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LikesBallsDeep t1_jbou3wk wrote

Reply to comment by edcba11355 in Cost of 2nd Avenue Subway extension to East Harlem balloons to $7.7B by Grass8989

They are replacing one escalator at the station near my office.. October to July (target, will probably be late).

Now I'm no expert, but how does it take 10 months to REPLACE an escalator? The structure already exists, the electrical is run,. You just replace the escalator which I'm also pretty sure you get all the parts delivered and just have to assemble.

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DJBabyB0kCh0y t1_jbourdk wrote

The escalators at Court Sq were down for like 4 months. Not even replacing, just repairing. I noticed they kept putting up new signs with different completion dates, and then eventually the signs just went away completely.

The escalators are still down about once a week.

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LikesBallsDeep t1_jbov7gg wrote

Yeah it's wild. I'm pretty sure in most major cities an escalator repair is something they do overnight. A replacement is a weekend job, sorry for the inconvenience.

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Boogie-Down t1_jbp1w3y wrote

I wonder what major city this is

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LikesBallsDeep t1_jbp94ks wrote

Literally any non American city with a subway system. Travel a bit, the shit we get here is not how it has to be.

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Boogie-Down t1_jbpeiqm wrote

When you show me the place with escalators that serves thousands of commuters a week 24/7 with no breakdowns i’ll start believing.

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GOT_IT_FOR_THE_LO_LO t1_jbpn7b9 wrote

Saying that the NYC subway runs "24/7" is questionable when it's basically unusable between the hours of midnight and 6am.

The difference is that other cities have competent people running them who manage to get things on a tight schedule. We need to stop accepting mediocrity and trying to accept the MTA's ineptitude and ask why we can't build anything efficiently in this country.

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LikesBallsDeep t1_jbponz9 wrote

Mediocrity is being nice. We are stuck accepting utter incompetence.

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Boogie-Down t1_jbpnwrm wrote

What does unable mean? Shit is 24/7. When I’m in Paris I’m getting a cab at night.

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GOT_IT_FOR_THE_LO_LO t1_jbpr0vv wrote

I meant unusable. Getting anywhere in the middle of the night on the NYC subway these days means waiting 20-30 minutes for a train to _maybe_ show up if it's running at all on the weekends. And that's assuming you don't have to transfer?

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Boogie-Down t1_jbprro7 wrote

Waiting 20-30 minutes for a $3 train 3AM that can travel 3 boroughs on a service that has multiple apps you can see where the train is currently at is unusable? Your choice of words I find untruthful.

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gobeklitepewasamall t1_jbs2pa6 wrote

I used to work a night job in Williamsburg. I had to commute from bay ridge. It’d take me over 2 hours every single night to go one way. One night I missed a g train, the next one was 50 minutes away. It’s ridiculous. And that was after I waited 36 minutes for the r.

That’s an hour and 26 minutes, out of a total commute time of two hours and 20 minutes. Driving it takes under 20 minutes at that hour. It’s insane. Admittedly, taking the l from union square was slightly less horrific, but the long slog on the r (cause the b always runs local at night anyway) to union square almost made it even.

And the worst part was I wasn’t even going that late, I had to pick up a truck between midnight and 3 am. The wide discrepancy, ofc, was because I lost access to a motor vehicle a week into the gig.

The saving grace was that the ridiculously long commute there meant that by the time I clocked out and dropped the truck off, I’d be coming home at the opening of the morning rush & it’d take me 45 minutes to an hour.

Every other night job I’ve worked was in such a location that it just didn’t even make sense to take the train at that hour, I’d just walk miles or drive if I could. I used to love working an ambulance at night, totally different vibe than during the day..

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MrNewking t1_jbp2p6t wrote

Those are owned by Citi Corp not MTA

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Active-Knee1357 t1_jbp4m4r wrote

The thing is why the hell are they in a subway station then? I had this same conversation with some MTA person and I couldn't get an answer lol. Get rid of that glass canopy or at least seal it so it doesn't leak all over the escalators when it rains or snows, and maybe they'll stop breaking down.

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MrNewking t1_jbp7tt8 wrote

This all boils down to when that station was last rehabbed. It's all part of the contractual agreements brokered between the mta, the city and the company near the exit. The MTA gets access to a part of their property and the company gains an entrance to the subway but have to maintain a portion of it.

In this case, Citi group gets access to court sq via an entrance, but have to maintain the elevators.

There's a whole bunch around the city like this. Usually privately owned entrances/escalators/and elevators have an X at the end of their unique code.

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Boogie-Down t1_jbpewvy wrote

Unfortunately we have this thing called property rights

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creativepositioning t1_jbq4yc4 wrote

>I had this same conversation with some MTA person and I couldn't get an answer lol

Do you ask McDonald's employees why corporate does something?

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EdgeOrnery6679 t1_jbov911 wrote

A few years ago, Cuomo showed up to a MTA worksite where 130 people were supposed to be working unannounced and there was actually noone working while they were getting paid to be working there. Theres lots of corruption.

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stewartm0205 t1_jbp48df wrote

Maybe checking up on work being done should be standard.

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ThinVast t1_jbrs5tv wrote

That's a ploy. Cuomo shows up to hide the fact that he was in on it and he can pretend he's the good guy exposing the abuse.

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b1argg t1_jbouz5q wrote

you need 3 union guys to watch the 1 doing the work.

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manormortal t1_jbp4p2a wrote

Whose going to watch the union guys watching the 1 guy working?

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LikesBallsDeep t1_jbruesu wrote

It's 3 union watchers for each union worker all the way down, hence the price tag.

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dspeyer t1_jbp3nuh wrote

IIRC escalators are a "buy American" problem. It doesn't make economic sense to build escalators completely in the US, so anyone with a choice imports the key equipment and this goes very smoothly. There isn't enough market for all-American escalators to sustain true factories. But government projects are legally required to source everything domestically, so parts get made in one-off metal shops. Then, when repairs are needed, everything's nonstandard and replacement parts can't just be ordered.

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_allycat t1_jbquupa wrote

There's a Trader Joe's near me that constantly has a broken escalator. Last year it was down for months. I asked an employee one day and they said the service company couldn't get parts.

Same story with a movie theatre elevator a few years ago.

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LikesBallsDeep t1_jbqv2mt wrote

Ok.. well then maybe don't start the escalator replacement in a busy station until you have all the parts needed in a warehouse. It was planned work, they had notices up months ahead of time. Did they not know what components go into the replacement escalator? Don't think supply chain issues are a valid excuse right now.

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