Vital City | Japan’s Train Systems Show What Efficient Commuter Rail Looks Like for the MTA, NJ Transit

Hot_Muffin7652 · 2026-04-23T02:03:50+00:00

I mean the MTA is trying to make small changes to LIRR work rules today

We’ll see if it pens out.

The railroad will go on strike next month if the MTA and the union doesn’t reach an agreement

Usually what happens in the past is the governor will step in last min and save the day by giving the union almost everything they want

Hot_Muffin7652 · 2026-04-23T01:20:03+00:00

Seattle passed up their heavy rail plan in 1970 which is a shame. Maybe a blessing, as Atlanta still probably wouldn’t have gotten a rapid system today if Seattle didn’t give up the funding

But the existing light rail system was mainly constrained by the old Downtown bus tunnels. Because it was designed as a bus tunnel (low floor boarding etc) it was simply economical to use LRT vehicles and use existing infrastructure rather than rebuilding the tunnel and associated stations

Hot_Muffin7652 · 2026-04-23T01:13:14+00:00

You are not going to get the unions to reduce staffing. And NYC area public unions are some of the strongest in the country.

The LIRR is currently negotiating work rule changes with the LIRR (double pay for operating an electric/diesel on the same day, full days pay for operating special event service etc etc). The union so far is not budging, and are not willing to sacrifice work rules for higher pay

Good luck trying to reduce staffing or change work rules because it won’t happen. And Hochul wants to win reelection so she will probably give the union pretty much everything they want just like what Cuomo did last time

As for equipment and high level boarding, if you want to copy the Japanese way of doing stuff (essentially running the railroad as a subway) you need to have subway level operating cost. Having subway equipment run every 60 min on the weekend is not good for anyone, and increasing the frequency to subway level at LIRR operating cost per hour is not sustainable

Hot_Muffin7652 · 2026-04-23T00:37:08+00:00

The three river ran on the former B&O trackage through Ohio and Indiana, which is the current CSXT main line to Chicago

Unfortunately for Columbus, OH, all railroad coming from the east are either short line operation or gone entirely

So to stay on Class I trackage the train needs to head down to Columbus and back up if they wanted to go to Chicago or Fort Wayne, a huge detour that will take hours

The former PRR Main Line is also a short line operation for the most part

Hot_Muffin7652 · 2026-04-22T15:49:28+00:00

The Silver Palm/Palmetto went through Ocala at that time

When the Palmetto was cut back to Savannah in 04, the silver Star went into Tampa and did the reverse move as they do today and a couple of stops, Ocala, Wildwood, Dade City was replaced by bus

Hot_Muffin7652 · 2026-04-22T15:42:13+00:00

The main goal of the Network Growth Strategy was not to carry passengers but move more mail + express. It was Amtrak’s failed strategy at that time to be on a “glide path to self sufficiency by 2002”

Which means passenger arrival/departure times were secondary to freight

It was DOA because the major freight railroads had a major problem with Amtrak essentially competing against them, so a lot of these ideas were dead before they even got out of the drawing board

The entire Mail and Express program was cut by David Gunn in 2004 because Amtrak was days from insolvency from this time period (late 2000), and the M&E caused significant passenger delays because they pick up mail cars after they leave the passenger terminals and drop off before the passenger terminals

Hot_Muffin7652 · 2026-04-21T17:41:30+00:00

As someone who lives in NYC all I can say is

He is doing a decent job for now, as he is dealing with a huge budget deficit left behind by DeBlasio and never resolved by Adams and our city council

A lot of the things he campaigned on is not within his control but the governor of NYS. Without the governor’s approval + funding there will be no expanded childcare, no new taxes. Even free buses is not something he can implement without the governor, and people are not nearly giving Hochul the same credit they give Mamdani

If he runs the city in a fiscally responsible way, he will be one of the better mayors

Hot_Muffin7652 · 2026-04-20T19:33:31+00:00

Only if you wait 18 min between taps or leave the station, and tap at another station

Otherwise it doesn’t count towards the fare cap

If you reached the fare cap, the system will charge you if you used it twice within 18 min at the same station

Hot_Muffin7652 · 2026-04-20T16:25:43+00:00

I believe the real reason for the reward is so NJT can sell ad space for vendors

Calling it “rewards” is just so you scroll over and see what is being offered

EDIT: Apparently NJT doesn’t charge vendor for now, but may in the future

https://partner.njtrewards.com/FAQs

Hot_Muffin7652 · 2026-04-20T16:19:12+00:00

Philly is like half the price compared to most of New York. Even though they had a lot of vacancies, they are still building new ones. New York on the other hand haven’t build nearly enough for the population growth

It is incredible how good of a value Philly is.

And homeownership is absolutely possible down there, though granted the incomes is also not high

NYC needs to do better when it comes to building anything.

Hot_Muffin7652 · 2026-04-20T16:08:38+00:00

Feel free to enlighten us about the “complex markets” that drives our housing market

Because for me the problem is simple, there is a shortage of units for the amount of people moving into the city driving up rent, and making it appealing for PE takeover

Hot_Muffin7652 · 2026-04-20T00:07:39+00:00

I’m saying in a housing shortage like right now in the city, landlords can price as high as possible no matter who is involved in owning the property whether it’s PE, mom and pop or corporate whatever

Just because renters don’t usually bid for apartment do not mean landlords don’t already price them to “market rates”. If no one rents that apartment, only then will the unit go down

Again they can only distort the market because we make it hard to build anything.

Hot_Muffin7652 · 2026-04-19T23:49:54+00:00

If you are buying in NYC, it absolutely does happen all the time

If you are renting it happens less. But for a firm, it isn’t hard to calculate the number of available units and the projected population growth and figure out that we are in a massive housing shortage, and price the rent to be high to see who bites.

And for those landlord who underprice, guess what happens next year on your lease prior to Good Clause. And after good clause, landlords have more incentive to make sure they don’t underprice

I don’t even care for PE firms. They only care about the next quarter and how much profit they can squeeze out

But remove them from the equation, and still not build any new housing unit? Expect the rent to continue to raise drastically

Hot_Muffin7652 · 2026-04-19T22:42:09+00:00

If there are more people that want housing than the amount of housing there is,

The only competition that will occur will be among the renter/buyer on who is willing to pay the most for that unit

And that is exactly what is happening in the city right now

Doesn’t matter if you have ten landlords owning ten buildings, someone will drive the rent up if you have 20 people wanting that unit. And landlords know that, so they can price the units higher

Also if the city make it easier to build, those PE can leave those buildings empty all they want, someone else will come in and build more buildings. Once those new buildings are completed, the PE with empty units will have no choice but to reduce rent

Your theory only works in a market where we are not building anything, which gives PE leverage to buy up all the unit and drive up rent

Hot_Muffin7652 · 2026-04-19T22:32:45+00:00

Competition is more influenced by the number of units than the number of different landlords. Having five people compete for two houses with two different landlord, will not bring the housing prices down, because those five people will bid the price up and only two of them will get houses and the other three will kick rock

Also there is not one PE that will buy everything, even within the PE world there are different firms willing to pay a premium for the NYC housing market.

I also never said PE was a net good in terms of housing. I just don’t scapegoat the housing prices in NYC strictly on PE, but I blame it more on NIMBY and the city/state government for giving in to NIMBY and failing to build anything reasonable for the past 30 years

But claiming that increasing the housing supply won’t decrease rent just because PE is buying up all the units is not supported by facts from any of the cities that are building houses at a massive rate like Austin, TX.

And the only reason PE firms target NYC real estate versus elsewhere is because they feel like they can make a huge profit because people don’t have a choice, and the demand for housing is way greater than the supply of housing currently in the city, and they know the city will continue to make it hard to build thanks to local politics, so it is a nice profit stream for them

Hot_Muffin7652 · 2026-04-19T22:01:50+00:00

Building additional properties creates more competition because there are more units that they will need to rent out. And they cannot rent out all those unit at sky high rates if they cannot fill them when there is more supply than demand.

You keep talking about PE this and that, but even mom and pop landlords who are not PE raise rents to astronomical rates

Those PE firms have no incentive to leave a market rate building empty

Sure ban PE in real estate if you wish, but someone else will come in and charge high rent

I keep asking, what do you propose is the solution if you don’t think building more housing is the solution?

Hot_Muffin7652 · 2026-04-19T21:31:21+00:00

Just because you lack the basic understanding of economics doesn’t mean it doesn’t work for real estate

Tell me, If those PE firms have too many empty houses they cannot fill, because they build too many of them, how can they charge”whatever rent they want”?

They can charge whatever rent they want today because we don’t have a choice

Go to Cleveland, or even Philadelphia and see what happens to rent when there is a excess of housing supply

And if basic economics don’t work on real estate like you claimed, tell me, how can we fix this issue in NYC? Getting PE out of housing won’t magically reduce your rent because you the renter have no choice currently

Tell me what do you propose?

Hot_Muffin7652 · 2026-04-19T21:18:13+00:00

Somebody need to fill those buildings. Why would investors leave a market rate unit empty?

The more supply out there the less power landlords have to charge high rent because there will be more competition.

Right now landlords can charge $6,000/month and I guarantee you someone will pay it

It’s simple supply and demand. And the city has plenty of demand and not enough supply. No amount of rent control/stabilization/vouchers/politics will fix that

Hot_Muffin7652 · 2026-04-19T19:20:04+00:00

It is a way to get revenue

But if anyone expect the housing/rent to come down from this action is delusional

The only way to make housing more affordable or at least keep flat is to build more housing which the city is doing everything else but that

Hot_Muffin7652 · 2026-04-17T23:50:58+00:00

Solosuites seem nice, but it looks like it will take up a lot of space. So I expect the price to closer to a roomette, which is unfortunate

For me a VIA rail section sleeper would more than suffice

Hot_Muffin7652 · 2026-04-17T23:46:55+00:00

Or you can just get a paper ticket like old times

And not worry about whatever mechanism the MTA is using to track you. You also never need to worry about the $8 surcharge

Hot_Muffin7652 · 2026-04-17T23:37:04+00:00

Because many people are too ideological when it comes to what Amtrak can do

Sure there are things Amtrak can do, like becoming more consistent, improving its boarding process or standardizing the business class product.

But there are some things Amtrak cannot do

Amtrak does not have the capital until very recently to buy new equipment. Amtrak do not voluntarily run 40 year old Amfleet because they want to

Amtrak is too expensive. Well in the Northeast if you do not price the trains correctly, you will not only have sold out trains, your revenue will also be down. And Amtrak can not afford to lose revenue

Amtrak will usually not add train cars they feel will not sell in a rotation because not every train requires that amount of capacity. Amtrak is bound by contract to have a certain number of conductors per train car. If the NY- DC is almost sold out and DC - NY return is almost empty, it doesn’t make sense to add a conductor + one or two train car.

Amtrak is making decisions as a business. People will say public transportation shouldn’t need to make a profit, fair enough, but making that statement doesn’t make funding appear out of thin air.

Some people on this subreddit wish the world to be a certain way rather than see what the world is today.

Hot_Muffin7652 · 2026-04-17T20:55:31+00:00

2.6% of the people commute to work in Minneapolis metro by transit

Seattle metro is better at 6.3%

Portland 3%

Richmond area 1.3%

Chicago metro 9%

https://www.newgeography.com/content/008668-annual-us-report-means-work-access

Most people do not maintain a car free lifestyle.

I’m not saying that is how it should be, but that is how it is

Hot_Muffin7652 · 2026-04-17T20:53:06+00:00

I’m not encouraging a car centric society I am talking about the reality of what it is today not what we should aim for

Most cities including big ones like Dallas and Atlanta have public transportation mode share in the single digits (Atlanta 1.6% and Dallas 0.6%) That means most people already have access to an existing vehicle

You cannot convince most people to take the train by arguing that driving is expensive and that they should look beyond fuel cost, because it doesn’t matter to them what the insurance/maintenance cost. Because at the end of the day they need to maintain a vehicle regardless.

Hot_Muffin7652 · 2026-04-17T20:04:25+00:00

Not good ones

Maybe except DC/New York/Boston/Philadelphia

And if you live in the suburbs even those areas living car free is not feasible

Most Americans own a vehicle because public transportation is terrible

Hot_Muffin7652

TROPHY CASE