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A computer upgrade shut down BART

(www.bart.gov)
232 points ksajadi | 2 comments | 05 Sep 25 14:52 UTC | HN request time: 0.403s | source
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ninetyninenine ◴[05 Sep 25 18:21 UTC] No.45141839[source]▶
I mean despite it's history the snark is well deserved. With so many companies and people in the bay paying taxes, where the hell does all the money go?

Interesting, tidbit you added here. But snark is needed for this situation.

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octernion ◴[05 Sep 25 18:36 UTC] No.45142027[source]▶
your tax money broadly speaking doesn't go to BART; it's massively underfunded. not sure why they are the target of the snark.
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nradov ◴[05 Sep 25 18:45 UTC] No.45142137[source]▶
Under funded relative to what? What would the optimal amount of funding be? Are there ways that BART could cut costs to free up budget for IT upgrades?

I'm not trying to be snarky, it's just that for regular citizens who don't have time to attend BART BoD and committee meetings it's almost impossible to tell whether existing money is being wisely spent. So people get the impression that taxes are going up while service quality declines and assume the money must be going into someone's pocket.

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lokar ◴[05 Sep 25 18:53 UTC] No.45142223[source]▶
In nearly all of the US there is an unresolved (and perhaps unresolvable) debate about to what extent public transit should get a subsidy vs pay for itself.

The dominant position (even in CA) has been no or little subsidy.

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1. aafanah ◴[05 Sep 25 19:00 UTC] No.45142316[source]▶
The bigger issue is not just the upgrade but how brittle the system is. Modern practices like rolling releases or safe fallback modes are standard elsewhere. Critical infrastructure should not be this fragile.
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2. lokar ◴[05 Sep 25 19:04 UTC] No.45142350[source]▶
I would assume the IT side is just as underfunded as the rest of the system, probably more (they will prioritize safety and rolling stock)