
What Is the Cost of Building a Subway? [pdf] - tptacek
https://pedestrianobservations.files.wordpress.com/2019/11/costspresentation2.pdf
======
elvinyung
I also like this analysis of general high infrastructure costs in America:
[https://pedestrianobservations.com/2019/03/03/why-
american-c...](https://pedestrianobservations.com/2019/03/03/why-american-
costs-are-so-high-work-in-progress/)

This tidbit is particularly infuriating:

> In California, the problem is, in two words, Tutor-Perini. This contractor
> underbids and then does shoddy work requiring change orders, litigated to
> the maximum. Ron Tutor’s dishonesty is well-known and goes back decades: in
> 1992 Los Angeles’s then-mayor Tom Bradley called him the change order king.
> And yet, he keeps getting contracts, all of which have large cost overruns,
> going over the amount the state or city would have paid had it awarded the
> contract to the second lowest bidder. In San Francisco, cost overrun battles
> involving Tutor-Perini led to a 40% cost overrun. This process repeated for
> high-speed rail: Tutor submitted lowest but technically worst bid, got the
> contract as price was weighted too high, and then demanded expensive
> changes. It speaks to California’s poor oversight of contractors that Tutor
> remains a contractor in good standing and has not been prosecuted for fraud.

Edit: oh, wait, just realized this is from the same blog, so the same body of
work.

~~~
kazinator
Ah, but in what way is the under-bidding contractor the problem?

Who gave the contract to the contractor?

The problem is the process of going for the lowest bidder, or one of the
lowest.

Moreover, in this case, incredibly, going for the same low bidder with the
knowledge of all the history of the bids from that contractor being
unrealistic lowballs and requiring costly change requests.

Don't blame the contractor. They get the job and make their money. From their
angle, they are successful. They know that the city is aiming for the bottom
and so they adjust their bidding accordingly. If they didn't submit a low bid,
the job would go to someone else.

True story: some decades ago. My father was bidding on a contract with the
GVRD (Greater Vancouver Regional District). Something in the tens of thousands
of dollars, probably. He was out-bid by $5. That was all they cared about. So
he pulled out a $5 bill and plonked it on the table.

If you ever drive in Vancouver, Canada and wonder how the roads can be so
shitty, remember that story.

~~~
kelnos
Certainly CA shares blame for not managing their contracts better (whether due
to incompetence or malice).

But it's unethical behavior to be a contractor who intentionally under-bids
with the plan to later (repeatedly) charge exorbitant amounts for
modifications and fixes.

The government isn't doing its due diligence, but I take a dim view of people
who exploit and waste taxpayers' money.

~~~
kazinator
> _But it 's unethical behavior to be a contractor who intentionally under-
> bids with the plan to later (repeatedly) charge exorbitant amounts for
> modifications and fixes._

If the ethical alternatives all ensure that someone else gets the contract,
then that particular ethics in that situation is rather good for nothing.

~~~
kelnos
I'll never claim that taking the ethical choice will ensure that others won't
choose unethically. But "everyone else is doing it" is not an excuse for
unethical behavior.

Suggesting that ethics are good for nothing in this case because of that is...
well, even more disappointingly cynical than I'm willing to go.

------
tptacek
From Marginal Revolution:

 _Levy is to be lauded for his pioneering work on this issue yet isn’t it
weird that a Patreon supported blogger has done the best work on comparative
construction costs mostly using data from newspapers and trade publications?
New York plans to spend billions on railway and subway expansion. If better
research could cut construction costs by 1%, it would be worth spending tens
of millions on that research. So why doesn’t the MTA embed accountants with
every major project in the world and get to the bottom of this cost disease?
(See previous point). Perhaps the greatest value of Levy’s work is in drawing
attention to the issue so that the public gets mad enough about excess costs
to get politicians to put pressure on agencies like the MTA._

~~~
dsfyu404ed
>So why doesn’t the MTA embed accountants with every major project in the
world and get to the bottom of this cost disease?

Like with any organization, follow the incentives. I'm betting the performance
reviews in the top half of the MTA are pegged to metrics that don't have to do
with service delivered per dollar.

~~~
bobthepanda
MTA appointees serve at the will of the governor.

The construction lobby is a frequent large donor to political campaigns in New
York.

"It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends
upon his not understanding it."

------
stevep98
I was always impressed by Berlin's subway. Some parts of it are very
accessible, with the rails literally 20ft below the street. For example:
[https://youtu.be/42EV-9G9vjo?t=230](https://youtu.be/42EV-9G9vjo?t=230)

Also, no fare gates (there are occasional ticket checks on the trains, and
heavy fines for non-payers).

~~~
rayiner
> Also, no fare gates (there are occasional ticket checks on the trains, and
> heavy fines for non-payers).

In Germany, fare evasion can in theory carry up to one year in jail. (In DC,
max is 10 days, and we’re getting rid of even that.)

~~~
clairity
> "In DC, max is 10 days, and we’re getting rid of even that."

you seem to say this as if it's a bad thing. it's silly to think fare evasion
is worth jailing someone, nevermind paying the administrative and enforcement
costs of doing so. even holding someone for an hour is more than enough
punishment (which is typically what happens anyway due to bureaucracy
involved).

~~~
magduf
If you don't have any real penalty for fare evasion, what keeps people from
doing it all the time? That's the whole reason we put people in jail for mere
shoplifting, even if it's for something low-cost.

~~~
clairity
it _is_ a real penalty. there's usually a fine as well.

but for the sake of argument, an hour lost would mean being late to work, to
an appointment, or to another likely time-sensitive activity. additionally,
there's the embarassment of being caught evading the fare (why is everyone
staring? how do you explain your tardiness to family/friends/coworkers?). most
people would avoid these penalties in and of themselves.

regardless, the penalty isn't what deters most fare evasion (or shoplifting)
except at the margins. mostly, adherence (that is, paying fares) is due to
social cohesion, self-image, and social responsibility.

that's why berlin, LA, and other transit systems have open transit gates. the
cost of enforcement _at the margins_ isn't worth it.

~~~
clairity
further, most people who fare-evade (or shoplift) do so because they're
desperate. jail time doesn't deter behavior for those cases nor does
enforcement provide additional revenue (couldn't pay in the first place).

no need to punish such folks more with jail time because they're _already
being punished_ by circumstance. being detained and fined is more than enough
additional punishment here.

~~~
xyzzyz
> further, most people who fare-evade (or shoplift) do so because they're
> desperate.

Next time you’re in the store in a less than perfectly clean and safe area,
look at what kind of stuff is specially protected against shoplifting. In my
experience, it’s usually washing liquid, shaving razors and hair products.
Hardly the domain for the most desperate.

You have quite a pollyanish view on society, where there are no wrongdoers:
shoplifters never do this for profit, they are just desperate people forced by
circumstance. This doesn’t match my experience.

------
pacaro
The observation about station costs resonated for me. I've always been
startled by the scale and ostentation of Westlake Station [1] in Seattle,
which is relatively modern (1990), but feels like it was built in the 20s,
it's huge and complicated and serves only two platforms. A practical station
design would be a fraction of the size

[1]
[https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westlake_station_(Sound_Tran...](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westlake_station_\(Sound_Transit\))

~~~
thehappypm
Boston's light rail system (Green Line) is built in a very utilitarian, un-
ostentatious way. The second it becomes feasible, the trains emerge from
tunnels and ride above ground. Many of the stops are nothing more than a
painted stretch of pavement. I've always found it ugly, but perhaps there was
wisdom in keeping it simple.

~~~
leggomylibro
Aww, come on - the green line can be really pretty. Go check out the Longwood
stop and take a walk in the park along the tracks in the summer, it's almost
surreal how beautifully the ironwork and old stone bridges and greenery mesh
together.

~~~
volkl48
The D/Riverside Line of the Green Line is a recycled former heavy rail line,
it was not originally built as a streetcar/light rail line.

The ironwork, old stone bridges and stationhouses and such are very nice, but
are thanks to the Boston and Albany RR in the late 1800s/early 1900s.

It was bought by the government and converted over to a light rail line in the
late 1950s.

~~~
leggomylibro
Fascinating, thanks for the history lesson - I guess that's part of Boston's
charm. They say that cows and horses designed the street layout more than
people did, although I'm sure that's not true anymore :)

~~~
volkl48
For a little more of a history lesson: Much of the core of Boston is
artificial land added at various times throughout history.

The seemingly crazy street layouts and orientations (especially in the
Downtown/North End areas) make much more "sense" when you realize how the
original landmass was shaped, which was a peninsula only connected to the
mainland by a single very narrow road out to the south/southwest.

You can find more detail and scope elsewhere, but here's a quick image that
illustrates most of it:
[http://i.imgur.com/dWSGEjQ.jpg](http://i.imgur.com/dWSGEjQ.jpg)

------
pcwalton
I thought I would dislike this analysis, but I actually found it pretty
reasonable. One of the biggest takeaways for me: California and the US aren't
exceptional. Because so many of us on HN live in California, it often seems
that California is uniquely bad at infrastructure, but cost overruns are just
as much of a problem in the rest of the US, as well as Canada, the UK, and
Australia.

~~~
magduf
>it often seems that California is uniquely bad at infrastructure, but cost
overruns are just as much of a problem in the rest of the US, as well as
Canada, the UK, and Australia.

California is not uniquely bad within the US. NYC is utterly infamous for
their ridiculous construction costs, caused by a huge amount of graft,
terrible unions that require 4x as many workers as necessary, etc.

------
Reason077
> _" MTA Chair Pat Foye, last week: “New York has a more built-out commuter
> rail network than London.”"_

Hmm. Perhaps Pat Foye should compare this map:

[https://nycmap360.com/carte/pdf/en/nyc-rail-
map.pdf](https://nycmap360.com/carte/pdf/en/nyc-rail-map.pdf)

To this one:

[https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/London_South_East_expanded-09...](https://www.nationalrail.co.uk/London_South_East_expanded-0919.pdf)

~~~
gok
The point Alon was making is that Foye is fucking clueless.

------
wahern
The coolest thing about this presentation is that it was created using LaTeX
and Beamer.

On macOS you can open it using Preview.app and then select View -> Slideshow.

------
m0zg
You can't really compare costs and ignore the level of corruption. In e.g.
Russia the only reason why subway costs $500M/km is because at least two
thirds of that money immediately vanishes into the various off-shore companies
owned by the various oligarchs, government officials, and cronies thereof.
Same with highway construction. Someone once jokingly "calculated" that it's
cheaper to pave the roads with foie gras there.

------
afinlayson
What's the opportunity cost of areas like the bay area, where average commute
time is 32min, and some people are closer to one hour, where mass transit
isn't as robust as somewhere like NYC or Toronto.

~~~
eggsmediumrare
Toronto transit is... robust? SF must be brutal.

~~~
kasey_junk
SF transit is _amazingly_ bad. It’s like the worst case scenario for anywhere
I’ve been that has transit.

~~~
pcwalton
That's not true in my experience. I'd put San Francisco transit above Seattle,
San Jose, and Los Angeles and below Portland.

~~~
kasey_junk
I honestly didn’t know San Jose had a transit system.

------
agustif
I guess it mostly depends on how much the politicians greening the project
takes into it's own pockets in most of the world anyway lol

~~~
dkural
Actually if you read the presentation it shows that corrupt countries have
lower costs than the AngloSphere, and is not a sufficient explanatory factor.
Many less-corrupt (in public infrastructure) countries also have low costs
(Switzerland for example).

~~~
Merrill
The notion that the Anglosphere, especially the US, is less corrupt requires
further examination. Local governments, and their special purpose entities
like MTA, have complex relationships between politicians, officials, bonding
firms, consultants, engineering firms, contractors, unions, suppliers, etc.
The corruption is not typically overt, involving envelopes stuffed with cash
handed over in New Jersey diners, but is more like a constellation of tacit
mutual self interest among the parties.

~~~
agustif
Yep, I mean as a non-american I could also point out at how weird it looks
something like super PACs exist, as it seems from the outside just a legal way
to bribe elected gov officials, same thing goes with how Healthcare works over
there, or that some states in america are de facto high earning first choice
to move their dirty money from abroad and keep it safe and secret, not even in
switzerland now, only in america lol

------
dpifke
For Las Vegas, the cost for the first three stops is "about $50 million."

[https://www.boringcompany.com/lvcc](https://www.boringcompany.com/lvcc)

Interesting comparisons could probably be made to:

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

------
codedrome
This is just a part of an increasingly serious problem in all areas of human
endeavour. Our projects are becoming so big, complex and lengthy that they are
effectively unmanageable with the methodologies and expertise we currently
have. In one way being highly ambitious is a good think: if we were always
thinking "we'll stick with doing what we know how to do" we would never
progress but we need to control our ambition so they don't get completely out
of hand.

~~~
Gunax
I do not see how infrastructure projects today are any more complicated than
50 or 100 years ago.

~~~
tjpaudio
Oh come on now, really? I have a piece of farmland in the middle of nowhere
and let me tell you, even digging a hole out there is harder now than it was
100 years ago because of the things you find buried. Subways in 200+ year old
cities? I can't even imagine. What do you do when your borer, designed for
medium size rock and dirt runs into a 4ft wide brick and cement wall the city
forgot about 40 years ago? This happens! Also, back 100 years ago we were
talking brick, cement, some steel, and thats it. Today there is a vast array
of engineered materials and machinery that didn't exist back then. It's not
1,000s of unskilled workers with shovels anymore, its hundreds with technology
and mostly engineers.

~~~
Someone
The problem in old cities isn’t as much that they can’t get through old stuff,
but more that they don’t want to because of archeology.

For an example, see the Bosphorus tunnel in Istanbul
([https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/jan/25/turkey.iantray...](https://www.theguardian.com/world/2006/jan/25/turkey.iantraynor),
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marmaray#Delays](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marmaray#Delays))

A huge find, unfortunately on the location where a terminal was planned.

