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What to do with Subways in the future?

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Posted by MidlandMike on Sunday, April 19, 2020 9:02 PM

Miningman
Maybe... possibly ... if I had to ride the subway to work I would refuse to do so. 

It's prohibitly expenseve to park in Manhattan.  There would not be the street or parking capacity to circumvent the sybway system.

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Posted by Miningman on Sunday, April 19, 2020 6:06 PM

I don't know... sea change coming. What does the world look like a year from now? Incredibly huge changes are in store. 

Changes in power, custom and attitude.  

I question if my College will ever reopen. Every time a student gets a cold they will disappear for 2 weeks easy.  It will have to be on line at their own pace. That's a lot of layoffs , a lot of loss of privacy, a lot of monitoring. 

Many things across the board will have to be done in very different ways.

I would not live anywhere near a city.

If you're at a restaurant, or theatre, or concert and someone coughs all hell breaks loose. People will be treated like lepers, social pariahas. 

Thinking subways and mass transit will somehow have to have restricted access. Even then it dosen't work if you think about it.

There is no way in hell I would get on a subway . 

Furthermore I believe those that wish Western Society harm or some kook ( as I've stated previously) is dusting off the old bunson burner right now seeing how easy this is to bring it all to an end. I don't think we are that far from chaos. Got to hold the line! 

Security and Monitoring on a worldwide basis will really have to step up. 

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Posted by tree68 on Sunday, April 19, 2020 4:53 PM

zugmann
I thought it was a case of not having the employees avaliable?  Many were out sick.

I've seen indications that it was mandated by government officials.  Probably a little of both.  

LarryWhistling
Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) 
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Posted by Convicted One on Sunday, April 19, 2020 4:17 PM

Gramp
Buses are involved, too. 

Our local bus company has reduced service to where the last bus each day runs at 3:15 PM, and there is a maximum number of passengers of 9 on each bus.

With most routes only running once per hour, I can imagine how frustrating it would be to wait for a bus, only to be denied entry due to the maximum passenger restriction, and have to wait another hour HOPING it was not at capacity.

Being an essential employee depending on the bus would not be a fun thing.

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Posted by zugmann on Sunday, April 19, 2020 2:56 PM

tree68
That was from a retired subway supervisor about a week ago.  They may have gotten smart and returned to the normal schedule of trains since then.

I thought it was a case of not having the employees avaliable?  Many were out sick.

  

The opinions expressed here represent my own and not those of my employer, any other railroad, company, or person.

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Posted by Gramp on Sunday, April 19, 2020 2:54 PM

Buses are involved, too. 

Nails in public transit's coffin, unfortunately. 

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Posted by tree68 on Sunday, April 19, 2020 1:06 PM

At the present, the problem has been exascerbated by a reduction in the number of trains running, packing the remaining riders in even tighter.

That was from a retired subway supervisor about a week ago.  They may have gotten smart and returned to the normal schedule of trains since then.

LarryWhistling
Resident Microferroequinologist (at least at my house) 
Everyone goes home; Safety begins with you
My Opinion. Standard Disclaimers Apply. No Expiration Date
Come ride the rails with me!
There's one thing about humility - the moment you think you've got it, you've lost it...

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Posted by SD70Dude on Sunday, April 19, 2020 12:41 PM

Subways, Metros and crowded passenger trains in general survived the 1918 Spanish Flu pandemic, and they will survive this.

Life will return to normal eventually, though it may take years.

Greetings from Alberta

-an Articulate Malcontent

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Posted by BaltACD on Sunday, April 19, 2020 12:38 PM

If the future of human occupation of the Earth is Social Distancing - human occupation is in serious danger. 7+ Billion people and only so much inhabitable land area.

Never too old to have a happy childhood!

              

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Posted by girarddepot on Sunday, April 19, 2020 12:08 PM

[quote user="Flintlock76"]

Unfortunately it's a problem with no easy solution.

The subways are there, they won't and can't be abandoned, they have to be used.  When the virus is over (and eventually it will be) people will be back riding and living with any possible risk.  Viruses of all kinds will always be with us

I think a bigger problem, long term, is going to be sea-level rise during storm surge conditions.  It caused millions in damage and weeks of outage after super-storm Sandy.  There have been other flooding events with lesser damage but I think we've seen the handwriting on the wall.  Thr els of yesteryear, noisy though were, have the advantage of relative immunity from flooding .  And they're much less costly to build and maintain to say nothing of less time intensive.  Operational cost and reliability will determine  the outcome of this issuie--hopefully sooner rather than later.

.. 

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Posted by Miningman on Sunday, April 19, 2020 12:03 PM

Maybe... possibly ... if I had to ride the subway to work I would refuse to do so. 

Ennui-- definition ' a feeling of listlessness and dissatisfaction arising from a lack of occupation or excitement'  example ' he succumbed to ennui and despair'

So both the Flames of Hell and the Flames of Ennui

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Posted by Flintlock76 on Sunday, April 19, 2020 11:49 AM

Unfortunately it's a problem with no easy solution.

The subways are there, they won't and can't be abandoned, they have to be used.  When the virus is over (and eventually it will be) people will be back riding and living with any possible risk.  Viruses of all kinds will always be with us.

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What to do with Subways in the future?
Posted by Miningman on Sunday, April 19, 2020 11:24 AM

~From Professor Jeffrey E Harris of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, a new paper:

New York City's multitentacled subway system was a major disseminator – if not the principal transmission vehicle – of coronavirus infection during the initial takeoff of the massive epidemic that became evident throughout the city during March 2020. The near shutoff of subway ridership in Manhattan – down by over 90 percent at the end of March – correlates strongly with the substantial increase in the doubling time of new cases in this borough. Maps of subway station turnstile entries, superimposed upon zip code-level maps of reported coronavirus incidence, are strongly consistent with subway-facilitated disease propagation.

 

From Mark Steyn:

A subway car is the opposite of social distancing: With each jolt of the train, the petite strap-hanging blonde has her nose pressed deeper into the chest hair of the sweaty corpulent guy she doesn't know. Professor Harris makes the point that reducing service, as both New York and London have done, doesn't really help with that - because it's better to have a thousand people spread out over three different trains rather than wedged into one.

This is a really really big problem.

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