Comment by dvdhsu | Hacker News Reader

Comment by dvdhsu | Hacker News Reader

I have always wondered why the subways in London, NYC, and Paris have no cell signal in the tunnels. Subways in many large Asian cities (Hong Kong, Shanghai, Seoul, Tokyo) have signal in most tunnels. From the article, it sounds like it's because London, NYC, and Paris had subways very early - and so didn't anticipate having to install telecom equipment in the tunnels:

> In addition to the smart city initiatives, Transit Wireless obviously is eyeing the tunnels as one of the most important infrastructure challenges going forward. Given the age of the tunnel construction, they are much narrower than the engineering standards used today for modern transit systems. In some cases, installed equipment has to fit within just a handful of inches of space lest a moving train rip the equipment right off the wall.

It reminds me of the Galápagos Syndrome (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gal%C3%A1pagos_syndrome), where Japan pioneers some technologies, but they're often incompatible with the rest of the world because Japan itself is isolated (ATMs, mobile phones, etc.).

Edit: wrong about Paris! Thanks for correcting me :)

I don't understand infatuation with NYC subway. Moscow subway, while being very old, very deep and in supposed third world country had count down clocks for 25 years, all major carriers LTE for years, very fast wifi on stations and in tunnels for forever, doesn't even require stupid login, just connects, imagine that. The only feeling I have for NYC subway is shame. That pride that some people have is apparently because they never visit anywhere. Oh, and trains are very fast, and come every 3 minutes

And it’s much cleaner

I lived in Moscow for a while as a kid and the Metro system was such a joy in retrospect that it's really soured me on some other cities' transit systems. Living in Seattle right now while we struggle to achieve a single-route light rail system is especially saddening.

Crazy that Moscow's system is almost 100 years old, dating from 1935. (I just checked and London's Underground has it beat by a margin though - 1863)

Depending on how you count it, nyc metro started in 1863 also (as an above road rail).

HN is a US-cetric forum. Americans are bad about being oblivious to the existence of anything outside the US. New York is, by far, the largest US city and one of the oldest. It is hugely influential here and has essentially legendary status in the minds of many Americans. To most Americans, New York is kind of The big city and symbolizes anything and everything urban. I am not sure if we even have subways elsewhere (which just may be my own ignorance showing). If we do, they wouldn't be as extensive.

> Americans are bad about being oblivious to the existence of anything outside the US.

That seems like a pretty hefty generalization.

> I am not sure if we even have subways elsewhere (which just may be my own ignorance showing).

Maybe you should visit nearby Boston, DC, or Philadelphia.

The NYC subway is seen in TV shows, movies, it's part of the national consciousness.

Have you ever seen a movie or TV show which depicted the Boston, DC or Philly metros?

Most New Yorkers you know will not have cars. Most people you know in Boston, DC or Philly will.

When ever I hear about NYC subway i instantly picture the photos on imgur.

Actually yea, I saw a Netflix show that had a scene in the subway in LA. The show was about Hollywood writers or something, can't recall the name.

The people I know in Boston/Somerville/Cambridge avoid having a car due to how irritating it is. I had one while living in the city (family reasons), but if I had the option I would've happily ditched it.

> The people I know in Boston/Somerville/Cambridge avoid having a car due to how irritating it is.

Anecdotal stories notwithstanding, New York is the only city in the country in which the outright majority of people don't own cars. (D.C. is a very distant second).

LA has a subway with a couple of lines.

I've lived in California all my life and was somehow ignorant of this fact. Apparently it does exist, although the bulk of the Urban Rail system is light rail, not grade separated. Daily ridership is somewhere around 360K (not bad honestly!) vs. SF Muni at 660K and NYC at 5.7MM.

The light rail isn't that bad as far as traffic goes: it isn't grade separated, but its not in the street either (e.g. to Santa Monica). The two subway lines I'm referring to (red and purple) are actually subway lines though (vs. the Expo line which is basically light rail). Living in LA, I actually never had a chance to ride any of these routes.

I started wondering if I even needed to steal cars in GTA5: the Metro was such a convenient way to get around downtown pseudo-LA.

> I am not sure if we even have subways elsewhere (which just may be my own ignorance showing). If we do, they wouldn't be as extensive.

There are subways in other US cities, but nowhere near as extensive. One-third of all subway stations in the entire country are within New York City itself.

New York City has more subway stations than any other subway system in the world, and that's not counting the non-subway transit (commuter rail, PATH, etc.)

Its not 24/7 (closes 1am every night)

Nyc subway is unbeatable in that regard. And I prefer 24/7 service than being able to use the wifi to book an uber ;)

24/7 "service". Sometimes I feel like I'm stuck in the middle of a tunnel just so some middle manager can claim that the line is still running. I would prefer they closed the thing at night and put some serious effort into improvements.

I promise you that most New Yorkers are deeply unhappy with the subway.

The pride that we feel in the MTA is in carving out a non-automobile based way of life in a country where the ability to drive and own a a car is synonymous with independence and coming of age.

We're also a little proud of the fact that it never stops running even if the trains are only running every twenty minutes. I can not describe how freeing it is to not feel bound by a metro closing time (as I so often do when I visit London or Seoul or Hong Kong).

The fact that Moscow's subway outperforms NYC in every metric despite rampant corruption and embezzlement (buddy of mine used to be an engineer there) means one thing: MTA is inept beyond any measure and any repair. Some changes are in order to unshackle NYC Subway, so we all can be proud of it

> The fact that Moscow's subway outperforms NYC in every metric despite rampant corruption and embezzlement (buddy of mine used to be an engineer there)

Wait, are you talking about Moscow? Because the MTA/TWU in New York is rife with corruption and embezzlement. That's the whole problem.

I agree, though, with the ultimate point: the MTA is utterly inept (or more accurately: utterly corrupt) and needs massive reform.

https://nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-cons...

I think he meant that Moscow is also extremely corrupt, yet outperforms NYC (despite comparative levels of corruption).

> Moscow subway, while being very old, very deep and in supposed third world country

Moscow is not in a third-world country, in either sense of the word. It's not in a developing nation (colloquial contemporary use of the word), and it's not in a country that remained unallied with the US and Russia during the Cold War, which is the original meaning of the word.

I was going to mention this, too: Russia is definitively a second world country:)

Without trying to stir up a debate about the merits of various political systems, could this be due to the strong state control in the Soviet era?

I'd imagine it would be a lot easier in Soviet Russia to just say "we're upgrading this, the line will be down for a week, deal with it". It was an authoritarian state, you're not running for reelection, it didn't matter if people got a bit miffed at delays due to an upgrade.

Decades ago, perhaps. LTE is not decades old...

Russia is not exactly a bastion of democracy today.

Indeed not, but that doesn't quite mean the scenario outlined above - the current government tries to keep up a facade of a democratic state.

uh, the MTA doesn't put things like "install countdown timer signage" up for democratic referendum.

But the democratically elected state senators do routinely cut the MTA's funding so that they can give their overrepresented rural constituents a tax cut.

> But the democratically elected state senators do routinely cut the MTA's funding so that they can give their overrepresented rural constituents a tax cut.

1. New York is not a democracy in anything but name. Voters have basically no control over the state government; the party establishment has fully captured that role.

2. The MTA doesn't have a funding problem. It has a spending problem - it literally pays people six-figure salaries to do absolutely nothing: https://nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-cons...

Why should rural New Yorkers be paying for NYC’s MTA funding?

An old lament. Why should rural (anywhere) fund the city folks' needs? E.g. Here in rural Iowa, we pay state taxes for schools like everybody else, and have a tiny underfunded school vs the nearby city's grand edifice with two theatres, enormous football facility, AP classes and full staff.

In most cases it's the city folks subsidizing the rural folks. It turns out that it costs a lot more money to build the roads, power lines, schools, etc than the small number of rural residents that benefit from them will ever pay in taxes [0]. And in the specific case of New York's MTA, revenue from subway fares has repeatedly been diverted to pay for things other than the subway [1].

[0] https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/7/11/the-hills-are-...

[1] https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2010/03/09/albany-didnt-cut-the-...

Everybody benefits from farm access to markets. Rural roads are there for everybody. To say 'its more money per capita for rural folks' just means you're using a heatmap of population and putting it over infrastructure - shazam, it doesn't match!. But it says nothing about who's getting the utility out of the infrastructure.

Because urban New Yorkers are paying for rural areas' transportation infrastructure. In fact, state taxation and spending policies represent a large net transfer from urban areas to rural areas.

Well, nothing you said is wrong, but the reason is wrong. Both St Petersburg and Moscow have a very well distributed and supported above ground public transit system as well, going back to the early years of the Soviet Union. Trams, trolleys, buses, and the pay vans (Marshrutki) are extremely prevalent and help people get around fast and relatively cheaply. I live in spb right now and am riding a tram where the placard lists the commissioned date as 1958. The wagon of the metro train I moved to while writing this post says 1972; point is this infrastructure has been around a long time.

So yeah, people had no say if a district shut your metro station down for 4 months for repairs (which still happens today), but you had and have many alternatives to get where you want to, so at best it's a minor inconvenience.

Compare this to where I grew up in the Midwest, if the buses there broke that was it. Hope you knew someone with a car who was home or liked walkjng (and I've done a few 7 mile walks home when buses broke down, since my choice was wait an hour in the cold for the next bus or just walk)

Deal with it now in russia and in the ussr basically meant "pick one of these other services".

The Moscow subway is astonishing for the architecture. Some stations look more like the interior of the Hermitage than a subway. Marble, art, chandeliers!

In that respect I think it's truly unique.

If you don't know of this try an image search for moscow subway

> I don't understand infatuation with NYC subway

Despite how bad it is, the NYC subway is still the best public transit system in the US, so Americans are infatuated with it, especially those who never user other subway systems.

So New Yorkers are like "BART sucks, my subway is way better, itś amazing", while the rest of the world is like "oh, you have shitty dirty metal boxes that break down all the time and you call it public transit, how cute..."

And just shows the provincialism in a supposed "world capital" that is NYC. New York shouldn't be compared to San Francisco, it should be compared to London, Hong Kong, Tokyo, etc.

NYC subway is complete trash, it's one of the most depressing aspects of living in New York. Any impressiveness that comes from it is not from the system itself but rather the density of the surface above it. You feel like you just got from one side of the city to another quickly, but that was in spite of the crappy subway system; it was because so much is crammed within 2 miles above you!

> And just shows the provincialism in a supposed "world capital" that is NYC. New York shouldn't be compared to San Francisco, it should be compared to London, Hong Kong, Tokyo, etc.

New York is compared to London and Hong Kong. That's why they're called the Big Three.

I'll be the first one to talk at length about the many problems of the MTA and the effects on New York public transit, but to be honest, it still comes out ahead of London. It's absurdly expensive due to corruption, and there's no excuse for amount of money the MTA spends for the outcomes it delivers on, but the picture you're painting isn't accurate either.

Should a person not be impressed by being able to travel through two miles of incredible urban density in just a few minutes?

I think vehicular traffic is far and away the most depressing aspect of NYC. All of the noise, pollution, bad attitudes, and danger to pedestrians and cyclists and it's not even close to being a timely and efficient way to get around. The subway is a damn miracle compared to any other current form of surface transportation.

Biking is the best mode of transit here. If I take nearly any destination that I could reach via subway within an hour - which for me is pretty much anywhere I'd need to go - I can bike there in the same time as the subway ride or less. And that's assuming that there are no delays or other hiccups on the subway. With the increase in delays these days, I just see no point in taking the subway under most circumstances anymore.

The stations in Moscow seem amazing, but they have half as many as in NYC. Plus I don't believe they run 24/7 do they?

I believe Moscow has traditionally had way more support from the overall country as opposed to just being funded from Moscow proper. Has there ever been something similar as "Ford to City: Drop Dead" with Moscow/the metro system?

In the 1990s you could carry on a conversation on the "analog" cell phones (AMPS vs CDMA/TDMA) in the cut & cover lines in NYC (lines which are 12-20 feet below street surface). The signal would fade but wouldn't drop.

The cutover to digital signals circa 2001-2002 meant calls would drop as soon as the signal faded.

'The cutover to digital signals circa 2001-2002 meant calls would drop as soon as the signal faded.'

We get that even overground in the UK.

I pretty regularly get transient LTE service in Lower Manhattan's tunnels. Although, certainly not consistently enough to make calls.

Yeah…I don't know if it's the depth or type of construction but I can get enough signal to check mail and occasionally twitter on the R and 1/2/3/4/5 but not the A/C/E.

Paris is now actually pretty good - I was impressed. Fairly stable 4G

London still sucked hard the last time I checked - basically a bit of spotty wifi near the stations.

Yes, Paris mobile network in subway is now pretty good. My second job was to install BTS for FTM (now Orange) in Paris including the subway in... 2000 ;-)

And we had to do it cooperatively with competitive carriers because of the lack of space in the tubes.

My experience (with the carrier “Free”) is quite different. If there’s data at all, it’s mostly Edge and will cut out when the train gets to the next station. In some deeper lines I won’t even get a phone signal.

Paris has had it for a long time, but because it was implemented so long ago, it's often limited to 2g.

Transport for London are currently trialling in-tunnel 4G service on the Waterloo & City line, with a full rollout across the whole London Underground network planned for 2019.

https://tfl.gov.uk/info-for/media/press-releases/2017/novemb...

The tunnel gauge isn't a major problem. The standard technology for providing wireless coverage inside tunnels is a leaky feeder or radiating cable - a length of coax cable with a perforated shield. The leaky feeder acts like an antenna with a very elongated radiation pattern. As long as the distance between stations isn't too great, then you don't actually need to put any equipment inside the tunnel other than a length of cable.

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

It is weird. Even moderately busy underground public spaces can get LTE modems for cheap.

My guess is that one or more of the carriers refuse to use multi-antenna solutions or are holding out for exclusivity.

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