https://www.nytimes.com/intera...s-signals-rules.html
So basically the old party line about 'excess ridership' isn't the cause, the MTA made changes for the very needed reason of track worker and rider safety (well, in terms of riders the problem starts with using cheaper brake shoes to try and save money that take a lot longer to stop, sometime around 1995), and ended up causing what we are seeing. They decided to increase the spacing between trains, by modifying the signal system, but apparently the signal system has so many faulty units that they routinely flag trains travelling legally as breaking the rules, so train operators respond by slowing down well below the speed limit, not trusting signals to actually recognize they are operating legally. The other has to do with work zones and how they are protected, added up a mess. I have heard TA people who work the system tell me the age of the signals is not to blame, but here is at least one reason why that is a problem. In a modern signalling system you should be able to adjust the speed timer on the signals remotely, if it is timing wrong you can work around that, but because they have to be done at the signal it would take a long time to adjust the signals that are wrong (and before someone comes up with hackers deliberately maladjusting the signals, there is an easy answer to that, the signal system would be a closed system not connected to the internet, if a system is not physically connected to the net hackers can't get to it, pure and simple). The work rule thing is more complex, but again to protect workers if you can fine tune signals remotely you can adjust to conditions, not have to spend 10 years reprogramming each signal by hand.
The real guilty party here, though, is that they likely didn't factor in what happens if signals are faulty, or likely didn't even test the changes on a section of the system before implementing it, it tells me that those making decisions don't really know or understand what is 'on the ground'. Sure, signals should be better maintained, but the fact is with everything they did on the subways system after the unlamented 1970's and 80's, they left the system with ancient technology from the 1930's. I can tell you as a daily rider of the E train I am shocked when I don't have to wait for 3 or 4 trains (that are very delayed, nothing like waiting on the 42nd street platform at 8 in the morning and seeing E trains running 25 minutes apart, fully packed) before I can squeeze on, and going home at night isn't much better. The politicians blow steam, about how this is an outrage, but Diblasio and Cuomo remind me of Claude Raines in "Casablanca", Saying he was shocked to learn gambling was going on at Rick's......problem is as critical as transit is to the city, there is no accountability, the politicians don't pay for the foul ups, the people responsible for bad decisions don't get held accountable, the workers who contribute to the crappy service aren't held accountable, only people held accountable are people who are late to work, appointments or other things by crappy train service.
