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Comment by Aurornis | Hacker News Reader

The headline is vague, but this is about increasing the requirements to two operators per train.

It’s a make-work bill designed to maximize the number of operators on the payroll. As the article explains, the justifications don’t really add up.

> This is revealed in the last sentence, claiming that OTPO would cause “further loss of jobs to NYC.” This bill is not about safety, but rather an unfunded program designed to protect one single job type from eventual obsolescence.

Single operator has proven to be completely fine around the world. Some are starting to move to zero operator. Bills like this are designed to keep the number of jobs high. Given the expense, it inevitably comes at a cost of reductions in service elsewhere. There is no free money.

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MTA is already capable of OPTO on at least 2 lines (7 & L) and even ran a a train line (L) with it.. 20 years ago, but lost to the union.

https://www.reddit.com/r/transit/comments/1l3qcn3/nyc_in_200...

So a classic NYC problem of paying for upgrades to infra to support OPTO, and then not actually being able to use it, for "reasons".

Make-work is the stupidest idea. If we want people to have an income why don't we just give it to them rather than making them do work that is useless (or sometimes harmful, see coal) to the public?

> There is no free money.

When you are talking about the MTA budget no. But at the higher government levels there often is. Lots of lower-income people's income ends up right back in the economy or reduces other costs (like healthcare of people on government health plans). Plus it oven gives people the resources (time and money) to get a job that is valuable to society. (From things like going to a education course to something like being able to have a shower before your interview and a phone to receive job offers on.) There are of course "losses" like money exiting the country or consumption of raw resources (which is likely going to happen whether they have a useless job or are just given some form of welfare) but it isn't nearly as expensive as the critics like to pretend it is.

> Make-work is the stupidest idea.

I don't know, it got the US out of the Great Depression.

Work programs can be great, if you're doing valuable work that helps the public and strengthens your nation. The US, to this day, has the largest public work program - the military. If you think about what the military actually is, it's a work program.

We're not in a great depression.

I'm not against make-work per se, but we are currently in an era where we need to improve public sector administrative capacity. It's really hard to do that while saddling agencies with make-work, because the latter is so bad for esprite de corps.

It would better to e.g. expand peace corps / Americorps. And if they want to staff do-nothings on subways, they can, but it needs not involve the MTA.

the made up work should benefit society at large instead of a small group of unionized and politically connected employees. maybe we could spend the second operator's salary on, for example, building elevators for ADA compliance.

New york has terrible infrastructure, I doubt there's level boarding so disabled people can get on without assistance.

In many countries one person operation can work on metro systems, but NY is probably about 50 years of investment behind in infrastructure before that's a good idea.

> I doubt there's level boarding so disabled people can get on without assistance.

At every station I've ever been to, the boarding is level, and the gap is small.

Many (though not all yet) stations have elevators large enough for a disabled person in a wheelchair.

All buses (operated by the same MTA as the usbway) have a foldable ramp for wheelchairs, used quite routinely.

How many station platforms have you been to?

https://s3-prod.crainsnewyork.com/Subway%20Mind%20the%20Gap%...

https://i.redd.it/gap-at-sheepshead-bay-v0-14ea8irudhvc1.jpg...

https://images-prod.gothamist.com/original_images/90BA6BA3-A...

https://api-prod.gothamist.com/images/346940/fill-1200x650%7...

Wow. I used to use the Union Square station every day, but never took a 5 train from there. A sad surprise :(

That is matter of repair, not a platform built to the wrong specifications

Why

I'm not really sure how to answer that. It is just a known fact that the subway platforms are all supposed to be level with the train floor.

Platforms can sink and otherwise decay over time. Many of the stations are quite old.

Low platforms, by contrast, are nowhere near the height of the train floor.

These pictures show level boarding (minimal vertical gap), they just have horizontal gaps. To the extent that there are some small vertical gaps, that is intrinsic to wheels, which change radius over time as the wheel is worn away. The horizontal gaps should be fixed, though. You'd need gap fillers for them on curved platforms.

The photo showed a 5.5" vertical gap which doesn't seem level or minimal to me

> 14th Street–Union Square northbound 4 trains have a 5.5-inch vertical gap, 59th Street–Columbus Circle northbound B trains have a gaping seven-inch horizontal gap, and Times Square–42nd Street eastbound 7 trains have both: a 5.5-inch vertical gap and a five-inch horizontal gap

https://www.curbed.com/2022/10/mta-subway-platform-gaps-laws...

Every NYC subway station has had level boarding forever since they were originally built. There can be some horizontal gaps for sure, which they should fix, but it's generally vertically level within the change in diameter of wheels over their lifetime. And if there are gaps, conductors are not helping anyone get on anyways.

Yep I can’t stand this disingenuous behavior. Really the trains should even be automated at this point. Chicago constantly has staffing issues so their service gets worse and worse and yet they insist on staying in the past.

When Chicago got rid of the conductors, trains got slower and less reliable. If you've ever had to wait on the train while the operator has to come out of the cab to help a disabled person, respond to a door fault or call button, you've been delayed by one man train operation.

In fact every time the train stops and there's a noticable pause before the door opens, that is caused by the operator having to move from the driving controls to the door controls.

Does any of that have to do with the conductor?

Nope. Seems more like symptoms of not automating things. As if I’m calling for immediate switch to no conductors with no work.

Sounds like a bad train system. That has never happened in my experience where I live, and I used to take the subway everyday for over a decade.

Same. The only time the operator leaves the cabin where I live is when they're switching which end of the train they're driving from or they're taking the train out of service at the last stop. There's almost no other reason for them to ever do so.

When they have to lead an evacuation of the train, for example if there’s a derailment.

We haven't had a derailment here since 2009 where a train left the track by about a foot or so. It could happen, but in the course of normal business operations, evacuations are not a regular event here pulling operators out of their cabins. More likely is a door breaks (or rather someone breaks a door) and they have to seal it manually to keep the train moving, but I only see that happen on the older >20 years old stock and pretty much never on the newer stock.

The incident I was thinking of was about 2007 at Mile End.

Sure it’s rare. But what happens when it does happen, last thing you want is passengers self evaccing onto 3rd/4th rail energised tracks.

One could simply just buy trains that have door controls and driving controls in the same ergonomic layout. Other places have OPTO without these problems.

CTA stopped having conductors over 30 years ago. Peak ridership and performance was in 2012, decades after the move to OPTO.

I’ve not had any of that on the London Underground which hasn’t had a second operator for 25 years. No delays in DOO above trains - at least not the kind that a separate guard would solve.

The major impact is at stations without level boarding where assistance which should be from the platform doesn’t arrive.

https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/1/13/London_U...

Click on "Show step-free accessibility", quite useful.

AirTrain, which carries passengers between JFK terminals and a couple of miles to the Jamaica train station, runs completely without operators, with no room allocated for an operator, you can peer through the windshield forward. It works quite well.

But it was built this way, there were no operators to lay off, and no unions to bargain with.

Actually, there were unions to bargain with. The people wearing red at the station saying which train is which are from the same union.

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