This is a beautiful example of why there is a natural frequency to preventable disasters.<p>In the aftermath of a preventable disaster, there is will to implement policies and changes to prevent the next one. However the longer it has been since the last, or the safer things seem, the harder it is to maintain those policies. This slide will continue until disaster strikes. Which creates political will to avoid it.<p>A first disaster may be side by those with influence. But a series of them will undermine their excuses and eventually result in action. Action prevents disaster. Disaster prevention creates complacency and the cycle starts again.<p>There is no question that we have staved off infrastructure disaster for a long time. And it is just a question of time until the piper comes due...again.
The outage in Midtown was somewhat of a freak thing. And if you look at the math around it, in a city of 8 million ~70k customers without power for ~5 hours. That's incredible.<p>Is ConEd's network the best? No, there are always improvements that can be made. There is a lot of aging infrastructure that has been replaced and upgraded as a result of Sandy. And to be clear, I think the response to Sandy was unacceptable to ConEd management, not just the union(s).<p>The engineering of the Manhattan network (and the Brooklyn network) is pretty amazing. It's the reason that when there are power outages, they are usually shorter and affect fewer customers.<p>I am reminded of the response to Hurricane Ike in Houston. There were people there in relatively lightly hit areas that went without power for 3+ weeks.
I think food is the scariest of these. A collapsed tunnel/bridge is a tragedy that will scar lots of people, but society as a whole keeps moving. And people can adapt to loss of electricity on its own. Yes there will be deaths from the elements, failed emergency systems, as well as an increase in crime. But food supplies totally disappearing is when the full chaos begins, especially someplace like NYC where people don't typically have space for a few weeks of canned food.
Maybe NYC can learn from other countries. Train costs:<p><a href="https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/spain-high-speed-train-toronto-commuter-new-york-elevators" rel="nofollow">https://nextcity.org/daily/entry/spain-high-speed-train-toro...</a><p>Which links to <a href="https://pedestrianobservations.com/2011/05/16/us-rail-construction-costs/" rel="nofollow">https://pedestrianobservations.com/2011/05/16/us-rail-constr...</a><p>Edit: 2019: <a href="https://pedestrianobservations.files.wordpress.com/2019/11/costspresentation2.pdf" rel="nofollow">https://pedestrianobservations.files.wordpress.com/2019/11/c...</a>
America's infrastructure as a whole seems to be on the verge of collapse.<p>Our electrical grids are decades old and cannot support the number of people we now have, nor their increasing power demands. Our roads are cracking, and our bridges are crumbling. In the few locations we do have trains, they're old, diesel-powered, and poorly maintained.<p>As a nation, we steadfastly refuse to invest in boring-but-necessary things that would dramatically improve the lives of average people.
The concern about the train tunnel seems a bit overblown to me. The busiest route in the country? Maybe, but I bet most of it is passenger trains. If the tunnel fails, NYC won't starve. People just won't be able to commute to and from New Jersey by rail, or to take a train to Philadelphia or DC. That's inconvenient, maybe even somewhat disruptive, but not catastrophic.