[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.

[CalRobert]

Source?

[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

[bogomipz]

I see, so the overcrowded cities(and by extension the mass transit) are the "commons" by which the individual is trying to reap the biggest reward from. Thanks.

[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.