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Comment by woodruffw | Hacker News Reader

Something I’ve been hammering on recently: NYC could build new light rail lines relatively rapidly and cheaply, especially in Brooklyn and Queens: much of those boroughs was covered by streetcar lines until the 1950s, and all of the streets that those lines ran on are still graded for that purpose. In some places they didn’t even bother to pull up the old rails, and just paved over them instead[1]. The roads themselves are owned by the city too, sidestepping half of the bureaucratic process that comes with the state-run MTA.

[1]: https://www.nycsubway.org/wiki/Tracks_on_Broadway

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This idea is brilliant. Cars are inefficient means of transit in dense urban areas. Mass transit easily has many multiples if not an order of magnitude greater ability to move more people/hr than autos. Our cities used to be structured around mass transit and walking before the advent of the car and the exodus to the suburbs. In the intervening century technology has rapidly progressed such that cities are no longer dirty, squalid environments, and in fact, places like NYC have the highest life expectancies in the nation. It’s time to return to proven solutions like street cars, or nowadays, Bus Rapid Transit.

Yep. One thing to note: NYC has attempted Bus Rapid Transit (we call it the "Select Bus Service") to mixed results: the SBS routes are popular, but are also frequently delayed (drivers regularly park and drive in the dedicated bus routes, and the police have no interest whatsoever in enforcing the dedicated rights of way).

Streetcars are significantly more expensive than BRT, but have at least two substantial advantages: they bring civic interest and investment (streetcar lines are semipermanent fixtures that real estate and communities can develop around), and they physically prevent the kind of petty infringement that personal drivers inflict upon bus riders.

The bus situation is rapidly improved now. Buses are supposed to automatically take pictures of cars in the dedicated bus lane and will auto-fine drivers that park in them.

Do you have a link or article for that? That's great if so, I hadn't heard about it.

(I live on one of the most heavily used SBS routes in Brooklyn, and I've been disheartened by the blatant disregard trucks and other large cars have for the bus lane and bus parking slots. The stop closely to me is more often than not occupied by a trailer truck, meaning that the SBS bus unloads 50+ directly into traffic.)

It sounds great in theory, but the reality is that many car owners obscure their license plates or use ghost plates. NYPD has no interest in enforcing the rules against this either.

Source? It’s illegal in all 50 states to obscure a license plate. I visit NYC frequently, and I don’t recall any obviously obscured plates. It beggars belief a significant fraction of automobiles are sporting fraudulent plates too.

I live in a dense part of Brooklyn, and I would estimate that 3-5% of all of the cars I see on my daily commute (by bicycle) have defaced, obscured, or illegal paper plates.

If you want to see evidence of this yourself, I'd recommend stopping by the 78th precinct. NYC's finest have many creative examples to offer.

Edit: A recent article on the phenomenon[1]. It's hard to get statistics for this kind of thing, since the NYPD has demonstrated a tactical indifference towards it.

[1]: https://hellgatenyc.com/ghost-car-license-plates-illegal-but...

> NYC's finest have many creative examples to offer.

Am I understanding you correctly that the police staff themselves use illegal or obscured plates on their private vehicles which they park at the police employees parking lot, with no consequences whatsoever? If so this is insane.

> Am I understanding you correctly that the police staff themselves use illegal or obscured plates on their private vehicles which they park

Yes[1].

> at the police employees parking lot

Nope, they park illegally on the sidewalk instead[2]. This includes on blocks with public schools[3].

> with no consequences whatsoever? If so this is insane.

Yes, and yes.

Edit: I forgot to mention: documenting any of this comes with a risk of fines or arrest[4]. You will also be ignored if you attempt to report it[5].

[1]: https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2023/02/01/are-police-disciplini...

[2]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-04-12/mapping-t...

[3]: https://www.vice.com/en/article/3ak54k/how-one-brooklyn-neig...

[4]: https://hellgatenyc.com/nypd-try-to-illegally-park-then-tick...

[5]: https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2021/10/25/nypd-ignores-council-...

This is surreal. Is there no due process? Couldn’t someone go to court over this and above the police?

Yep, it is surreal. It’s one of the many ways in which the NYPD communicates its utter lack of respect for the city it’s meant to protect.

I’m not aware of a court case that has tried to fight this, probably in part because of procedural challenges (the NYPD spans 5 boroughs with 5 different court systems, standing is unclear, etc.). Unfortunately, the city’s courts probably just aren’t equipped to handle this kind of en masse, “mild” collective punishment by law enforcement itself.

I noticed it when I was in Brooklyn two months ago. In DC, where speed and stop cameras are the only form of traffic enforcement and where the bus cameras are also being piloted, the proportion of cars with fake (temp Maryland tags printed on a library printer) or obscured plates is probably approaching 10% of vehicles on the road, and 90% of routine reckless drivers. If NYPD demonstrates a studied indifference to public safety, DC MPD is doing a post-doc in the field.

> police have no interest whatsoever in enforcing the dedicated rights of way

Why is this stated like an unbreakable physical law? They are employees like any other, I'm sure there are ways to incentivize effective job performance.

I don't know if you live in NY or not, but the these are the facts on the ground:

* When it comes to traffic enforcement, the NYPD has effectively been on a silent strike for the last 3 years.

* It's virtually impossible for the city to assert greater civilian control over the NYPD, in a large part because the NYPD simply ignores any transparency or accountability laws that are meant to reign it in. Punishing them for ignoring the laws is also virtually impossible, because it would require the city's DA's to prosecute the force they currently rely on.

> I'm sure there are ways to incentivize effective job performance.

The best incentive here would be initiating some form of civil liability for the NYPD, or otherwise ensuring that the NYPD cannot rely on the city's general budget to pay for their malfeasance. That's a political non-starter, so maybe just curtailing their overtime.

Longer term, the NYPD needs to lose its special civil service status and require, like every other NYC agency, that its employees live in the city they police. This more than anything else is the most broken incentive around traffic enforcement: the majority of NYC cops live outside of the city and commute by car in[1], meaning that they simply do not care about the basic livability of the neighborhoods they police. This is manifest in the rampant illegal parking and defaced license plates around every NYPD precinct[2].

[1]: https://nypost.com/2023/06/03/more-nypd-officers-are-opting-...

[2]: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2023/03/nypds-illegal-parkin...

Most every other city is having the same problem. For some reason, police aren’t enforcing laws due to whatever reason (staffing shortage, morale problems, union meddling, etc…).

I can't think of a solution other than a massive increase in police funding. Maybe it could be conditioned on being purely for higher salaries rather than for military weapons. It'd also help if it was tied to prohibiting the disqualification of applicants with high IQs.

More generally, I think it's weird how we tend to hear more about shortages in all sorts of key industries these days. Medical professionals, police, teachers. Well, it seems it was always true for teachers. But I'm under this impression it used to be easier to have a self-sustaining mix of professions in a geographical area, without trying to regulate it all in place. Maybe this is again all going back to the wealth gap and housing costs.

Long term, higher productivity is inevitable. That means more cameras on buses identifying bus lane violations, and cameras in random places identifying obscured plates, no plates, or stolen plates. Ya, we have this tech already, it’s used in some countries…but the USA will be slower to adopt it (but it’s inevitable). People’s labor is just getting too dear, and so we need to up productivity to compensate. For police, this could also be a win against police abuse/corruption, since the machines are unlikely to at least abuse their power.

I don’t think funding is the issue here: a junior NYPD cop makes more than the average NYC resident before overtime[1], and gets relatively plum benefits while doing so. Like most forces, they’re also pensioned at 20 years.

The issue here is residency and interest: the NYPD is excluded from ordinary civil service requirements, meaning that they aren’t required to live in the city they police. The majority of them choose not to, meaning that the city’s law enforcement is largely made up of people driving their cars into the city and treating as an “outside” place, rather than their home. Forcing them to live in the city wouldn’t fix everything about the NYPD, but I suspect we’d see less petty infringement of traffic laws by the NYPD themselves.

[1]: https://www.nyc.gov/site/nypd/careers/police-officers/po-ben...

In the UK parking enforcement is rarely done by the police. It's done by local government - who are strongly incentivised to make it work because it gives them revenue. The result is that it's not a major issue. The traffic wardens are pretty relentless about ticketing people.

I suppose the MTA can always handle traffic enforcement. That's how congesting charging is going to work. At this point, I'm convinced that most reckless driving you see in the city is the NYPD on their way to work. (Never forget this one: https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2023/03/30/dept-of-investigation.... Detective texted death threats to 311 callers, from his own number, for reporting illegal parking.)

(I don't choose the MTA because I think they're a remarkably efficient organization. They just happen to already be gearing up to do it, and are outside the reach of NYC politics, for better or for worse.)

I think that we can reform the NYPD with the right mayor. Eric Adams is obviously Not It. I am not sure there is a single viewpoint he has that justifies the "D" next to his name. Fortunately, it appears he is now tied up in some federal campaign finance investigation that will hopefully end with him not being the mayor anymore. (A few weeks ago, he showed up at the DOT office and ranted about how "more bike lanes isn't going to be my legacy". https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2023/11/01/adams-dismisses-bus-b... He's right. All of his rat violations and campaign finance shenanigans will be his legacy. I would have picked the bike lanes.)

> and they physically prevent the kind of petty infringement that personal drivers inflict upon bus riders.

Dedicated bus roads (not just lanes) would do the same thing. Lots of street car systems also share lanes with cars, so I wonder what is even the point of those.

Street cars can brake abd dodge less. That makes them much harder to bully.

Get in an accident with a bus, and the bus driver has some suspicion on him, people won't immediately blame you. Get in an accident with a tram, and you are just an idiot.

One of the most perverse things about large cities to me is that they start with a far too low roadway to person ratio for efficient car usage and then throw away half their road capacity so people can park on it.

Non-grade separated street cars are dangerous and can still get into accidents, while they only provide slightly more capacity than buses at the expense of a lot of flexibility. But they are more charming at least, in a city like Bern or Lyon.

Streetcars/Trams can have a lot mote capacity than a bus.

Cities such as Paris, Rio de Janeiro, Constantine use 7 section Alstom Citadis trams, and there is even a 9 section version. Articulated buses stop at ~3 sections.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alstom_Citadis

I did say slightly more capacity? A tram in bern has a bit more capacity than an electric caterpillar bus used in Lausanne. They aren’t doing many 7 section trams in Bern because much if their routes aren’t completely grade separated. I’ve actually never seen a 7 section tram anywhere, including Paris…a new thing?

> I did say slightly more capacity

Almost double (a Citadis tram can accomodate up to 370, "super articulated" buses like the Citaro CapaCity up to 200) isn't slightly more.

> They aren’t doing many 7 section trams in Bern because much if their routes aren’t completely grade separated

It's not the grade separation that matters, but turn radii and intersection length and distance (basically can such a tram fit in the physical space available).

> I’ve actually never seen a 7 section tram anywhere, including Paris…a new thing

Paris Tram T3(a and b) have been using 7 section trams since the original opening as T3 in 2006. According to Wikipedia there are at least 8 cities with 7 section Citadis, and at least one with 9 sections (Dublin) - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alstom_Citadis . And of course this isn't the only model of modern trams in existance, there's also Bombardier's models (acquired by Alstom), Siemens, Pesa, Solaris, Stadler, etc.

I don't know if sections is really the ideal measurement unit for trams – maybe metres makes a bit more sense. Double-articulated buses are usually around 25 m long.

In Germany, the default maximum legal length for a tram running in road traffic (including on dedicated transit lanes [1]) is 75 m. Of course not every tram network goes up to that limit, but at least ~40 m isn't too uncommon, which also approximatively corresponds to the length of a seven-section Citadis (around 43 or 44 m).

[1] Unless all intersections with road traffic are signalized as full-on railway-style level crossings.

Basel should have plenty, no?

Imagine me your sworn enemy. I hate you and you shall never be redeemed in my eyes. I own a home on the route. How much will it cost you to overcome me? Add that to the cost. That's the true cost.

Imagine I'll claim all sorts of things: environment, the poor, gentrification, toxic chemicals.

I don’t understand this comment, sorry. Are you being sarcastic, or do you not like streetcars?

Edit: I read again, and I think you’re trying to point out that there’s a higher true cost. There almost certainly is, and it’s going to be more than similar projects in similar cities. The only really relevant question is whether it’s cheaper than building new subway lines, which it also almost certainly is.

[Deleted my comment. I don’t feel strongly about it and I was partially wrong.]

> And stations have to be created in the middle of the street, a hazard for pedestrians.

Why? The NYC bus network closely mirrors the old streetcar network, and uses sidewalk dropoffs; there’s no reason why reactivated streetcars couldn’t do the same.

The point about integration with traffic is a reasonable one, but see below the point about civic value: NYC needs less traffic on its streets, and inducing behavior away from driving by taking up that space with a permanent streetcar line doesn’t seem like the worst approach to me.

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