[masklinn]

> London and Toronto have been able to modernize much of their transit systems in last 5 years and its not because they have more money. Once you fix the top everything else will fall into place.

TBF NYC does have the exceptional — almost unique — feature that it runs 24/7.

[tialaramex]

That's an infrastructure design thing though. You literally can't run the London Underground 24/7 because there's only one pair through the centre for each line, so when you shut a tunnel to send a bunch people in, you can't run the service.

Night Tube (the centre parts of the London Underground running continuously from early Friday to the middle of the night on Sunday) is mostly about re-arranging maintenance and cleaning programmes to avoid Friday and Saturday night closures. They hired a bunch more staff, but there's no infrastructure fix, so still nothing like New York.

[mseebach]

I believe that I read something about upgrading the signalling and/or "third rail" electrical systems was part of it, so they can shut the line down in stages behind the last train and reversely in front of the first, rather than having to wait for the train to terminate at the end of the line and stopping as soon as the first train leaves, often up to an hour outside central London. This gives one or two extra hours of work every night which is why they don't need the weekend.

But quoting from memory, could well be mistaken.