[state_machine]

I can see why the MTA wouldn't want you telling people to go to a track before it is actually assigned -- if the train ends up on a different track, now you need to get all those people back up, off that platform an on to the new one, clogging stairs that that people who actually wanted that platform might be trying to use too. Obviously it would be nice to assign tracks earlier, so that people can head straight to the right platform, but sending people to potentially the wrong platform seems even worse.

EDIT: Penn is extremely platform/track constrained -- NJ Transit, LIRR and Amtrak are all sharing a fixed number of platforms, some of which are too short.

To maximize platform utilization, they have to wait until the last minute to finalize track assignments -- if you reserve one too early and the train ends up late, you're wasting an empty platform. Once you send a horde of people to a platform, moving them to a different one is a challenge (stairs/bottlenecks, communication, etc).

[CPLX]

It's more serious than that even, it's a safety issue. The platforms are fairly narrow and have no railings, and they aren't designed to hold two full train loads of people at the same time.

If a full train pulls up and the platform is already full people are going to end up on the tracks. I haven't seen this at Penn but I have seen the issue happen in the subway when there are train delays. When this happens the MTA has to hold the arriving train in the station with the doors closed and clear the platform before opening the doors to let people off.

It's a nightmare. Their concerns here seem completely reasonable.

[tedmiston]

> The platforms are fairly narrow and have no railings, and they aren't designed to hold two full train loads of people at the same time.

It seems pretty unlikely that 100% of the people on the outbound train would use the app and trust the historical data to go to the platform early.

[potatolicious]

It doesn't have to be 100% - a significant number of waiting people will still present a safety issue.

The platforms are very narrow for the LIRR tracks, so holding 200% of a train (outbound and inbound) would be sheer pandemonium, and would practically guarantee someone falls off the platform. Even holding 100% of a train (just inbound, disembarking passengers) is already straining the platforms and methods of egress to their limits.

Holding even just 110-120% of a train load is very much a safety issue. I'm with the MTA on this one - the "mad dash" is horrifyingly inefficient, but is the safest course of action.

Of course, the correct fix to this is to fix the platforms such that passengers can wait at track-level without safety issue. But, of course, that's a multi-billion dollar problem nobody seems willing to touch.

[greglindahl]

People in that station actually talk to each other, so a few % of app users in the crowd might result in a large number of people knowing.

I'd hate to imagine what would happen during peak if a train came in on an unexpected track AND a different train on the expected track - it is not unusual for multiple trains to be announced at once. Then you'd have a pile of people trying to go up those narrow stairs while a pile of people were trying to go down.

[futurix]

Once people see others walking towards a platform (particularly if they just checked something on their phones), they tend to do the same.

[dkrich]

But there are lots of trains leaving at any given time going to different places. There's no way to know which train somebody is heading to without asking them.

[futurix]

There aren't that many leaving simultaneously - plus they tend to be slotted into the same group of platforms.

[dkrich]

Yes there are. That's the whole problem. It's complete chaos. There are several hundred people huddled in one area looking at one giant screen and there are several trains being called in sequence. How would you know that a given person was waiting for the 4:30pm Acela to Union Station to be called and not the 4:33pm Northeast Regional to Boston?

As somebody who commuted for a long time at peak rush hour back and forth from Penn Station to D.C., I can tell you that following people who "seem to know where they're going" would not be a reliable strategy.

[ori_b]

There are dozens of platforms going to different places. Picking a random stranger and following them isn't going to get you where you're going.

[candiodari]

So what you mean to say, with safety issue, is that government-provided infrastructure is so badly designed and ill-equipped to be used at the necessary scale attempts to improve matters must be stopped !

[mjmahone17]

All infrastructure is a matter of trade-offs. Sure, they could have built the platforms 3 times wider, with funnels leading to the doors, and gates that open/close to prevent people from falling onto the tracks. But that would be an extreme increase in cost to build, and wouldn't lead to a significantly larger number of people able to take the train. This app doesn't improve matters: it causes an additional "tragedy of the commons" situation. By being the first one on the platform, you may get to claim your seat, at the common cost of making it harder for everyone else to get out of/on to the train.

Yes, at peak times there is congestion (just like at peak times there's highway congestion), and the existing infrastructure (built mostly before 1930) was built to be significantly safer and more efficient than existing systems. And 90 years later, it still is usually the most efficient and safest mode of transport in NYC. But given the record number of subway riders and record age of the infrastructure, it takes everyone pitching in a little to not make the situation intolerable. Part of that "pitching in" is "Don't go onto the platform before the train's riders have left".

[Manozco]

Except that (correct me if I'm wrong), the platform is displayed 10 minutes before the train arrives, so there is already people waiting when the train arrives

[vonmoltke]

It is displayed 10 minutes before the to train leaves. If a train is being turned over it will have already arrived and unloaded at that point.

[rockostrich]

In my experience after commuting for a few months, this is never the case. Even when the track listing is displayed 10 minutes prior to departure time, the train usually won't arrive for another few minutes. You get crowds of people where the doors will be. It's really not safe, although I've never seen someone fall so it can't be that bad.

[DKnoll]

The app isn't really an improvement if it has mass adoption, you'd just move the rush for seats from the station hall to the track platform.

[CPLX]

It's midtown, in New York City. Infrastructure is space-constrained, a problem we've had since soon after the Dutch left. Shouldn't be a shock to anyone.

[norikki]

This app is a classic tragedy of the commoms. If everyone used the app, it would be worse for everyone.

[beachbum8029]

Yeah, it seems obvious that they purposely don't assign the track until the last minute for a good reason, so of course they'd want to shut down any software to try and circumvent that system.

[spyspy]

Have you ever taken a rush hour train at Penn Station? The alternative (i.e. current system) is everyone congregates on the concourse staring at the platform screens, and when a new one pops up hundreds of people flood in the direction of that platform in a mad dash. It's a mess.

[bogomipz]

It is exactly this alternative(the current system) that the Amtrak/MTA/LIRR prefer for safety reasons. Amtrak which also has the same procedure at Penn states this here:

http://www.slate.com/blogs/moneybox/2013/07/17/amtrak_s_unpe...

Although it is indeed inefficient and the MTA is completely inept, the platforms for LIRR trains are very narrow, they are shared by two trains and the escalators to get up to the main floor are also very narrow and crowded already.

So although the "mad dash" is in fact a mess, its a safer mess than overcrowding the platforms on the tracks.

[codyb]

I wouldn't call the MTA inept, I'd say the fact the United States as a whole doesn't invest a substantial amount of money in improving the transit systems for the nations most important metropolitan area is what's inept.

I certainly don't support cutting pensions or wages whicg means money needs to come in and Albany consistently constrains the MTA's budget requests and needs. There's probably waste but this alternative is ridiculous and Cuomo's billion is a drop in the bucket. We should probably be realistic as a nation and invest a trillion dollars in the system.

[eveningcoffee]

I think this is also dehumanizing.

[GauntletWizard]

Mass transit is dehumanizing. Cities are dehumanizing. A significant amount of the way that giant infrastructure works is making assumptions and rote; Turning the human problem of "how do I get here" into a mechanical process of "There are two ways to do so, X and Y, each of which follow these steps".

This is great for efficiency - that's why it's done. It's terrible for humanity. It's stagnant, it kills creativity, it leads to these incredible tragedies of the commons when so much relies upon the commons.

[jogjayr]

> It's terrible for humanity. It's stagnant, it kills creativity

Your other points may be valid but I'm not so sure about this one. Artists tend to cluster in big cities, often with mass transit (and sometimes without, like LA). I sincerely doubt there's any sort of correlation between mass transit and creativity.

[GauntletWizard]

Mediocre artists cluster. Good artists hermit. Great artists do both - But don't maintain city apartments.

[bogomipz]

I agree with your points. I am curious about your use of the phrase "tragedy of the commons" though, specifically how it relates to mass transit.

I would think the "tragedy of the commons" would people who elect to drive a car during rush hour rather than taking a similarly viable mass transit option if one exists.

Or are you using the term just in the context of overpopulation? Thanks.

[GauntletWizard]

I'm really not as convinced that mass transit is a good deal. Certainly, there are some places where it is, and some huge benefits. Less time/money/space spent on parking, for example. But the oft-cited statistics about energy-use-per-passenger-mile, while true, are far from the whole story - The human cost in additional time spent commuting and inflexibility of schedule are very real. It takes me twice as long to get to work by transit as by car. It's just barely on the cusp of not worth it - and significantly because SF lacks in parking. It means that I've got to time my comings and goings carefully - I used to work 40 hour weeks as 2x12-14 and then short days the rest, but I can't anymore, because if I stick around till midnight coding I can't get home. If you look at it purely from a "how much does commute cost" perspective, sure, mass transit looks cheap. But it costs humans real time to do. Time is money, and the hour a day I spend in additional commute time, trapped in a small box with smelly homeless dudes, is really not worth my time. It's only because of 'opportunity cost' that I bother with it - I couldn't spend that time making money, and it's value to me in additional entertainment is significantly discounted from my normal rate only because... well, I think I've just talked myself into quitting and getting a job literally anywhere else, because I'm utterly sick of the commute. And at 45 minutes each way, it's really not that bad!

To a certain extent, because it's so cheap to aggregate, we lose out on opportunities to differentiate. Rather than spreading out so we work close to home, we build giant throughfares that make for clear divisors - And then do insane things on top of that. Look at the commute times in and out of SF - the traffic is really bad flowing both into and out of the city, because lots of peninsula-working persons want to live in the city and lots of peninsula living persons want to work in the city. (I say this with great hypocrisy, living on the peninsula and working in the city, but at least I'm in Millbrae and not Sunnyvale).

The same thing has happened in manufacturing - It's so cheap to produce mass-market products, and they do enough in most cases, that it's basically impossible to find semi-niche products in many areas. You can buy cheap Chinese goods or pay 20x the cost for high quality American made, but there's no mid-market anymore. Every so often a product comes around that is mid-market, but when people flock to it, it inevitably goes down in quality. My example is Lands End jeans - In the 90s, they were great. Then they got popular, got bought out, and are now just another branding for cheap goods.

When working from home becomes more acceptable, cities are going to look like things of the past - Full of only collectivists who can't live without someone to praise them at every corner, and the poor and downtrodden who've gotten stuck in the ghettos. This is, of course, cyclical, and been given several names - "White Flight" being the current pejorative for one of the major cycles. But I'm looking forward to being a Solarian[1]; VR for interaction, Automated cars when I need to be somewhere or to transport goods, and high-bandwidth network links for everything else. I don't see anyone else arguing for lining fiber everywhere we run power to, but when I do, I will gladly vote for them.

[1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solaria#Isolationists

[cat199]

Yet, at the same time, people living in cities with mass transit vs suburban sprawl (admittedly still not an 'ideal') prefer the cities for the increased sense of community, higher sense of dynamism, and more 'creative' things going on than what they might get in their their non-mass-transit suburban coutnerparts..

[matthewmacleod]

That's definitely debatable; I'd guess that many people globally live in cities because that's where the work is, not for any of the other aspects you mentioned.

[CalRobert]

I mean, I don't think your point is wrong but I would hardly call cities, at least good ones, terrible for humanity or killing creativity.

[throwaway20148]

Following some rules is dehumanizing?

[dirtybirdnj]

Being treated like cattle shuttled down a narrow pathway. Being forced to wade into a compressed crowd of people who apparently forget all manners and will push and shove you.

It's basically one of, if not the worst parts of every day. And there is nothing you can do to avoid it.

[grogenaut]

The alternative is having people actually end up squeezed in front of a killing machine (train) which I would think is more like "being treated like cattle" in the part that I care about than the "I have to walk down a small hallway.

Also, we treat astronauts like cattle. Squeezed into small areas, down tiny hallways. The Hugh-manatee.

[InitialLastName]

There's always Port Authority!

[norikki]

The fact that they dont have more platforms and more trains is dehumanizing because it causes overcrowding.

[losteverything]

This mad dash is a great secondary tourist must see.

The island's population doubles (1) each workday.

This view of everyday life for many is worthwhile to observe.

As well as "dont talk on the train" rule - but you have to ride at commuter times

(1) nyt 6/3/13 commuters from the other boroughs and outside the city nearly double Manhattan’s population, from 1.6 million to 3.1 million.

[JackFr]

This is absurd. After commuting for 1 year less than a year I knew which track to go to for any of the trains I ended up on. And more importantly where to stand on the platform to be at a door when the train pulled in.

The idea that somehow it's unknown or occult knowledge as to which track to go to is silly, when they announce the track for the train over the PA, they sometimes say 'This is a track change', and the few hundred people who are on the platform already have to trample back up to the concourse and then back down to the new track.

[vonmoltke]

You must be using the LIRR. Things are not as consistent on the NJTransit side if the house. I know with about 90% certainty which of two platforms to go to for my train. Sometimes, like Monday, they throw us a curve ball and board us on the other side if the concourse. Occasionally we even board on track 13 in the LIRR area.

[pmiller2]

I think the idea is that having an app encourages more people to do it, not that it can't be done without an app.

[state_machine]

I've only done much less hellish Grand Central version, and I think Metro North publishes track assignments much earlier.

That said though, just imagine how much worse it would be if that mass rush was between platforms, fighting opposing traffic, instead of just from a (mostly) open waiting area.

[bogomipz]

>"I've only done much less hellish Grand Central version, and I think Metro North publishes track assignments much earlier."

There is so much more space to wait for track assignments as well as space on the grand stairwell to get down to the track in Grand Central(even with tourists) that I don't think they are comparable at all.

If the Metro North does publish assignments much earlier it's likely because its much safer to do so. Although I don't think I've ever seen people waiting on the platforms for Metro North trains in Grand Central.

[state_machine]

Yeah, that's fair. If I have to take LIRR, I'll generally use Atlantic and switch at Jamaica if needed -- anything to avoid Penn.

[jrockway]

If you're trying to get a seat on a train that originates at Penn, changing at Jamaica doesn't help, however.

[Spooky23]

I don't use the LIRR tracks often, but many of the Amtrak trains arrive at the same track or 1-2 tracks. Veteran travelers know where to go, casual travelers are stuck in this maze that is very difficult to navigate.

[FussyZeus]

Thing is though, they could be providing that data MUCH earlier both on the displays and to a phone app. It's not like they don't decide where a train is going until it gets to the station, that would be ridiculous, they'd have to know a while in advance to make sure the track is available, clear, operating correctly, and do all the necessary switching (and more importantly, do so in such a way that doesn't impact other trains).

MTA's appeared a number of times on this website and by all accounts it's where tech innovation goes to die, most of their service is still based on switch wire systems that were built in the 60's. Whether that's due to bureaucratic inertia, inadequate funding, or unions or whatever I have no idea, but that's the real problem.

[dreamcompiler]

Based on the other comments here, I'm guessing they don't post train numbers until the arriving train has disembarked so its passengers can clear the platform before the horde arrives. It probably has nothing to do with technology.

[s73ver]

Given the other comments on this issue, it's not so much that MTA hates innovation, but that those who would be "disruptors" don't actually understand the entirety of the problem.