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Comment by DalekBaldwin | Hacker News Reader

The fundamental reason for worsening subway service in recent years may be more mundane than we assumed: https://www.villagevoice.com/2018/03/13/the-trains-are-slowe...

It was slowly driving me insane at my last job. Now, I just have to dial in to the morning meeting, then I can work from home for about an hour before heading in to the office, and we've been asked to stay home even for fairly light snowstorms this winter. I wouldn't be surprised if other tech companies in the city are adding more flexibility to their work hours.

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The system is a century old with original electromechanical controllers.

And intentional slow downs due to prevent accidents. The siganling system needs to be replaced so trains can safely go faster. Not disagreement as much as just expanding on your comment.

that is no excuse. it's called maintenance. other cities manage to maintain their transit system . NYC has zero excuse . See Tokyo's transit history for how often they've upgrade the entire system a piece at a time.

... and do most of those upgrades take place when the Tokyo subway shuts down each night between 1am and 5am? It's hard to replace signal systems on tracks with a train passing every few minutes.

So if the Tokyo subway shuts down each night between 1am and 5am, why can't the NYC subway shut parts down periodically? It's common here in Melbourne to have whole lines shut down during the summer for maintenance or other service changes (e.g. removing level crossings). We hate it but we cope.

There's literally no excuse for not maintaining your infrastructure. Every probably can be solved. Shut down a line every night till the job is done. Or shut it down for a day or two. Is the line integrated with others? Maybe you'll have to shut down three or four lines. People will hate it. But if it avoids months and months of problems to have a few days, they'll cope.

It’s not to say that they can’t — it is to say that they don’t due to history and expectations. New Yorkers expect it to run 24/7 because it always has and people routinely make life decisions about where to live and work due to that. You can’t just change it without a pretty drastic social effect that would take years to smooth out.

Ok then if noone wants the change then honestly stop your whining

So is London’s

Most signalling systems in London are fairly new. Rolling stock is the bigger problem with some parts from the 1970s (Picadilly line). New signals were the main reason they could increase frequencies on lines like Northern, Central and Victoria in recent years.

What helps London is that the system shuts down for a few hours each night (except weekends on some lines). That allows most repairs and maintenance to take place without altering schedules.

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