There’s a massive tropical storm headed to New York, one that may flood the subway. What most people don’t know is that we depend on just 700 fragile water pumps to keep the tunnels dry—some a century old.
In fact, if someone powered down all these pumps tomorrow, the entire subway network would be inundated in just a few hours. To give you an idea of how complex and massive this system is, it pulls 13 million gallons of water out of the subway on any sunny day. No rain. Not even a single drop of water from the sky.
On a rainy day, it is absolute madness. To the point where the MTA—NYC’s Metropolitan Transportation Authority—lives in permanent panic, fearing events like Nicole, the tropical storm system that is approaching the little town blue right now. “At some point, it would be too much to handle,” said the head of the hydraulics team back in 2006, Peter Velasquez Jr., “you’ve got rain plus wind. It basically would shut down the system. You hope not. You pray that it doesn’t.”
Hain’t no money for an upgrade either. Cheney’s bonehead war saw to that.
I thought the NYC subway, or at least parts of it, closed a few times a year due to heavy rains. As troublesome as Nicole may be, this should not be a real surprise.
Of course, it would be nice if they could upgrade the pump system.
#1, if NY needs to upgrade its subway, then NY should pay for it. Why is the federal government supposed to transfer money from other communities to fund improvements in another?
The same goes for this issue of setting up more federal assistance for 9/11 first responders. Why isn’t the city of NY doing this, when instead they expect people in CA and everywhere else to be taxed for it.
Really this problems comes down to we have a federal system where the central government does most of the taxing, and then the states stand around expecting handouts. States provide most of our services. They should be doing most of the taxing. But instead we have a sudo welfare system for the state governments where money is sucked out of them and doled back out with strings and other onerous provisos attached.
So, will THIS remove the urine smell? Or is that part of NYC’s charm…
Yep, I agree with most of that, #3. The federal government is not getting any smaller. We are UNABLE to shrink it. It will ruin everything (along with Cheney’s bonehead war).
#4, but I was told that the garbage dump smell was why people moved there.
Well rainwater is bad, but at high tide a really good storm surge could fill it with salt water.
Lets see, your City and state money pay for something NEEDED..
Are New Yorkers going to get the Katrina treatment?
I see. Its all solidarity and brotherhood and “We were attacked!” when its politically convenient. But when fire/policemen need help with medical issues from doing their jobs doing that event, suddenly its NYs problem.
Wow way to fear monger. Guess what anyone who lives in NYC can tell you the subway gets flooded all the time. It’s not some disaster scenario. The subway floods, they shut down the flooded section and pump it out.
tcc3–I understand your post to conflate being attacked on 911 by Islamofascist terrorists and the coming together of America in response presents the same issues as heavy rainfall/storms flooding the NYC subway and its lack of infrastructure planning for the past 50 years. That appears idiotic to me and I assume I’m missing your deeper point?
Is that right or what valid connection are you trying to make?
Sorry, Bobbo, I should have been more specific. This was in direct response to Sea Lawyers complaining about using Federal funds to solve “local issues” like subway upgrades and 9/11 first responders.
Cool. All forms of mass transit should be shut down and outlawed anyway (except airlines)
Thanks tcc3. I had SL in mind but rereading both posts, I see the various ideas can be mixed and matched a variety of ways.
I think we can all agree NYC Subway Maintenance is a local issue while reasonable people could disagree about the local/national character of the 9/11 attack and the response thereto?
All such issues to be minimized had we a universal healthcare system and a national transportation policy?
Yes, defective government creates lots of conflict.
Where are the people who will say stupid shit like “It serves you right for living in an hurricane/earthquake/flood/fire etc., prone area.
And you can bet New York will not be treated the same as New Orleans. Wall Streeters reside there.
I remember watching in amusement during the “big blackout” a few years ago. New Yorkers whining about how it was impossible to get a “good cup of coffee” during the blackout. A wake up call would be good for them.
Islanders are used to going without power for weeks, sometimes months at a time. Once the news cycle shifted, we were totally forgotten.
With a water table of about 72 inches on average, plus all the reclaimed land that was built through and on (The UN, the World Trade Center, the West Side Highway…) the New Orleans office of the Army Corps of Engineers look like a bunch of fucking geniuses…
And yes, the subways do need to be hosed down once in a while…good time as any…
#3 Sea Lawyer.
Another great example of your small thinking.
If it were not for $$$ pooled nationally, very little in terms of substantial projects would be built locally, and your local economy would be very negatively affected. It is only through everybody chipping in a little that nationally we can do a lot.
How many cities would be able to afford to build airports, or large highways, or ports were it not for national infrastructure projects? Those are things that being national benefits. And you can argue that a well functioning mass transit system in New York should be a national priority, given how important New York is to the national economy, just like well functioning airports in New York are essential to the national economy, even if you never go there yourself.
For the record, I hate New York. I also hate the IRS, but I have the presence of mind to see them both as essential to the well being of our country.
#20, um isn’t the point of large cities that it is more cost effective, per capita to provide services than in more rural regions? That’s why rural utilities end up being subsidized by urban users. Talk about having a clue.
But you’ve missed my point entirely. So let’s say that we pay 30% of our incomes in taxes, 5-10% to the states and the large remainder to the Feds. Well my argument is that since the states are the ones providing most of the services, they’d should be the ones collecting the largest share of the taxes, instead of waiting around with their hands outs.
# 3 Sea Lawyer said, “if NY needs to upgrade its subway, then NY should pay for it.”
A couple of quick googles shows subway fare is $2.25 and the system has 5,086,833 riders each week day. That’s over $11M in revenue PER DAY. Add in some weekend fares and that well over $30 BILLION dollars per year in revenues. The annual operating budget for the subway system is $11 billion.
So, yes. I agree.
Bush’s fault.
Obama’s fault.
If only this were true!