
Why Is Infrastructure So Expensive to Build in New York? - tptacek
http://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/05/new-york-infrastructure-costs.html
======
gthaman
CTRL+F "debt" \- nothing. CTRL+F "interest" \- nothing.

Lets take a quick look at some numbers.

[1] "The result is a massive run-up in debt. Though the MTA spent only $848
million on debt service in 2004, according to RPA, it is projected to spend
more than three times as much, $2.67 billion, in 2014. Debt alone will eat up
17.6 percent of the MTA’s operating budget by 2014; worse, RPA says that an
alternative calculation shows the 2014 debt load at 23.1 percent of the
operating budget."

[3] "By way of comparison, Syria has $30.1 billion in debt. Cuba has $28.9
billion. Twenty-eight other countries, from Ecuador to Jordan, Jamaica to
Kenya, have less debt than the M.T.A."

[1] [https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2011/09/07/where-does-your-
fare-...](https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2011/09/07/where-does-your-fare-go-
increasingly-to-pay-off-mta-debt/) [2] [https://www.politico.com/states/new-
york/albany/story/2015/0...](https://www.politico.com/states/new-
york/albany/story/2015/02/report-more-than-30-countries-have-less-debt-than-
the-mta-000000)

~~~
sonnyblarney
Debt is part of the financing of a project, not a 'challenge in building
them'.

Comparing the debt of one group to an arbitrary other doesn't help so much,
because what matters are interest rates, revenue to pay principal and interest
rates, stability of tat revenue, other covenants, penalties, and of course
cost of capital.

FYI Jordan, Jamaica and Kenya would carry a _lot_ more debt if they possible
could.

If some agency in NYC has a huge amount of debt from credible lenders it might
be a 'good sign' they they are actually worthy of it.

FYI, I think the article does a good job at it:

"“People will say to me, ‘Why are MTA construction costs so high?’ And the
answer is ‘Everything,’ ” says Julia Vitullo-Martin, a senior fellow at the
RPA and co-author of its 2018 report comparing New York’s construction costs
to those in peer cities. “Every factor you look at is flawed the way the MTA
does business, from the first step to the end.”

I love this level of candor in people who are willing to speak publicly.

~~~
retiredcoder
I can only agree with her answer.

When I compare (software) projects amongst different locations I worked at,
things vary so so much. Making those comparison somewhat misleading at best.

I don’t see how comparing the costs between systems that have so different
requirements, labor markets, legacy infrastructure, regulamentation agencies,
can help much but I am not an expert on this subject by far.

------
oftenwrong
>“People will say to me, ‘Why are MTA construction costs so high?’ And the
answer is ‘Everything,’ ” says Julia Vitullo-Martin, a senior fellow at the
RPA and co-author of its 2018 report comparing New York’s construction costs
to those in peer cities. “Every factor you look at is flawed the way the MTA
does business, from the first step to the end.”

>When you’re doing everything wrong, the best way to fix the problem isn’t
usually to go through the list of things you’re doing wrong and fix them one
by one. It’s best to step back and ask why you’re so bad at everything,
whether a systemic problem is causing you to make so many separate mistakes.
And in the case of the MTA, the root cause of its capital-construction
failures is usually diagnosed as unaccountability: Nobody knows who’s in
charge, so nobody has to be terrified of taking the blame for obscene costs
and endless delays.

This is very similar to the explanation for the American healthcare system's
turmoil given by David Goldhill (founder of
[https://sesamecare.com/](https://sesamecare.com/)) in his book _Catastrophic
Care_. Even for those that disagree with his recommendations, he delivers a
great analysis of the perverse incentives that gave rise to the broken
healthcare system.

------
barry-cotter
Why American Costs Are So High (Work-in-Progress)

1\. Engineering part 1: station construction methods

2\. Engineering part 2: mezzanines

3\. Management part 1: procurement

4\. Management part 2: conflict resolution

5\. Management part 3: project management

6\. Management part 4: agency turf battles

7\. Institutions part 1: political lading with irrelevant priorities

8\. Institutions part 2: political incentives

9\. Institutions part 3: global incuriosity

> Canada is not much better than the US. Americans’ world is flat, with its
> corners in Boston, Seattle, San Diego, and Miami. Canadians’ world includes
> the United States and Canada, making it flat with the northern ends of the
> quadrilateral stretched a few hundred kilometers to the north. A study of a
> long-overdue extension of Vancouver’s Millennium Line to UBC has four case
> studies for best practices, all from within North America. This is despite
> the fact that in the developed world the system most similar to Vancouver’s
> SkyTrain in technology and age is the Copenhagen Metro, whose construction
> costs are one half as high as those of Vancouver despite cost and schedule
> overruns.

[https://pedestrianobservations.com/2019/03/03/why-
american-c...](https://pedestrianobservations.com/2019/03/03/why-american-
costs-are-so-high-work-in-progress/)

~~~
sonnyblarney
Surely, but why don't those problems exist elsewhere?

~~~
retiredcoder
That’s what I ask myself. I‘D guess all those challenges exist elsewhere too
but at different scales?

~~~
barry-cotter
The administrative state in the US isn’t as trusted, powerful or competent as
in other developed countries. This is partly because of the structure of
government in the US, all the checks and balances making getting anything done
harder, the US tendency for regulation by judicial settlement instead of
legislation and the much more democratic decision making process. There are
far more political appointees in the US system, and elected posts, than in
other developed countries. The civil service just isn’t as powerful. All of
these are self reinforcing. The US is just very different from other places.

The ignorance of international best practices is just imperial disease, a
special case of not invented here. I honestly struggle to think of a
technology or industry the US has lost leadership in and then recovered but
it’s not like Germany is doing well in electrical vehicles. Sometimes your
time is past, like the US and semiconductors.

The political and administrative sclerosis is unlikely to get better fast
without the kind of pressing need that results in a new constitutional
settlement. It could get better slowly I suppose. The inward looking self
regard will get better when the US sees itself as an excellent country rather
than assuming they’re the best at everything.

~~~
CaptainZapp
_the US tendency for regulation by judicial settlement instead of legislation
and the much more democratic decision making process_

I'd wager that the democratic decision process in Switzerland is far more
stringent and the public is far more involved.

On every level, be it a local tram line, a canton wide, or intra-cantonal rail
system, or projects of national importance and great expense, like [1], the
public is virtually always consulted via referendum and has to green light the
project.

This is also a huge strength of the system. Because once a project is
approved, the funds are secured and politicians can't pull shenanigans to
pull, or divert funding.

I'd wager that a high democratic involvment into major (and expensive)
projects is rather an asset, than a liability.

[1]
[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotthard_Base_Tunnel](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotthard_Base_Tunnel)

~~~
retiredcoder
We have the chance to participate in the US too, now to what extend it is
effective, I don’t know.

For example, even in big cities like NYC, there are public meetings about the
projects, etc. Yet, I still believe that past certain point, people just stop
either caring or not having the energy to follow thru the whole process.

Just a side note, it might sound pedantic but after living in Scandinavia, one
thing I noticed that the expectation of “participation” during the decision
making is not same even here. I bring this up because somewhat it contributes
for more or less polarization and inefficient processes, I’d say.

------
bananabiscuit
I’m curious why I never see these kinds of articles going into how unions are
bleeding the city dry. Union laborers wages are like 5 times more than other
equivalent workers and they do 5 times less work because they know it’s
basically impossible to fire them. A good amount of the transit union workers
I know will be quite proud to tell you how they get paid a full day for doing
2 hours of work and then going home while their foreman will clock them out
for a full 8 hours.

~~~
bradleyjg
The politics around unions in NYC are pretty fascinating.

Many of the trades and at least some of the public sector workers are making
enough money to be upper middle class (or higher) by any reasonable
definition. Much more so certainly than many professions requiring college or
even graduate degrees--for example publishing is still fairly big in NYC but
pays terribly. However the rhetoric coming out of these unions still hits the
themes of poor, underdog working class pretty hard. Meanwhile the actual
working class is hit the hardest by inflated costs of virtually everything.

You end up with tragicomic situations like the infamous inflated rat protests
being manned by poorly paid temp workers because the actual union members
can't be bothered.

------
mjevans
Trying to summarize the parts I read:

Why? Everything. No one (or group) is in charge, no one (or group) has the
power to wave a wand and get satisfaction, and no one (or group) seems to
actually be doing diligence on figuring out why. Anyone that does have the
power has no accountability, but does get to milk the process for political
points and defer the costs as externalities from them to the system.

If only politics was about enabling better living and good stuff happening,
rather than being a popularity contest.

~~~
ptah
^this. some things are better done by career bureaucrats. democracy is not a
universal tool

------
adrianratnapala
> By building this project [CrossRail], London is just catching up to its
> peers. Paris has had a similar system, the five-line RER, since the 1970s.
> Berlin’s S-Bahn predates World War II.

I think I lived in London when CrossRail a just an expensive glint in the
government's eye. I didn't know that it was an S-Bahn thing. I guess it makes
sense, as London always was the city with the most famous of U-Bahns but no
real S-Bahn.

Now I live in Sydney, a city that has always had an S-Bahn (of course we don't
call it that) but know U-Bahn. But just a few days ago the Sydney Metro
([https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Metro](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sydney_Metro))
was opened.

So it seems like the combined approach is what big cities converge on.
Although the Sydney metro doesn't even go into the centre of the city, so it's
not really equivalent.

Or that S-Bahns were some kind of new technology.

I find it interesting that

~~~
yyy888sss
Sydney metro will go right under the CBD and through Central station [1]. The
next stage planned is Parramatta to the CBD.

[1] - [https://www.sydneymetro.info/map/sydney-metro-interactive-
tr...](https://www.sydneymetro.info/map/sydney-metro-interactive-train-map)

------
alexpotato
From this article:
[http://gothamist.com/2019/01/22/subway_speeds_signal_timers....](http://gothamist.com/2019/01/22/subway_speeds_signal_timers.php)

 _" I have directed my team to identify and resolve every root cause of delay;
in doing so, we can then implement the right fix, often for little or no
cost,” NYC Transit President Andy Byford said in a statement. “The SPEED Unit
continues to examine hundreds of miles of track to find areas where we can
safely increase speeds. Their work is absolutely essential and demonstrates
that New York City Transit employees are fully committed to making tangible
changes that will improve service for our customers."_

Which reminds me of a story from this book: [https://www.amazon.com/Its-Your-
Ship-Management-Anniversary/...](https://www.amazon.com/Its-Your-Ship-
Management-Anniversary/dp/145552302X)

Paraphrasing: _" As captain, I kept asking why we had no time for training. I
was told because painting the ship took up a huge amount of time. So I asked
'Why do we need to paint the ship?'. I was told because the bolts used on the
hull are not stainless so they rust and the ship looks bad so we paint it.
'Can't we use stainless bolts?' I asked. 'No', I was told because the Navy
stores didn't have stainless bolts. So I gave my credit card to the supply
officer and told him to go buy some stainless bolts. Hundreds of hours saved
and now available for training."_

EVERY SINGLE PROJECT I have ever worked on could apply this story and I would
bet that there are similar examples of this on the MTA. The "speed team" from
the article here is a perfect example of how sometimes lots of small fixes in
the same direction can have enormous impacts.

------
gok
It's nasty to say, but the main over-arching problem is that the public sector
just doesn't attract very productive Americans, and this situation is
amplified in New York. Nothing gets done, wages are uncorrelated with
productivity, bureaucracy is crushing, and advancement is nearly 100%
political. Someone with the talent and drive to actually get a new subway line
built could earn $200K trying to, knowing they're nearly guaranteed to get
nothing done, or earn $1M down the street in finance. Easy choice. So instead
the subway-building bureaucracy is staffed with people who are indifferent to
actually getting things done and often couldn't get the job done if they had
to, and are mostly ok with that.

This is reversed in much of the rich world, where the private sector doesn't
pay that well, and it's hard to get fired, and there's great prestige in
working in the public space.

~~~
antisthenes
That's not been my experience at all in Maryland the DC Metro area.

Every time I deal with the public sector, I am pleasantly surprised by the
passion and dedication of people working there. I've very recently dealt with
the judicial, MVA, MTA, and some WMATA and most everyone has been extremely
helpful and efficient.

I cannot say the same for the private sector, whose business model seems to be
"provide the minimum amount of service for the highest price you can squeeze
out of the customer"

------
AlexTWithBeard
Poor management.

With poor being used in both senses.

Looking at the management salaries (the link is a bit outdated, but should
give an overall idea) head of MNRR makes around 300k. That sounds a lot until
we realize that a Google engineer makes about the same. A head of a small team
in the bank makes about the same.

Your engineers, who (putting my hard hat on) in most cases could've been
replaced with an automated system earn about the same if they're willing to do
some overtime.

Do we want somebody earning less than a Google engineer fight tooth and close
for taxpayers money? Do we want them to take risk for huge infrastructure
projects? That all while being engaged in political battles about poor-people-
diversity-community-unions? I don't see it happening.

[https://www.newsday.com/long-island/transportation/table-
of-...](https://www.newsday.com/long-island/transportation/table-of-top-mta-
salaries-1.1973752)

------
W-Stool
The Montreal subway is my favorite in North America. Anyone have any recent
numbers on how much it cost to build it and run it, per mile?

------
fredsanford
Because of the Joe Pesci observation?

Everyone that can scrambles to take their "commission" from every project
they're able to block.

I call it the Joe Pesci observation because of a quote from, I think, the
movie Goodfellas.

"Your business burned down and you have no income?" "Fuck you, pay me!"

------
tptacek
I submitted this mostly to see how Rayiner would react, since this is one of
his beats.

~~~
rayiner
This is a great article! This part really hit home:

> But New York’s transit stations are still overdesigned. All recent stations
> have full-length mezzanines, which require larger station caverns and
> therefore more expense. (Why must all these new stations look like the
> Batcave?)

In DC, you’ve got these cavernous underground stations, a testament to
brutalist architecture. In Chicago, you’ve got a wooden platform on some steel
girders. Which is more expensive to build and refurbish? Chicago rebuilt 10
miles of the red line in five months for half a billion. DC has spent years
just trying to get the tracks to stop catching fire.

The new stuff is just so overdesigned. The silver line has these giant
stations high in the air over freeway medians, with air bridges to connect
them to the entrances. Many METRA stations are just a wood platform on an
embankment.

And the article really hits the point. It’s not just the inefficiency. It’s
about imagining how much more transit you could build if our costs were lower.

~~~
blago
I think subway stations in US are rather spartan by international standards.
Whatever the reasons for the high cost, opulence is not one of them.

~~~
ericd
I guess you haven’t been to the Oculus in NYC...

~~~
CPLX
The oculus is a shopping mall, not a subway station.

~~~
bobthepanda
By definition that would exclude most train stations in Japan and Hong Kong.

------
anbop
Tort law. Because everyone has to carry huge liability insurance, everyone
needs to go through tons of CYA process, which drives up cost and slows down
work at every single transactional point in the entire economy. Hence the
success of mega corporations like Amazon, Walmart, Exxon, etc. who don’t need
to hedge that stupidly small risk for internal transactions. Same reasons why
colleges now have deans of intersectional classism and now charge $60,000 a
year.

~~~
AaronFriel
Tort law is why colleges have "deans of intersectional classism" and charge
$60,000 a year?

None of the universities in my states have those or charged near that, but,
let's assume they had and did. How does that mitigate the liability insurance
and why isn't that showing up in the budgets of state and local governments?
Which companies selling that insurance should I invest in, if it is so
profitable a buck to make?

