🚂5 Years Without a Raise Now the Trains Stop \ stacker news ~Construction_and

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🚂5 Years Without a Raise Now the Trains Stop

266 sats \ 9 comments \ @wolfsbane 1 Jun Construction_and_Engineering

On Friday, the trains may stop and with them, a major artery of the Northeastern U.S. economy.

NJ Transit, the country’s third largest public transit system, is on the edge of a full scale commuter rail shutdown. The Brotherhood of Locomotive Engineers and Trainmen has signaled a strike if no deal is reached by week’s end. The consequences? Roughly 100,000 daily riders stranded, and large sections of New Jersey and NYC’s mobility ecosystem thrown into chaos.

At the core is a bitter pay dispute that reflects more than just a number on a paycheck. It reflects the fragility of centralized infrastructure, the erosion of trust between labor and management, and the silent entropy eating away at the public institutions built in a different >economic era.

Let’s look at the stakes:

✓The union says engineers earn $113,000 on average and haven’t seen a raise since 2019. They’re demanding $170,000/year, citing parity with peer agencies and the rising cost of living._

✓ NJ Transit leadership counters that average earnings are already $135,000, with top earners exceeding $200,000.

✓ A tentative agreement that included a “reasonable wage increase” was rejected by union members last month. The dispute has dragged on for 5 years, with mediation ongoing and so far, unproductive.

If the strike happens:

✓ All commuter rail service stops.

✓ NJ Transit will deploy “limited” charter buses enough to serve maybe 20% of current riders.

✓ No rail service to Newark Airport, Penn Station, or MetLife Stadium, where even concerts (Shakira, Beyoncé) are already being canceled preemptively.

✓ New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy has floated the possibility of declaring a state of emergency.

This would mark the first NJ Transit strike in over 40 years.

So what’s actually happening here?

This isn’t just about wages.

It’s about a system reaching the limits of central coordination, where every institution from transit to health to education is forced to make promises it can’t afford to keep.

It’s about five years of unresolved labor tension in a world where inflation is real, public trust is collapsing, and budgets can’t stretch fast enough to match reality.

It’s about the same government that printed trillions in stimulus now telling workers there’s “no money left” while CEOs, administrators, and consultants ride out bloated salaries and golden parachutes.

It’s also about the vulnerabilities of centralized infrastructure:

• One union halts an entire system.

• One negotiation failure impacts 100,000 people.

• No fallback, no resilience, no market alternatives.

Discussion Points:

Is this dispute a sign of justified worker resistance or systemic mismanagement?

Should public-sector unions have the power to paralyze critical services?

What would a decentralized or market-driven transit system even look like?

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10 sats \ 5 replies \ @cointastical 1 Jun

Soon, I will be able to schedule a RoboTaxi to pick me up near my office at 4:17 pm. I then will take that to a bus hub, where I board a RoboShuttle that will, in 5 minutes or less, depart to a hub closer to my home. From there I find my waiting RoboTaxi which brings me home.

Even if that takes 10 minutes longer than driving myself, I was able to check e-mail, text chat, make phone calls, etc., all the way -- because I wasn't driving.

In the morning I do that same route but in reverse.

With such an option there is no longer any reason for commuter rail to exist -- except perhaps for a couple direct and/or express routes that connect major hubs.

As more people discover the convenience and speed of this robotaxi/shuttle route method, highway congestion decreases.

21 sats \ 4 replies \ @wolfsbane OP 1 Jun

RoboTransit sounds great flexible, productive, and future forward but rail still wins on scale, equity, and resilience. Maybe the answer isn’t replacing it, but upgrading both.

21 sats \ 1 reply \ @cointastical 2 Jun

Buses are designed to maximize systemic efficiency (passengers per driver).

Commuter rail is designed to maximize systemic efficiency (passengers per conductor).

The point I am making ... the convenience for the commuting passenger does not figure at all into that equation.

RoboTransit [nice, I'm going to steal that], having no driver or conductor, can be sized to match market demand. And as a frequent public transit passenger, I would like to see waits per-connection of five minutes or less, and door-to-door service. Simply having affordable RoboTaxi + RoboShuttles (vans) would likely be more than acceptable.

There's limited demand, and naturally passengers will gravitate towards the fastest solution (all else being equal), end-to-end. That takes those passengers off of rail, making rail more costly, per passenger, and RoboTransit less expensive, per passenger.

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @wolfsbane OP 2 Jun

You're spot on rail maximizes efficiency per operator, not per rider But riders chase speed and convenience so as they leave, rail gets costlier per passenger meanwhile, flexible systems like RoboTransit scale better, adapt faster, and aren't hostage to labor disputes.This isn’t just a transit problem it’s legacy infrastructure cracking under modern expectations.

0 sats \ 1 reply \ @cointastical 2 Jun

Waymo stops this train:

https://cleantechnica.com/2025/04/13/waymos-quickly-taking-more-market-share-than-i-expected/

(actually, Waymo, being door-to-door, and door-to-station probably increases commuter rail ridership today. But combined with RoboShuttles ... it's game over for the transport mode designed for your Grandfather -- long before he was your age even.)

21 sats \ 0 replies \ @wolfsbane OP 2 Jun

Waymo enhances commuter rail today by solving first last mile gaps. But as RoboShuttles scale, they could replace traditional transit entirely especially systems built for a bygone era.