On Tuesday, August 9, 2016 at 4:18:29 PM UTC-4, danny burstein wrote:   
      
   > Robert Kiley, MTA Chairman from 1983-1991, passed away today at the age of   
   80.   
   > Led the first capital plans, helped bring in Metrocards.   
      
   There were plenty of capital plans before him in the 1960s and 1970s.   
   Some, regretfully, were quite unsuccessful.  Some projects were initially   
   total failures and required big bucks to get them to work.   
      
   In a history of the St. Louis Car Company, builders of many NYC subway   
   cars, the authors talk about what it was like to deal with the MTA/TA   
   in different eras.  In the 1950s, relations were quite efficient--   
   questions could be resolved quickly.  But in the 1970s, questions   
   would remain unanswered until a committee was convened and discussed   
   the issue to death--no one would or could make a decision.   
      
   As to Metrocard, the passengers love it because it brought free   
   transfers to buses and multi-ride discounts.  But what was buried   
   was the enormous capital cost of MetroCard--to wire every station   
   and HQ with power and data lines to serve the vending machines,   
   adjustors, and validators, to replace every single turnstile, buy   
   new vending machines, change booth equipment, and central office   
   equipment, and train the staff.  Also not mentioned was while tokens   
   held their value forever, Metrocards did not and misplaced cards   
   became worthless, screwing the passenger.   
      
   --- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05   
    * Origin: you cannot sedate... all the things you hate (1:229/2)