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Comment by rrdharan | Hacker News Reader

The problems with NYC subway signaling have been very extensively covered in previous reporting that you might find interesting:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/01/nyregion/new-york-subway-... http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/nyc-subway-relies-decade...

"Even something as basic as a cable is an antique.

Workers popped open a junction box to show a 70-year-old cloth-covered cable, due for the scrap heap next year, connected to newer rubber-covered wires."

Basically, the system is so old that an incremental retrofit is very complicated to achieve without full shutdown. Remember the overall NYC subway system is the only train system that actually operates 24-7 so maintenance scheduling is also much more involved.

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> actually operates 24-7

Good one. They routinely shut down lines and stations for hours/days at a time. The L got shut down between Bedford & 8th Ave for the entirety of Memorial Day weekend. Even when lines are running perfectly, at night they only run once every 30-60 minutes. To riders the changes feel arbitrary and are impossible to predict. I've been stuck dozens of times in random places because I tried to use the wrong line at the wrong time. The only real way to know there's a problem ahead is to have the privilege of riding that line on a regular basis and reading the signs they post. If you look around almost every station will have posters denoting some change that's ongoing or coming up.

Actually, in much of the system there is a great deal of redundancy so one track can be shut down for maintenance using weekends and 10 PM to 5 AM. For example there are often parallel local and express tracks (6 local, 4,5, express or 1 local and 2, 3 express or C local and A express).

Also entire train lines frequently run in parallel a few blocks from each other.

See: http://web.mta.info/maps/submap.html

I'm not saying I haven't been caught inadvertently as well, but FWIW they actually do a pretty good job of posting all this information on their website.

And in fact Google Maps does a decent job of scraping it as well. You just need to remember that when Google Maps wants you to go to Jay St. Metrotech instead of High St it might not just be because it thinks it's 300m closer.

Then it should close at night. Pretty much every city with a subway system worth bragging about does.

It always seemed strange to me that Philly is the only city I've been to that fully replaces the subway at night with buses.

Part of what makes the subway system worth bragging about is that it runs at night.

I am proud of that as a New Yorker, but I would much rather replace it with buses at night if that would make it actually work during the day.

Why? Surface buses can run quickly at night when there is light traffic, and the air quality is far better at surface level than in the subway.

Even though trains are scheduled through the night, they shut lines down pretty frequently during overnight and weekend hours and replace them with bus service.

>Then it should close at night.

No, it shouldn't, and I take it by this statement you don't live in NYC. I do, and have lived in Tokyo and other cities with excellent mass transit. While Tokyo's system is much, much better, it's pretty fantastic that I know I can always get a train home no matter what time it is, no matter where in the city I am, much faster than any ground vehicle would take me.

Everywhere else just runs replacement buses at night and it's fine. Yeah ok it's a little slower, but it means you're not running a huge train for five people.

Many larger cities in Europe run the metro continually from Friday until Sunday night.

This is a decent compromise.

There are way more than five people per train at any time of the day or night. Besides all the people with night and early-morning jobs, there's also the fact that bars are open until 4 AM. They call New York "The City That Never Sleeps" for a reason.

What city in the US has a subway system worth bragging about? Philly's subway has 3% of the ridership of NYC's. It's not even in the same ballpark.

> NYC subway system is the only train system that actually operates 24-7

Chicago's subway is 24/7, too.

This is only true for the red and blue lines though. And since they only have one track for each direction they must interrupt the service to do maintenance.

It depends on where in the system the maintenance is needed. On the Blue Line they just have the trains share a single track for a while while work is being done on the second track. On the red line, they do the same thing outside of downtown. If the work is being done downtown, the Red Line trains can use the Pink/Green/Orange/Brown/Purple tracks and go elevated instead of underground.

Only the Blue and Red Lines are 24 hours IIRC

You are correct. But that doesn't negate the point.

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