
The U.S. Gets Less Subway for Its Money Than Its Peers - jseliger
https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/01/why-its-so-expensive-to-build-urban-rail-in-the-us/551408/
======
twblalock
This ultimately has to come back to voter standards.

Other first-world countries in Europe and Asia manage to create comprehensive
public transit systems cheaper and faster than the US does -- yet they also
have environmental reviews, safety standards, unions, contractors, etc.

They are able to do it simply because the people running the city fear that
they won't be reelected if they fail to provide comprehensive, properly
functioning public transit. Voters there believe that providing public transit
is one of the basic duties of government. It's amazing how streamlined a
public project can become if the politicians fear for their jobs.

In the US, voters don't punish politicians for problems with public transit,
even in places like New York where most people use it. So it's no surprise
that it sucks.

~~~
jorblumesea
Here in the US voters don't punish any elected officials for anything because
half don't vote and the other half that do are more concerned about their side
"winning" and less concerned about practical day to day considerations like
corruption.

People would gladly accept a corrupt Democrat over a Republican and vice versa
purely based on political lines.

~~~
bradleyjg
NYC voted in a Republican for mayor in 1993, 1997, 2001, 2005 and sort-of in
2009 (he ran on the Republican line, but wasn't a party member).

To contrast that with partisan affiliation when it comes to national politics,
the last time NYC went for a Republican presidential candidate was 1924 for
Calvin Coolidge.

~~~
shard972
> 2009 (he ran on the Republican line, but wasn't a party member).

You aren't talking about "let's ban smoking and soft drinks" bloomberg are
you?

------
Hasz
NYT has a great writeup on the East Side Access tunnel. In short, the costs
work out to 3.5bn/mile (!), there's ~200 "ghost" workers, and the usual spot
of corruption and favoritism. It's a mess, and the MTA is deferring regular
maintenance to pay for it.

[https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-
subway-...](https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-
construction-costs.html)

------
heurist
The US seems to get less of everything for its money than its peers.
Geographic spread is a major macro factor, but you'd still think that a
supposedly efficient capitalistic market would at least handle local services
better.

~~~
thatswrong0
> supposedly efficient capitalistic market

Unfortunately that's not what we have when dealing with regulations, red tape,
unions, and somewhat unaccountable government agencies running the show.

~~~
heurist
I don't think it's fair to call out unions/government without calling out
large capital investors as well. We wouldn't have suburbs or massive shopping
malls without huge real estate investors pumping money into major developments
that exist to drain money out of a market. Large developments are a net drain
on local economies and produce far less efficient markets than small
incremental developments based on organic demand. There's a point where
regulation and large capital investments are interlinked to prevent these
markets from correcting, but the capital does plenty of damage on its own.

~~~
closeparen
Since there is broad societal consensus* that capital should not be permitted
to intensify urban environments, it had better build suburbs, or we’ll all be
homeless.

*with a little bit of scrappy opposition emerging in the last few years.

------
crocal
I have spent more than a decade working with US colleagues in this sector.
Overall, three things come at a disadvantage for US that explains overall this
puzzling productivity problem.

First, management. I don’t exactly know where it comes from, in the land of
Westinghouse, Edison, Tesla, and the likes, but being an engineering project
leader is not seen as the career path of a winner. It’s all about business,
storytelling, laws and politics, where the power and the money is. Compare
that to Germany where the chancellor is a PhD in physics and there you go.

Second. Individualism. No. Team. Spirit. Everybody wants to be with the best
at what he/she does and recognized at such. There is no willingness to fill
cross functional gaps, people are absurdly specialized, resulting in very
inefficient performance at the collective level and surprisingly high level of
bureaucracy.

Third. Protectionism. US established market is protected against foreign
competition. The net result is that the US consumer is never benchmarking what
he gets against real alternatives. His appliances are crap. His social
protection is bad. His car is a good laugh compared to most Japanese or
European models. As a consequence he as no notion of how good a deal he is
getting on such things (and in most cases, he is being ripped off).

The combination of the three explains quasi all of the shortcomings noted
here. I believe these problems were not as acute some decades ago. I think
these behaviors have been pushed to the extreme through the various US tax
reforms that have allowed very few to capture most of the wealth, thereby
promoting the above behavior.

It’s not the first time in US history though. I believe it will be fixed
eventually because it’s becoming too absurd. :)

------
Symmetry
A pretty good article I read recently getting into the breakdown of what
exactly we're paying more for in the US versus other places.

[https://pedestrianobservations.com/2018/01/27/construction-c...](https://pedestrianobservations.com/2018/01/27/construction-
costs-metro-stations/)

~~~
yonran
Note that both the citylab article and pedestrianobservations are from the
same author, Alon Levy. I also liked his article ([https://www.the-american-
interest.com/2017/02/10/why-we-cant...](https://www.the-american-
interest.com/2017/02/10/why-we-cant-have-nice-things-2/)) summarizing best
practices from Madrid (offline:
[https://tunnelbuilder.com/metrosur/edition2pdf/page2.pdf](https://tunnelbuilder.com/metrosur/edition2pdf/page2.pdf)
archived:
[https://web.archive.org/web/20171216155555/https://tunnelbui...](https://web.archive.org/web/20171216155555/https://tunnelbuilder.com/metrosur/edition2pdf/page2.pdf)).

------
ucaetano
The US probably has the best, most efficient private sector of any developed
country.

And the worst, most inefficient public sector of any developed country.

It chooses to prioritize the private sector over the public sector. Other
countries choose otherwise. Each model has its advantages and disadvantages.

This (efficiency of building public transit) is the outcome of the US model.

~~~
seanmcdirmid
> And the worst, most inefficient public sector of any developed country.

I'm pretty sure most who live in their own developed country think their own
public sector is the most inefficient. Well, maybe not the Swiss.

~~~
dpark
I’m pretty sure that’s not the case. My understanding is that the Scandinavian
countries generally like their government and its level of efficiency as well.

------
scythe
It seems like European infrastructure construction is more centralized than
its American counterpart. In the Bay Area, there are two _competing_ transit
providers, each funded by the same taxpayers. Every city seems to run its own
show, and CAHSR infamously rejected offers from European companies to do
construction. It's just my view from 10000 feet, but the average city council
has few civil engineers on board, so maybe a more top-down system could be
better. The Boring Company might be a meme but at least there's not a
different one in every city.

~~~
bhups
This is half true: European infrastructure construction is almost perfectly
decentralized to the point that it's (for the most part) fully centralized at
the level of each member state.

The US half tries to fund and administer infrastructure at the federal level,
state level, as well as local level, depending on the state.

As an American, I find the EU to have phenomenally good infrastructure, but I
think that's because decisions aren't being made in Brussels, they're being
made concurrently in Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, London, etc.

I feel that the US would do well to emulate the EU, and centralize the
funding, regulation, and administration of its respective systems in each
member state.

~~~
indoordinosaur
This is why I'm not entirely opposed to the Trump infrastructure philosophy of
encouraging states and local governments to pay their own way. It also
encourages more private investment in infrastructure which is something that
has contributed to the success of the subways in Seoul, Hong Kong and Tokyo as
well as the original builders of the NYC subway.

~~~
saosebastiao
I'm not opposed to that _idea_ , but for it to work, we would have to invert
our funding structures, with the majority of our taxes going to states and
cities, and not the federal government. And while he seems to be happy to cut
taxes, he doesn't seem to be too keen on cutting actual spending, so we're all
gonna have to pay for it sooner or later.

------
WJW
Alternatively, US subway construction companies get more money for their
subway than their peers in other countries.

~~~
crocal
This is worth upvoting AND repeating because many could think otherwise. US
Subway has no funding issue. It is a pure productivity issue.

------
rictic
Very closely related is the concept of cost disease: [https://www.the-
american-interest.com/2017/04/11/notes-on-co...](https://www.the-american-
interest.com/2017/04/11/notes-on-cost-disease/)

------
1024core
I read this article, and the NYT one linked herein. But I don't understand
_why_ the MTA is involved in the nitty-gritty at all? Why can't there be 1
contract given out to some private entity, and then leave it up to the entity
to build it as it sees fit.

~~~
crocal
Maintenance is the main reason. If you don't get into the nitty-gritty you
cannot achieve the amazing feat of keeping a system up and running 30 years
passed its design lifetime

~~~
1024core
They don't get into the nitty-gritty of train manufacture either. And they
last a long time. I'm not buying that, sorry.

~~~
crocal
You are misinformed. They do get into that. Big, big time.

~~~
1024core
The design and features, yes. But not how many workers need to be hired,
whether they're unionized or not, etc.

------
fatjokes
"...Rosenthal talked about labor problems: severe overstaffing, with some
workers doing jobs that are no longer necessary..."

I learned that in one of the office buildings in NYC, there is one (sometimes
two) custodians who press the elevator buttons and call out the next one to
arrive. These are modern elevators with indicator lights above them. I learned
it was because of a union requirement.

I always liked the idea of unions, having learned about how workers were
trampled on "in the old days". After moving to NYC, however, my opinions
toward them became a bit more tempered.

------
dsfyu404ed
TL;DR unions, shady contractors and expensive project requirements in no
particular order.

Edit: Was this not an accurate summary of the key issues mentioned?

~~~
homulilly
Specifically bad union rules. European countries also rely on union labor and
don't have this problem. Another factor mentioned in the article is poor
management which seems to be a common theme in America.

~~~
rebuilder
I'm reading these articles and wondering: why do these unions have rules for
e.g. the number of workers that must be posted to a specific task? Safety? It
seems like a tremendously inflexible way to go about it.

I'm genuinely curious btw. I wouldn't be surprised to hear it's a
counterreaction to historically irresponsible employers, for example, but I do
wonder about the rationale behind U.S. union rules as reported.

~~~
wahern
I can't find it ATM, but recently there was a good article that linked this
phenomenon to the disappearance of unions. As unions disappear in the private
sector they become increasingly dependent on the public sector to employ their
laborers.

Because union members vote and because unions so visiblly represent the
working-class, in many cities the best way to be pro labor is to support union
labor.

In areas were unions are strong but increasingly relegated to public sector
work, that translates to pressure to bloat public sector projects with union
labor.

One way to think of it is as a form of work program.

On a related note, some conservative commentators have pointed out recently
that if you combine U.S. healthcare spending with U.S. welfare spending, it
roughly equates to what European countries spend on healthcare + welfare. IOW,
we don't overspend on healthcare so much as we trade-off social welfare
spending for healthcare spending.

Similarly, I wouldn't be surprised if you combine the overspending on public
works projects with similar jobs programs, it would likewise roughly equate to
what European countries spend on public works + jobs. IOW, public works
projects are expensive because we refuse to adequately fund training, long-
term unemployment benefits, etc.

I think this is all comes down to Americans' inability to embrace the
necessity and role of social welfare programs. But because we can't admit of
the need doesn't mean our society doesn't ultimately respond to the need; our
response is just obscure and indirect in a way that preserves the fantasy of
the free-market. For example, we can blame these excessive public works
projects on "corruption" and "bloat" rather than admitting that they're
pressure-relief valves for legitimate political, economic, and social demands.
Something similar could be said regarding the Trump phenomenon.

~~~
rebuilder
Thank you. This was exactly the kind of I-never-would-have-looked-at-it-that-
way answer I was looking for.

~~~
wahern
A professor once pointed me to the writings of George Plunkitt, the notorious
Tammany Hall politician who openly defended so-called "honest graft". I don't
know what his takeaway from Plunkitt's arguments were, but mine were

1) The institution of civil service was the solution for solving the problem
of graft. Plunkitt even says that if politicians didn't fight the wave of
civil service rules spreading across the country, it would put all politicians
out of business. The red tape of the bureaucracy is the price we pay for
getting rid of traditional graft.

2) But the civil service didn't magically erase the needs that were met by
Tammany Hall-style politics. Back in the day "corrupt" politicians like
Plunkitt were open about their graft, and voters voted them in regardless.
Why? Because they provided the promise of job security; that if you do X
you'll get Y--something the free market never guarantees at the individual
level. The need and desire for job security never went away when the civil
service came about, it just made it more difficult for voters and politicians
to make an open, conscious exchange.

One easy way for politicians (intentionally or naturally, in response to
dynamic political feedback) to provide a simple quid pro quo is to bloat
public works projects. It can't be a coincidence that as relative wages for
blue-collar construction work have declined, public works projects have gotten
more expensive. That is, we've _tolerated_ more expensive public works
projects to relieve/because it relieves the employment and wage pressures put
on laborers in the private sector. That's easier to do than to affirmatively
institute employment and wage supplementation programs.

We spend alot of time explaining the phenomenon in terms of loss of talent,
experience, regulatory capture, etc. But perhaps the best and simplest
explanation is precisely what Plunkitt was trying to drill into people's heads
--nobody is going to vote themselves out of a job, no matter their claimed
political preferences. I bet most Second Avenue Subway workers were as
"disgusted" with the bloat as every other New Yorker, but their _real_
political preferences (and those of their families and friends) were better
measured by who and what they voted for than by what they said. People's ire
is easily blunted when receiving a nice, steady paycheck.

None of which is to defend honest graft. Plunkitt thought the only way to meet
the needs of the small guy was through honest graft. There are better ways, I
think, which are more efficient and therefore permitting greater overall
social benefit. But those ways aren't achievable if we don't recognize and
attend to the underlying economic and political forces, which will tend to
steer things in certain directions whether we like it or not. The reasons
things haven't changed despite the obviousness of the problem is because of
these very real, counterveiling political forces. Those forces are far greater
than just a few rich special interests.

------
skate22
I clicked on this expecting an article about sandwiches lol.

Edit: although im being downvoted, lowercase subway would make the title less
ambiguous.

------
stcredzero
The U.S. also pays a lot for highways that don't have warranties. Last time I
read something about it, German highways were procured with warranties.
Italian highways didn't. Lots of people also grumbled that Italian highway
building was plagued with corruption.

------
johngalt
SSC had a great article on cost increases in a general sense. One of the more
depressing articles I've read. Makes it sound like we are dying by a thousand
papercuts.

[http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/09/considerations-on-
cost-...](http://slatestarcodex.com/2017/02/09/considerations-on-cost-
disease/)

------
dzonga
America rich 3rd world country. I'm Zimbabwean, but the levels of corruption
are comparable. Why would a 'top' tier city have shitty public transportation
and centuries old signaling systems ?

~~~
cbayram
Because you aren't dealing with the competent willing who can pull off such
projects. Instead, you are dealing with crooks who take their cut and pass the
irresponsibility to the next. Taxpayer money is the true lottery.

------
kposehn
This is a dupe of
[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16248036](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=16248036)

------
purplezooey
Please don't compare activities in the private market to public
infrastructure. They serve different purposes and the latter is there for the
good of humanity, not to make a profit, be innovative or be disruptive.

~~~
closeparen
“The good of humanity” is not served by delivering worse outcomes at higher
cost.

