
NYC's brand new subway is the most expensive in the world - jseliger
http://www.vox.com/policy-and-politics/2017/1/1/14112776/new-york-second-avenue-subway-phase-2
======
hackuser
Imagine if someone asked you: Highly complex software project A costs $x/KLOC,
highly complex project B costs $10x/KLOC, and therefore isn't project B
wasteful? It's impossible to answer based on that information, and you
probably know far more about software projects than you do about underground
urban transit projects.

Many of the comparisons in the article seem to be similar to that, and with
projects that seem far more complex, technically and politically, than what
most of us deal with. Other than the fact that all the projects mentioned are
called 'trains' or 'subways', and I assume are mostly underground, I don't
have enough information to say they are comparable at all.

Sometimes, there is no way for the layperson to analyze the situation on their
own.

EDIT: Minor edits

~~~
threatofrain
Sadly true, but I wonder what that means because the layman in a democracy is
called upon to be knowledgeable enough to identify whether their elected
politicians are mismanaging projects, or if in fact this public transit
project is doing well and on the way to success.

~~~
hackuser
I know the ideal is that we can decide for ourselves, but the reality is that
in most things in life, we lack the expertise.

I'm not a plumber, doctor, police officer, etc. Sometimes they are obviously
right or wrong. Otherwise, I can try to second-guess them based on some
limited or amateur knowledge here and there, but I know that when laypeople
try that in regard to my profession, it very rarely helps them and can be a
recipe for disaster. They don't even know what questions to ask.

In the end, IMHO we have to decide which experts to trust - this plumber or
that one; this subterranean urban transport engineer or the other one. Thanks
to the open societies in modern democracies, plus modern communication, we
have a plethora of experts and voices to choose from, but it ain't perfect.

------
JumpCrisscross
Phase One of the Second Avenue line cost $4.5bn [1]. That's about as much as
it cost us to build our "Stegasaurus" subway station downtown [2]. Until
elected officials lose elections as a result of cost overruns it will be
prudent for leaders to divert resources to efficiently-voting public unions.

(MTA officials say the Second Avenue Subway cost as much as it did because of
Manhattan's "complex underground infrastructure" as well as the fact that the
New York City Subway runs all the time [3], the latter not being a requirement
of Paris or London's systems.)

[1] [http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/12/31/here-s-
why-...](http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2016/12/31/here-s-why-it-took-
a-century-and-4-5-billion-to-add-just-three-subway-stops-in-new-york-
city.html)

[2] [http://therealdeal.com/issues_articles/the-path-
to-4-billion...](http://therealdeal.com/issues_articles/the-path-
to-4-billion/)

[3] [http://www.amny.com/transit/second-avenue-subway-cost-
concer...](http://www.amny.com/transit/second-avenue-subway-cost-concerns-
transit-experts-1.12792664)

~~~
CodeWriter23
Infrastructure schminfrastructure. Dig deeper. That's what we did in Los
Angeles. When you get on the Red Line, you descend down something like 60-90
feet of stairs/escalators, compared to 18-30 feet in NYC.

~~~
savoytruffle
2nd avenue subway is muuuuch deeper than most of the 100 year old stations in
manhattan, for just this very reason. And also because no one would stand for
cut and cover anymore.

~~~
ams6110
"Cut and cover" being what exactly? Trenching down from the surface and then
filling in above the tracks? Hardly seems practical beyond a fairly shallow
depth.

~~~
slededit
Yet with the exception of London, that's how most of the world's pre-existing
subways were built. London is a bit of an outlier as it was very highly
developed even in the late 19th century and there was a great fear of damaging
existing "tall" buildings. Although even there a large amount of cut and cover
tunneling exists.

------
ng12
> Berlin’s U55 line cost $250 million per kilometer, Paris’ Metro Line 14 cost
> $230 million per kilometer, and Copenhagen’s Circle Line cost $260 million
> per kilometer.

Are these useful comparisons? How can you possibly compare a train running the
length of Manhattan to anything in Copenhagen? I want to know how much a new
train line costs in Tokyo.

~~~
jessriedel
> Tokyo Metro Fukutoshin Line: ¥250 billion for 8.9 km of new track. This is
> $280 million per km. Tokyo Metro has claimed future lines will be $500
> million per km as a reason to not build future extensions.

[https://pedestrianobservations.wordpress.com/2011/05/16/us-r...](https://pedestrianobservations.wordpress.com/2011/05/16/us-
rail-construction-costs/)

Also note that Tokyo is _much_ less dense than Manhattan. A better comparison
would be Hong Kong, except that labor and other costs there will be
dramatically less.

~~~
jpatokal
Incorrect: _Central_ Tokyo is denser (15,146/km² in the 23 wards) than
Manhattan (10,194/km²).

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_wards_of_Tokyo](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_wards_of_Tokyo)

Note that the entirety of the Fukutoshin Line was within the 23 wards.

~~~
jbm
Wakoshi is in Saitama.

~~~
jessriedel
Just to clarify for folks who don't know Tokyo: Wakoshi is the first stop on
the new Fukutoshin line, and it is located in Saitama, which is not in the 23
wards composing Central Tokyo.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Metro_Fukutoshin_Line](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Metro_Fukutoshin_Line)

However, it's only a single stop on the line; the other 15 stops are in
Central Tokyo.

------
abrbhat
As an outsider, it feels to me like the budget of any project tends to expand
to the amount of capital available. When the budget is less, people tend to be
more frugal. Which also means that at least some corner-cutting is done. But
when the resources are vast, people insist on doing everything by the book. I
see this not only in cases of public infrastructure but also in case of space
programs as well(case in point, Mangalyaan). America has always been resource-
rich and therefore I observe that it has a culture in which spending a lot of
money is acceptable(since there is a lot of money).

------
shalmanese
This is something I've been harping on for ages. The educated public is
generally aware that the US spends way more for comparable healthcare services
and has a general understanding of both the public policy causes and
implications for this as it relates to health outcomes but there's far less
that's been written about infrastructure (seriously, pretty much every article
references the pedestrianobservations blog because that's the only real
writing that's easily googleable that's been done).

American infrastructure routinely costs between 5 - 10x that of comparable
developed countries and, when you dig into why, it's like a litany of every
failed project management idea from software, all rolled into one.

The reasons are myriad but, at it's core, the main driving factor is that
America would rather spend an extra $10 non-corruptly than $1 corruptly. The
obsessive focus on stamping out corruption puts rigid rules in place that
stymie cost efficiency.

Until there's serious political pressure demanding serious government
procurement reform, nothing will change. There's enough motivated special
interests on the other side to keep America in a perpetual infrastructure
deficit. But for that to happen, more smart writing and analysis needs to be
focused on the problem of infrastructure procurement and how changing the way
we do things could unlock huge savings and bring about the infrastructure
revolution that America needs.

~~~
rtpg
Is there a stat for your 5-10x number?

I'm having a hard time reading between the lines here, but it feels like
you're saying that allowing corruption would lower costs, but that really goes
against my intuition.

Several Japan infrastructure projects also cost huge amounts of money, and
construction companies and gov't are very close.

Japan has better infrastructure. But the way they do it is by spending huge
amounts of money. The only way the bullet trains exist is because of massive
government spending (during Japan Railway's privatization, about $150 billion
of Shinkansen debt was taken on by the tax payer).

~~~
saosebastiao
He's not saying corruption costs less, he's saying that US procurement rules
compliance eliminates the competitiveness of contract bidding.

There's basically two different construction industries in the US: contractors
that do private construction, and contractors that do public works
construction. On the private side, you have thousands of companies ranging in
size from some random guy who does drywall all the way up to pipeline and oil
rig construction contractors. On the private side, all the small guys have
been weeded out because of absurdly high regulatory compliance costs(which
have been designed to eliminate corruption), and so it's just a handful of
extremely large companies. And knowing they have no competition, their bids
are obscenely overpriced.

------
Ericson2314
Every infrastructure project is its own shitty snowflake in the US—many
arguments within the article stem from this. If we simply committed to more,
budgeting slightly less on the assumption that kinks get worked out, and
threatened cost overruns highly public, I bet things could work out.

The multitude of governments and jurisdictions problems is more worrisome
however. That kink won't fix itself.

------
orf
Here in London we are building the crossrail, which is 118km in length deep
under London. It costs around £15bn, so that's £125 million per km. That's
including the 40 planned stations.

London is far far older than NY, it's also more congested underground and a
lot harder to organise logistically.

Blows my mind that the NY subway costs this much to extend.

~~~
barrkel
London is built on clay and is easy to tunnel. NY is built on rock.

~~~
saosebastiao
Hong Kong is mostly granite, which is significantly more difficult to tunnel
than the shale-like schist bedrock of manhattan...and MTR construction
reflects this fact, being more expensive per km than London, Paris, or Madrid.
Even after this fact, MTR construction is still 50% cheaper than the average
subway construction costs in the US.

------
Sami_Lehtinen
Is every subway project going to be failure? Here's example from Helsinki &
Espoo, Finland.
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A4nsimetro#Cost](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%A4nsimetro#Cost)
Constant cost & schedule slips. Nobody knows when it will be actually ready.
Here's the official news feed:
[http://www.lansimetro.fi/en/home/news.html](http://www.lansimetro.fi/en/home/news.html)
Yet that's still 13 new stations, 21 kilometers for €1.2 billion (estimated).

------
c3534l
I think it's a mistake to place the blame on weak unions, not only because
there's really no evidence presented for it, but also because New York City
actually has very strong unions, unlike the rest of the US.

~~~
usrusr
When groups that are used to struggle from a position of weakness chance into
power, they rarely use it as responsibly as they should. Like the dilemma of
revolutions creating even more oppressive governments, but generalized.

Now in this case, we are talking about a long tradition of established power,
not about a weak group suddenly rising. But I think the pattern might still
apply: The rare powerful unions are not recent underdogs, but they feel a
cultural oneness with the weak ones in other places. It must be very tempting
to believe that you are fighting the fight of the typical weak union when you
are actually expanding on the excesses of the rare powerful ones.

~~~
maverick_iceman
_> revolutions creating even more oppressive governments_

Counterexample: US.

------
Animats
Look at what the East Side Access is costing. Current estimate above $10bn,
completion 2022. That involves building another level of railroad station
underneath Grand Central without disrupting operations above.

~~~
nerfhammer
Interestingly, both projects were conceived many decades ago and died during
the bad times of the 70's.

------
saosebastiao
If we were as efficient as Paris, Seattle's recently passed $53B ST3 package
would give us 140 miles of fully underground subway. Instead, we get 62 miles,
mostly above ground, and on a 30 year timescale. However, this argument was
basically dismissed by transit advocates and anti-transit advocates alike. The
cost problem in the US is infuriating because those who care about costs don't
care about transit and those who care about transit don't care about costs.

~~~
techsupporter
But above ground doesn't matter as long as it is grade-separated, which is
what every new foot of rail laid for Sound Transit 3 will be. (That's also one
reason for the long time-frame: A new tunnel needs to be dug under downtown
and a new bridge built over the ship canal to Ballard.)

A very large chunk of the Sound Transit 3 cost will be interest paid on
borrowing. Because Washington State has no state bank or infrastructure bank,
Sound Transit has to "borrow as it goes" by issuing bonds, building, paying
back, issuing more bonds, building, and so on. It doesn't get the funds in one
up-front chunk--like Vancouver did for its light rail system, from the BC and
Canadian federal governments--so it's fund-as-we-go.

~~~
saosebastiao
The borrowing limits affect the timeline, but I'd be surprised if they affect
the cost in any measurable way. Bond interest rates are so low for something
like this that after adjustment for expected inflation they might as well be
zero.

Above ground _does_ matter. Grade separated still mostly works from a transit
perspective, but there are other concerns: how they affect surface traffic,
how they can be affected by marine traffic, etc. Underground is more expensive
but still demanded for a reason, and we are still paying >2x per mile for
above ground vs what Paris paid for underground lines.

------
yc-kraln
Most expensive means that it's the best. Right? (right?)

~~~
Jgrubb
You should read the article (or even just the subtitle of the article) which
takes the position that all that spending on one tiny little expansion is what
keeps us from being able to spend larger amounts on projects that really would
benefit a lot of people.

------
non_repro_blue
125th Street really, really needs some cross town service.

Something connecting all the way from Riverside Drive/Henry Hudson Parkway
passing through the 125th Metro North Railroad station. (...and maybe even
shuttling to Randals Island, why not?)

It's faster walking than it is to take the buses that run that route. Cold
weather means waiting for the buses sucks, and the only time it's worth a
trade is when you're carrying something heavy.

Car service in Harlem is slightly schizophrenic, even with car hailing apps
and "boro cabs" (because normal yellow cabs don't operate in Harlem, for
reasons I still don't understand...).

~~~
bradleyjg
The same is true for much of the city. Other than the S at 42nd, crosstown is
a big weakness of the system.

But as the article points out, there's many ambitious plans that could be done
if it weren't for the insane price tags and construction times. Heck how about
some reasonable way to get to LGA?

------
LyalinDotCom
This article is a lot of hot air and weird comparisons

~~~
Grue3
Well, it's an article posted on vox.com. You should've expected that.

