Urban Life

There has been a lot of talk about improving safety, to avoid preventable deaths in all sectors of American life these days. But saving lives has a real cost -- often it means slowing down business, and making it more expensive to get things done. Safety is important, but so getting through the business of every day life. It's important that weight the safety benefits against the cost of saving a few lives. A preventable death of a loved one is always tragic, but sometimes it's better to let a few people die preventable deaths, for the betterment of society.

"Benjamin Kabak, who writes the subway-focused blog Second Ave. Sagas and has been one of the few transit advocates raising concerns about the subway’s slowdown, agrees with the operator’s assessment. “I don’t think they’re wrong in citing safety,” Kabak says of MTA management, “but I think there’s a question as to whether their reaction is commensurate to the problem.” He doesn’t see a safety benefit to the vast majority of timers installed around the system. As an example, Kabak recently noticed the 6 train crawling between 51st Street and Grand Central on a regular basis. He suspects a timer has recently been installed there."