Khyber Sen
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khyber.bsky.social
Khyber Sen
@khyber.bsky.social
550 followers 200 following 1.3K posts
she/her | @etany.org | 🦀
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khyber.bsky.social
Notably, OPTO/ZPTO is the standard in every single city across the world besides NYC. Tokyo is the closest, but even they're in the process of upgrading many lines to OPTO as part of signaling upgrades, and by 2030, they should be mostly OPTO.
bsky.app/profile/etan...
etany.org Effective Transit Alliance @etany.org · 15h
First, as our colleagues at the Transit Costs Project point out, either one-person train operation (OPTO) or autonomous trains are standard around the world—including on all US systems and on older, equally busy systems like London, Paris, & increasingly even Tokyo.

transitcosts.com/Train_Operat...
transitcosts.com
November 13, 2025 at 11:35 PM
Reposted by Khyber Sen
etany.org
ETA talked to the NY Times about a bill on Gov Hochul's desk that would mandate two crew on every subway train—something not required by any other metro in the world.

This bill threatens existing service, frequency on the new IBX, and would leave NYC in the past 🧵:

www.nytimes.com/2025/11/13/n...
Does the Subway Still Need Train Conductors?
www.nytimes.com
November 13, 2025 at 11:24 PM
Reposted by Khyber Sen
gankra.bsky.social
also so funny they have much ado about Almost (only Almost!!!) shipping one (1) memory safety bug in 5 million lines of rust code (they had 5000 such bugs in the equivalent amount of C(++))
November 13, 2025 at 11:26 PM
Reposted by Khyber Sen
stefanoschen.bsky.social
Does the subway still need conductors? Much of the world say no, but union leaders say it's a safety issue. Gov. Hochul has to decide by year end whether to sign a bill that would mandate two-person train crews, even on lines that already moved to one operator www.nytimes.com/2025/11/13/n...
Does the Subway Still Need Train Conductors?
www.nytimes.com
November 13, 2025 at 4:22 PM
Reposted by Khyber Sen
egoldwyn.bsky.social
We dropped a new report re: train operations, everyone’s favorite topic. There’s some backstory that we will get too. But, the basic takeaway is modern train systems have moved away from two-person train ops. New York should, too! transitcosts.com/Train_Operat...
transitcosts.com
November 13, 2025 at 2:44 PM
Reposted by Khyber Sen
ndhapple.bsky.social
A really good column on housing and the Mamdani mayoralty by Alex Armlovich, who is on the Rent Board -- www.vitalcitynyc.org/articles/a-h...
Vital City | A Housing Roadmap for New York’s Next Mayor
How Mayor-elect Mamdani can rise to the central challenge facing the city
www.vitalcitynyc.org
November 8, 2025 at 5:13 PM
Reposted by Khyber Sen
etany.org
By learning from other countries and adopting international best practices, California High Speed Rail was able to cut its costs by $14 billion and cut 70% of tunnels.

This is a big lesson for transit projects both in NY & around the US: start by learning from other countries.

tinyurl.com/mvsmfxa2
Ian Choudri: Yes. When I came on board, like we looked at six or seven different areas of improvements and one of that was engineering of how we are building it comparable to the European and Japanese systems. And came to realize that as engineers, all the folks that were in the team being very conservative. They were going, "Let’s build it not that steep." And so we are going to do it as flat as we can. While that’s fun if you are in the desert, if you are going through Tehachapi or Pacheco Pass, you quickly realize you can't stay flat. So the decision was made to make it a little higher, because Europe is doing it, Japan has been doing it. Let’s not reinvent. That eliminated about 70 percent of the tunnels that we had to do. And that’s billions of dollars. Ian Choudri: I don’t blame anyone. These were not intentional mistakes. This was a lack of checking because we don’t have another high speed rail in this country. So we were using highway bridges or freight rail design concepts, which is all we know. And so we fixed it. It took us four months to realize that this is a big mistake and improve the cost structure. When we put our plan out, we said we saved $14 billion by optimizing cost by changing design standards and criteria, bringing them up to par with the European and the Japanese.
November 11, 2025 at 10:29 PM
Reposted by Khyber Sen
2avesag.as
One thing the mayor-elect could do between now and January 1 is to call on Kathy Hochul to veto the bill on her desk that would ban one-person train operations in the NYC subway. Mamdani was absent the day of the vote, and banning OPTO is incompatible with lower cost (or free) transit.
November 6, 2025 at 10:12 PM
Reposted by Khyber Sen
erininthemorning.com
1. In a major shadow docket ruling from the Supreme Court, the court has ruled against trans people's passports, giving a stay to the Trump administration.

The admin has previously indicated it intend to revoke some passports if it got this ruling.

Subscribe to support our journalism.
SCOTUS Rules Against Trans People's Passport Gender Markers In Shadow Docket Ruling
The administration has previously indicated it could revoke some trans people's passports if it got this ruling.
www.erininthemorning.com
November 6, 2025 at 9:29 PM
Reposted by Khyber Sen
cameroncorduroy.bsky.social
seeing this image used as an argument against driverless cars is hilarious considering the fact that we don't hold human drivers accountable for killing people unless they're exceedingly reckless (drunk, speeding, texting, etc.)
November 3, 2025 at 3:11 AM
Reposted by Khyber Sen
etany.org
However, the MTA hasn't yet confirmed that it's next train order, the R268, will be all open gangway—and recently, the MTA decided to order a majority of its new R211s as closed-end trains.

These trains will be in service for decades: the MTA cannot afford to live in the past.
October 30, 2025 at 5:58 PM
Reposted by Khyber Sen
etany.org
The MTA is installing experimental anti-subway surfing barriers on the 7 train.

While this is a good interim step, the real solution is to ensure that all new subway cars are walk-through (known as open gangway), as has been common practice across the world for years.

pix11.com/news/transit...
A protoype anti-subway-surfing barrier.
October 30, 2025 at 5:58 PM
Reposted by Khyber Sen
stephenjacobsmith.com
The MTA will try anything to stop subway surfing except ordering the same open-gangway trains that the rest of the world has been using for decades
October 30, 2025 at 4:06 PM
Reposted by Khyber Sen
etany.org
It's good to see MTA Chair Janno Lieber contemplating all-door bus boarding, an easy win for bus service.

All-door boarding and proof-of-payment enforcement speed bus service significantly. What's more, the agency is ready to go having already installed back door OMNY readers on all its buses.
Janno Lieber There was. There was all-door boarding. But let me just say this: All-door boarding is accomplishable in a paid model. We’ve been reluctant because we felt to get there, because I wanted to get fare evasion down to reestablish the position that the patterns of behavior that we lost during COVID, which is you get on the bus, you know, hopefully you say good morning to the bus driver, and you do something to pay. We can do all-door boarding in part because once we have OMNY — you know, true tap-and-ride, universal — and we can have fare enforcement agents, not armed, go up to people and say [to] anybody, “show me your OMNY card. Show me your phone, show me that you paid.” Josh Greenman But why not do it now and allow all-door boarding? Janno Lieber Right now, it’s associated with the avoidance of payment and I think we need an enforcement model that starts to, that says, wherever you got on, you’re going to be subject— because right now, somebody can get on the back and say, “I paid.” If they’re ever asked by an Eagle Team member, one of our fare enforcement people, let’s say, “I paid at the front, by coin, on the bus. You can’t validate every rider the same way you can a 100% tap and ride system. I want to get there. And then you have, universal, which is like what they have in Europe, where you can go up to anybody and say, “Please show me your fare payment.” So that’s what I think we’re waiting for to move towards all-door boarding, which I think is a positive if we can get there, once we get to OMNY.
October 29, 2025 at 8:47 PM
Reposted by Khyber Sen
etany.org
MTA Board Chair Janno Lieber on the NYS legislature's bill that would require two-person crews for every train: "I think would outrage a lot of people, and I don’t think it’s a serious proposal."

He rightly points out that shorter, more frequent trains can offer better service for many places.
How did that happen? Were you involved? Were you consulted? Janno Lieber No. In the end of the session, the legislature passes a lot of bills very quickly, and that one slipped through. It’s been proposed for 20-plus years, and somehow it was allowed to slip through at the last minute this time. I don’t consider it serious, because the idea that we would now have to put— again, the public— It’s not a secret. We believe in investing in the MTA. What we don’t want the public to feel is there’s enormous lack of productivity, a lack of efficiency, and forcing the MTA to put extra people on Times Square shuttle, Franklin Avenue shuttle, and the G train, and any, if in the future we were running shorter trains more frequently, which in some neighborhoods might be a good way to serve people, that the idea that you’re just featherbedding, I think would outrage a lot of people, and I don’t think it’s a serious proposal.
October 29, 2025 at 4:36 PM
Reposted by Khyber Sen
ndhapple.bsky.social
Not often you see the MTA let it all hang out re: Amtrak like this. Provided just 7 of 48 planned outages in the first two years; then only provided required Amtrak supervision for work about half the time for the subsequent outages. Requiring 17 Amtrak staff to supervise *each* gantry replacement.
October 27, 2025 at 6:22 PM
Reposted by Khyber Sen
sunny.ng
Excited to host the next Transit Techies with some transit data heavy hitters as speakers. If you’re free on November 5, come through! www.meetup.com/transit-tech...
Transit Techies #35: Aaron Gordon, Surya Mattu, Marie Patino / Elif Ensari, Wed, Nov 5, 2025, 6:30 PM | Meetup
This will be **Transit Techies NYC**'s final session of the year, and we have some amazing speakers to look forward to. Talks will start at 6:30pm, and we'll mingle over li
www.meetup.com
October 27, 2025 at 2:25 PM
Reposted by Khyber Sen
queenslink.org
Earlier this month, NYC's Independent Budget Office (IBO), released a report on the Rockaway Beach Branch. Among it's findings, the top destinations for commuters along the abandoned line would be served by QueensLink. In the meantime, head to the 🔗 in bio to tell leaders to #BuildtheQueensLink !!
October 23, 2025 at 4:13 PM
Reposted by Khyber Sen
alonlevy.bsky.social
We have a new website for the Northeast Corridor High-Speed Rail project, with illustrative graphics. nec.transitcosts.com
How to Build High-Speed Rail on the Northeast Corridor
An interactive site presenting the North East Corridor proposal by Marron Institute's Transportation and Land Use Group, authored by Alon Levy.
nec.transitcosts.com
October 20, 2025 at 3:18 PM
Reposted by Khyber Sen
typewriteralley.bsky.social
I just can't get over the differences in scale between Ballard Link's Westlake Station as proposed and the original Westlake Station, off to the left.
Ballard Link's Westlake has two separate entrances underneath separate buildings, with one showing a long tunnel to get to the train guideway. They are at least five stories deeper than the original Westlake, which is tiny and only around 10-15% of the size
October 8, 2025 at 10:49 PM
Reposted by Khyber Sen
ndhapple.bsky.social
Here are the Subway/Metro Station design guidelines that were compiled by UMTA/USDOT in the 1970s in an attempt to prevent WMATA-style cost overruns again.

It got shelved when everyone at UMTA got laid off and we forgot it. But it's prescient about cost drivers -- rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/11352
DOT ROSA P
ROSA P serves as an archival repository of USDOT-published products including scientific findings, journal articles, guidelines, recommendations, or other information authored or co-authored by USDOT ...
rosap.ntl.bts.gov
October 9, 2025 at 2:06 AM
Reposted by Khyber Sen
ndhapple.bsky.social
My column from last year about how we can use better train design to not only improve service but also save lives. A PSA campaign will never be able to keep up with TikTok serving up thrill seekers videos — www.curbed.com/article/subw...
October 4, 2025 at 6:26 PM
Reposted by Khyber Sen
calelectricrail.org
Today, CER launches our paper “ElectroLink: Modern Passenger Rail Service for Southern California.”

ElectroLink shows how electrification, level boarding and through running can speed up trips, improve access for all riders, and bind together the region. ⚡♿🚴
calelectricrail.org/electrolink-...
Electrolink: Modern Passenger Rail Service for Southern California Californians for Electric Rail September 2025 Cover shows a series of blue arrows in Metrolink livery and the Californians for Electric Rail Logo
September 15, 2025 at 9:04 PM