
How Engineers Are Building a New Railroad Under New York City - Anechoic
http://www.wired.com/autopia/2013/05/fa_tunnel/
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samscully
I worked in a tunnel crew in the summer holidays during my degree. It was
interesting to see the cultural similarities and differences when I moved into
programming. It is probably one of the few industries (at least in the UK)
where the majority of the power is in the hands of the workers and not the
managers. They were paid significantly more than the managers and broadly
speaking the job went ahead on their schedule. Unlike in programming a mistake
could cost one of your coworkers their life, which seemed to have something to
do with the strong camaraderie, but did also lead to a deep suspicion of
unproven outsiders (like myself for the first few weeks I worked there). I
prefer to be able to experiment with things and I was a bit too much of a
delicate flower to be happy in that environment. I wonder how much the culture
in different industries arises from people with certain personalities self
selecting into or out of them, and how much is the actual nature of the work
changing you.

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kposehn
Ok, NYC transit has something I need to point out that freaking owns:

Express trains.

All across the US, municipalities keep building annoying light-rail systems
and basic commuter lines. They have one class of train: stop everywhere and
waste your time.

What NYC has that I love is express trains on almost every line. Want to go
from Penn Station straight to JFK airport? Easy. Want to go from uptown right
down to Wall St.? There's a train for that.

Most cities - and nations - could learn a lot from NYC being able to handle
such a diverse set of schedules.

Now if they could only do something about the rats...

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rayiner
What's amazing is that someone had the foresight to build the express lines a
century ago. Honestly, every time I walk through GCT I'm proud to be a human
and an engineer.

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T-hawk
The foresight came from the invisible hand of capitalism. Remember the NYC
subway started as two competing private companies. They each strived to offer
the best service to compete with each other, which included building tracks
for express service.

By contrast, modern-day government civil works projects serve political
purposes first and foremost, with quality of service coming in somewhere lower
on the list of considerations. Everybody's going to vote for a politician who
brings transit to their neighborhood or business; nobody's going to flip that
vote because the trains are slow.

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rayiner
No, the foresight came from the Board of Rapid Transit Railroad Commissioners,
organized pursuant to statute, which specified the route and the design of the
IRT Subway (what is now the 1/2/3 and 4/5/6) and bid out the contracts for its
construction and operation. The construction was paid for by the city, which
issued bonds to finance the construction. The Manhattan BRT lines were also
built under such contracts. The lines were leased out to the IRT and the BRT
(both of which were in large part formed for the purpose of executing these
contracts) for operation at a contractually fixed fare.

So not quite the invisible hand. Today we'd call it a public private
partnership, if we were feeling charitable, or maybe government-sponsored
duopoly if we weren't. The closest modern analogy is probably the U.S. defense
sector. The BRT and IRT were "competing" in the same way that Lockheed and
Boeing "compete." The government figures out what to build, while private
companies figure out how to build it, and the government foots the bill. I
personally think it's an incredibly effective structure, but then again I
think there is a place for oligopolies that are quasi-extensions of the
government.

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Rygu
We have a similar subway project going here in Amsterdam called the North-
South line. It's more than 8 years late, went over its budget multiple times,
and is still not finished. City is completing it anyway and hopes it will
start making money in ~3013.

Also the line's route is questionably useful to the locals. Somewhere someone
is filling his pockets with an evil grin.

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warfangle
We have a similar subway project (remember, the project referenced in the OP
is a light rail project). It's more than 70 years late, went over its budget
multiple times, and is still not finished.

Unfortunately, the line's route is definitely useful to the locals.

It's called the 2nd avenue line :/

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BasilAwad
"To keep the soft ground from collapsing, engineers snaked coils of coolant
through the soil to form a protective arch of frozen earth. That let crews
work safely while traffic rumbled overhead. Cost: $1 million per foot."

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EvanKelly
I wonder if this is the cost of actually applying this technique, or also
includes the cost of researching and testing the safety of this method prior
to using it on this project.

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Anechoic
It likely includes all of the preliminary engineering geotech, and
environmental work that came before implementation. You can't just freeze the
ground like that, there are a lot of potential adverse effects (ground) shifts
being the biggest) that have to be accounted for and mitigated.

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idont
I have mixed feelings... does the US know that many big cities in developping
countries have better subways (automated, brand new, clean, without pee smell,
?). Officials should at least be motivated to fix the minimum: like digital
display in wagons displaying the right stations... ;)

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tnuc
The dual use elevator/toilets are a highlight of the New York subway.

The trash strewn tracks are worth a look, while the total lack of electronic
signage as to when the next train is like stepping back in time 40 years.

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endian
> ...total lack of electronic signage as to when the next train is...

NYC has this in most stations now.

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warfangle
Some stations. It depends on the line. Lines that haven't been updated to
newer switch technology (like the A/C/E) still don't have it, and probably
won't for quite a while.

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greenyoda
More details here: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Side_Access>

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fnazeeri
My father-in-law is working on this project. I've been having conversations
about this for a long time...great to see it in the press...

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jlarocco
Seems a bit excessive just to shorten commute times for only 160000 people.
Are there other benefits?

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vkou
Given that most of us spend... 1/3 of their waking time at work, I think it's
safe to say that a commuter's time is worth ~1/3 of their average wage.

20 minutes saved in a round-trip, times 250 days a year, times 160,000 people
is 800,000,000 man-minutes, or ~13,000,000 man-hours a year. With an average
NYC income of $20/hour, and time being worth a third of hourly income...
that's $87,000,000 of life saved, per year. At 8.4 billion dollars for the
construction, that does look bleak.

If you bump up the commuter's average wage to ~$50/hour, though, we'd be
looking at ~220,000,000 of life saved, per year.

However, that's the lower bound on the public benefit of the project. Some of
the costs will be paid through user fees. Others through economic development
among the areas served by the line. As far as ditch-digging projects go, this
one's probably on par for public ROI.

If we did nothing but count coppers, America would never have built the
Interstates.

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Someone
I think you mistyped $260,000,000. That brings that benefits estimate close to
3% of the costs.

You also can put in gains that those not taking the subway will get from this.
160,000 fewer people on buses and in cars means faster traffic above ground.

Finally, they will simply pay for it from taxation. I know it sounds stupid to
some, but IMO, that is the right thing to do. It is just extra costs that have
to be made to make new high rise buildings commercially viable.

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vkou
I've mentioned how I figure that my time's worth ~1/3 of what I make at work.
I did, however, miscount - the correct value ought to have been ~$87,000,000

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Someone
Sorry, missed that. I don't think that argument holds, though, as it indicates
that, disregarding time loss due to travel to and from work, you would be
willing to work for a third of what you get now.

A more realistic estimate would be 80% or so (you lose 10 hours (8 hours at
work + 2 hours travel) of your live in exchange for the money you get)

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BasilAwad
$8.24 billion for 7 miles of tunnel

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coldtea
What's the point of this? That you can do it cheaper? Under New York? With the
necessary precautions and the same specs?

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BasilAwad
amazement. sorry for the ambiguity.

