corporations, are well-funded and maintained.

Of course you'd say that. You clearly agree with the idea of using bloated labor with astronomical costs, even though it costs the taxpayer far more.

[bobtehpanda]

The difference between Europe and America is largely on two counts:

• The Europeans never disinvested, so they never fell as far back as we did in the '70s, and we still have not recovered from that yet.
• The Europeans, in general, are a lot better about investing in maintenance either through higher fares (the UK model) or lots of state funding (the French model). Countries that have tried to have their cake and eat it too (the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany) generally have infrastructure in a state that is also constantly poor and failing (and yes, German engineering is a marketing myth).

In the US we both have lots of pressure to keep fares down and lots of pressure not to spend any money, so the issues remain the same. I have no problem with the MTA privatizing non-train or bus functions like the stations, but it needs to be done carefully so we don't f**k ourselves over the way Chicago did with its parking meters.

[Via Garibaldi 8]

The difference between Europe and America is largely on two counts:

• The Europeans never disinvested, so they never fell as far back as we did in the '70s, and we still have not recovered from that yet.
• The Europeans, in general, are a lot better about investing in maintenance either through higher fares (the UK model) or lots of state funding (the French model). Countries that have tried to have their cake and eat it too (the Netherlands, Belgium, Germany) generally have infrastructure in a state that is also constantly poor and failing (and yes, German engineering is a marketing myth).

In the US we both have lots of pressure to keep fares down and lots of pressure not to spend any money, so the issues remain the same. I have no problem with the MTA privatizing non-train or bus functions like the stations, but it needs to be done carefully so we don't f**k ourselves over the way Chicago did with its parking meters.

The Germans are known to have trains that are punctual and on time, so I think your comment is a myth.  It's also a myth that we don't spend money.  We do.  We just spend too much of it on a few stations. I don't call $1 billion for one station a small amount of money.

[RR503]

Of course you'd say that. You clearly agree with the idea of using bloated labor with astronomical costs, even though it costs the taxpayer far more.

Also, since when are private organizations always streamlined? Think of the steel industry in the '60s and '70s, the airline industry then, the railroad industry today and IBM in the late 90s. 

[bobtehpanda]

The Germans are known to have trains that are punctual and on time, so I think your comment is a myth.  It's also a myth that we don't spend money.  We do.  We just spend too much of it on a few stations. I don't call $1 billion for one station a small amount of money.

 

Deutsche Bahn has had a couple bad years recently, with on time performance only reaching 77% in 2016.

 

We spend lots of money, but that's mostly on construction. Maintenance receives much less of what it should, hence why new trains to replace the old ones keep being pushed back, why we only fall behind even further on maintaining the stations that we do have, etc.

[MHV9218]

The ones making the decisions get it and that's what matters. I gotta tell you, traveling in Europe was such a breeze.  When work needed to be done, tracks were shut down, the work was done and that was the end of it, and unlike here they use quality materials, not this garbage that falls apart a few years after it's fixed.  The whole thing is a joke.  A lack of oversight too... It's a shame that this stuff is so expensive and we can't get it right here.  Something has to change.

 

What are you talking about lol? What, you're talking about the nearly flawless state-run Italian high speed train network, where a tiny fare gets you across the country in hours? The nearly flawless state-run French high speed train network? I can't even figure out what you're trying to reference here. Europe is simply not the place you turn to to reference privatization. Maybe in England, where it was an unequivocal failure and the pieces are still being put back together. 

 

Your comments have nothing to do with privatization. They have to do with the fact that public works, whether run by the govt or corporations, are well-funded and maintained.

 

Exactly right.

[Via Garibaldi 8]

What are you talking about lol? What, you're talking about the nearly flawless state-run Italian high speed train network, where a tiny fare gets you across the country in hours? The nearly flawless state-run French high speed train network? I can't even figure out what you're trying to reference here. Europe is simply not the place you turn to to reference privatization. Maybe in England, where it was an unequivocal failure and the pieces are still being put back together. 

 

 

 

Exactly right.

Of course you wouldn't. Two socialists thinking alike. lol

[MHV9218]

Of course you wouldn't. Two socialists thinking alike. lol

 

Not even! I'm just trying to use facts when I type!

[RR503]

Of course you wouldn't. Two socialists thinking alike. lol

You know, when you begin calling people names, you have all but lost the argument.

[Via Garibaldi 8]

You know, when you begin calling people names, you have all but lost the argument.

It's called speaking the truth. No name calling. Look at MVH's previous posts and that's calling a spade a spade. When you look to government to solve all your problems, knowing how inept the system is, there's not much to say. With the current system, there's tons of red tape to cut through to get projects done and we're seeing this right now at Penn Station.