Crime is down on all levels and in all areas. I hope this trend continues but no one can guarantee that it will.

One of the best features of the stations is the off-hour waiting area. Many people use but it would become obsolete without station agents. Oh yes, we would have intercoms but would they even work?

Planning to eliminate them, the MTA reduced their tasks such as single rides or receipts for monthlies, etc. Station agents also give directions, buzz people with luggage or carriages through gates, are in a fixed location so that anyone needing help knows where to go whether crime or sick passenger or some other problem. Oh yes, we will have intercoms. But will they work.

Station agents and conductors are an institution in the subways and are vital to the perception, not illusion, of safety. Would you like to enter an empty station or sit in an empty subway car? Perhaps, you are not old enough and therefore, fortunate not to have experienced the crime wave in the late twentieth century.

People not gadgets increase the comfort level and well-being of subway riders and are vital. I will always support the retention of both the conductors and the agents.

Here is an example of an issue which should be decided by the elected representatives of the people and not imposed by a band of omnipotent technocrats beyond the public reach.

If the MTA pays $80,000 (a guess) per conductor/year including benefits, that’s $240 million.

Looks like subway conductors really are an unaffordable luxury.

Having an uninformed electorate — people who are, by choice, largely ignorant on matters of transportation policy — determine everything just isn’t the best solution. That’s why the state establishes these public authorities in the first place. If you feel the public doesn’t have enough say, the solution is more oversight.

I’m still like to hear you explain how, despite the lack of do-nothing station agents — people not required by law to do anything in the event of a crime — crime is down and ridership is up. Those station agents offered the illusion of safety and nothing more. Maybe for a handful of people that matters for ten seconds, but once you’re on the platform, the station agents can’t do anything, see anything or help anyone.

I didn’t. Please re-read what I wrote. The key phrase is “widely viewed as”

At a NY Civic Forum in July, Assemblyman Richard Brodsky lamented that if mass transit had the public interest and support that education does, things would get done. But why should the people do this if their ideas to quote ex-MTA Board member David Mack “go into the trash can.”

I don’t know what you mean by “public fiat” but I suggested that the Mayor and the City Council have the ultimate say over mass transit policies. If there is a public debate, if what the people want is taken seriously and then a decision is made, it’s more likely that the decision will have strong public support and far better chances of funding.

Today, the MTA makes decisions by fiat. The result: their credibility is almost zero, the agency is hated and getting more transportation funding is extremely difficult.

In the current crisis, the MTA could avert most of the service cuts by following the Russianoff Plan and also, by axing the non-transportation Fulton Transit Center Building. Providing basic services comes first but apparently, not with the MTA.

Democracy is messy but it works in the long run. Bring the people and their elected officials into mass transit policy and we will have a better system and a better funded system in the future.

OPTO (which is independent of CBTC, so I don’t know why you lump them together) is used by nearly all rail transit systems around the globe – both newer and older than ours, running trains both shorter and longer than ours. (But I don’t understand why one conductor per train is enough for you. Maybe there should be one per car. Or even one per door! Why not?)

The existing signal system has plenty of specialists. You’d be replacing one kind of specialist with another. I’ll bet CBTC specialists aren’t as costly as wayside signal specialists, since they can do a lot of their work from their desks. Wayside signals are extremely maintenance-intensive, and most of that maintenance takes place on the right-of-way of an active railroad.

In off-peak hours, people fill up all cars. Have you ridden the subway in the past 15 years?

Perhaps you’re unaware of the field of computer security, but somehow I doubt that a terrorist would be able to simply log into the CBTC system remotely. How do I know that the train operator on the train I board tomorrow morning isn’t a terrorist?

Yard trackage doesn’t have full signal protection. Trains move slowly in yards and passengers aren’t allowed on trains in yards. Signal protection on mainline trackage keeps trains safely separated:
http://www.nycsubway.org/articles/signals.html

The Queens bypass has nothing to do with the Flushing line. It would also be exceedingly expensive, and it wouldn’t address the aging signal system on the Flushing line that needs to be replaced.

1. Five conductors per train instead of one.

2. The LIRR and Metro-North unions have gotten their members exorbitant pay, which the TWU has not.

3. Implementing proof of payment costs very little.

Bear in mind, going for OPTO on the existing line shouldn’t cost too much, either. The 42nd Street shuttle ran automatically for a few years in the 1950s, and the L ran OPTO without CBTC for a while. Just move the CCTV screens at the platforms to the front of the train.

I read the Vision42 reports a few months ago. The proposed construction cost was $200 million per route-km, which is a little less expensive than new deep-level subways in Paris and a little more expensive than new deep-level subways in Copenhagen.

OPTO/CBTC doesn’t have anything to do with curves, or tail tracks, or age. Paris and London both use OPTO, I believe, and both are working on automating their busiest lines, some of which were built before any subway in New York. Capacity has nothing to do with curves or tail tracks or age, either. Trains run at 30 tph on two-track lines with sharp curves and no tail tracks. Hell, they run 30 tph on the Lex and QB express lines, in principle.

And yet, subway crime isn’t up and ridership isn’t down. The booth clerks, as I’ve written numerous times, gave others the illusion of safety. They couldn’t do anything to stop crime, and in fact, they couldn’t see most of the crimes in subway stations even happening. That’s a false arugment, and just because people support station agents doesn’t mean we should listen to them. Running the MTA by public fiat would lead to a terrible transit system. That’s one of the reasons why the authority exists as a public authority in the first place.