zlacker

> Subway ridership is up 75% since 1980. The capital budget during the 1980s averaged $3.4 billion annually in 2020 dollars: https://wagner.nyu.edu/files/faculty/publications/rescue.pdf (fig. 5). The 2015-2019 capital program (5 years) averaged about $6.5 billion 2020 dollars. So a 90% increase in capital spending for a 75% increase in ridership. Punchline: MTA is so massively wasteful, that wasn't enough. The system deteriorated the whole time leading to catastrophic failure in the last few years.

Just because the spend per rider increased over that time doesn't mean the system is getting what it needs though. A newer system will usually function better than a starved system years later naturally because of deferred maintenance and other aging infrastructure ailments even if the per rider numbers have increased. Comparing it just on the per rider spend assumes that the earlier number is enough.

>>rtkwe+(OP)
The London underground was created in 1863 though: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/London_Underground

Though I suppose you would have to look at the state of thr system in the 1980s. NYC may have had more deferred maintenance.

>>graeme+Eg
One major thing is probably that the NYC subway did 24 hour operation (recently stopped due to covid-19) so there wasn't an easy period for maintenance tasks where the London Underground seems to run 5am-12am so there's a nice 5 hour block for maintenance.

>>rtkwe+(OP)
I mean you're correct--an alternative explanation would be that the baseline sample in 1970 was already in "austerity." That's why I compared it to the London system.

>>rayine+M71
One major difference that might explain the difference at least partially is New York's system runs 24/7 [0] where London's shuts down for 5 hours every night. Maintenance gets much easier when there's a solid block of time every night for smaller tasks.

[0] More or less, they've stopped during COVID but it's not a great time to do maintenance.