[chimeracoder]

> I don't understand why New York has two employees per train. Nearly everywhere else in the world has 1.

Because the TWU penalizes the MTA financially for technological advancement. They are incredibly powerful, mostly because neither the MTA nor the state government which oversees the MTA bother to keep costs in check.

There's no reason the L couldn't be completely automated, with zero employees per train. As described elsewhere in the thread, the person operating the train doesn't actually have to do anything at the moment; the entire process is already automated.