It's not that complicated. Manhattan is very developed which raises construction costs substantially, but ultimately construction costs here are still dramatica

It's not that complicated. Manhattan is very developed which raises construction costs substantially, but ultimately construction costs here are still dramatically out of line. The Second Avenue Subway is the most expensive metro ever constructed (on a per-mile basis), even compared to extremely dense, developed-world cities like Tokyo and Paris, both of whom have active subway construction going on for far cheaper. There is a tremendous amount of waste and corruption in this process, and there's not a lot of political will to address it, since the governors of NY and NJ are both pretty deep in it themselves. On the bright side, Christie's career has self-destructed over the course of this year, and Cuomo himself is under investigation for corruption. One can only hope that their successors would be a bit cleaner and more willing to tackle these issues.