5-Year Subway Repair Is Suddenly a 10-Day Job

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/02/nyregion/02subway.html

At first, the estimate was grim, a subway rider's nightmare. It could take up to five years to get the A and C trains running normally after a fire in an underground signal relay room last month.

Then the forecast improved: transit officials said it would take only six to nine months to fix the disruptions.

Now the estimate has come down once more. The new prognosis for restoration of most service on the subway line?

Today. Just nine days and 15 hours after the fire.


Huh. Seems like the light of day at the TA has exposed a mess, no?

http://www.nytimes.com/2005/02/02/nyregion/02subway.html

[merwin]

1. Haliburton lost the bid, so the true time came out n/t

[candy]

2. Wouldn't want Bechtel handling it either--Boston's" Big Dig " guys.

[DulceDecorum]

3. And they didn't have to outsource it either!

The job shrank to fit the money available.

[UL_Approved]

4. FIVE YEARS for a relay?

How much equipment was destroyed?

You could build a tunnel extension in five years.

Power equipment gets replaced in days to weeks, of any size. You could replace a 1000 MVA transformer in a few months even if it was a special item.

More mechanic estimates gone wrong...

[The Backlash Cometh]

5. I've always wondered about construction on highways. Those

Bob's Barricades can stay up for a year at a time. Sounds like poor time management. Can you imagine?

[trogdor]

7. All projects run from March/April til November.

Depending on weather. That's the way they do things in central New York. You see the orange barrels go out in mid-March or so; count on 'em still being there past Halloween, no matter what the job. Somehow, right after Thanksgiving, they disappear. If you're lucky, you won't see 'em in the same spot next March.

[The Backlash Cometh]

8. Hmm...wonder why this isn't an issue for an audit.

Who benefits from this?

[iconoclastNYC]

9. Did you read the article?

The 5 year estimate was just a guess on how long it would take to source and install all the replacement equipment that was destroyed by the fire.

The MTA employees "borrowed" switching services from other lines and rigged it all together with band-aids to come up with a temporary fix.

The negative tone of the comments and the NYTime article really is indicative of how successful Republicans have been at making all government and / or public agencies seems corrupt and bad. If this was some corporation their PR people would have commercial airing 24/7 making them out to be angels for doing this so quickly.

This is good news people, they moved heaven and earth to come up with a temporary solution and all everyone can do is complain that they came up with a solution FASTER.

How about being pleasantly surprised?

The Tone of the NYTimes article was an insult to the people who were working the twelve hour shifts to keep NYC moving.

[The Backlash Cometh]

10. Oh, I'm talking in general terms about Bob's Barricades and

the NYC barrels. I imagine it takes money to rent them and the longer they stay up for no apparent reason, the more money in someone's pocket.

[iconoclastNYC]

12. Ooops. n/t

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

13. Well, maybe you missed the propaganda that was tossed out

at the beginning of this disaster.
I agree this is a great solution, and once again, the world's best transit workers came to the rescue of the world's worst administration. They initially compared the loss of this switch room with damage to the system from 9/11.

Apparently back in the days before the power-mad Guiliani merged the NYC Transit Police into the NYPD, the Transit Police had an officer stationed in this room it was considered so critical.

Now of course, the numbers of officers on transit duty is down. How far down is debatable and very difficult to definitively ascertain. But, the same people who were against the merger point to this as a symptom of a severe decline in public safety in the subways due to the merger.

I tend to agree. We need to put the transit police back in the subways, what little monies we saved will most likely wiped out by accidents caused by untrained, and even uncaring, street officers taking charge of situations which require some knowledge of the system.

[iconoclastNYC]

16. Please tell me where you read

Please tell me where you read that there was police office stationed at this room? A link would be great. It sounds made up to me.

There are tons of these rooms everywhere in the system and I highly doubt the city spent the money to station people there to watch over them. A big waste of money if you ask me.

How are we going to pay for that?

If anything they need to fireproof equipment rooms and install a detectors for smoke and chemical and biological detectors.

Problem is Albany and DC will not increase funding and the people revolt when they try to raise the price of a monthly metro card $6

[radwriter0555]

6. the 10 freeway in los angeles was rebuilt after the 1994 earthquake in

less than 90 days with the right financial incentives. The project was slated for 2+ years.

The co made several million in bonuses for bringing it in so fast.

[iconoclastNYC]

11. This isn't a highway

This is WWII era mechanical switching relays, only made by a couple companies and whatever goes in must be compatable with what was there.

Apples/Oranges.

If the subways got the level of federal and state support that highways get the MTA might have the money to throw millions at the problem.

[Retrograde]

14. of course, it was an election year and SoCal has votes

The part of 880 damaged in the 1989 earthquake wasn't fixed for years. But since there wasn't an election scheduled for over a year things up here just didn't get fixed quite as quickly.

[0rganism]

15. It's the opposite of what usually happens to bushco's rosey predictions

For some reason, they're always revising stuff like spending figures, defecits, monthly unemployment, and casualties upwards.

On the other hand, it seems a bit like W's assessment of the Social Security problem.