4 ms·
100 feet of subway track? I wish I could get those rates. NYC's latest Second Avenue Subway budget is $6.3 billion for 1.5 miles, or, about $800,000 a foot. You
by fennecfoxen 5y ago
100 feet of subway track? I wish I could get those rates. NYC's latest Second Avenue Subway budget is $6.3 billion for 1.5 miles, or, about $800,000 a foot. You can get 25 feet of subway track.
California's not quite that bad, but, it's close to that bad. The Downtown Extension for Caltrain is $3 billion for a mile. SF's Central Subway is $923 million a mile. So sure, you can get about 114 feet of subway, but it'll be the short little LRVs and not like BART or anything nice-ish.
- m463 5y agomakes me think The Boring Company might do well lowering the cost of tunnels...
- fennecfoxen 5y agoI'm told that, besides general competence issues and political-football games about who gets to builds the subway (contractors, ewwwwww) ... a lot of it comes from deep stations with onerous fire-safety guidelines that require massive mezzanines. These stations are mined out through narrow shafts instead of doing cut-and-cover, adding expense and inviting delays. See e.g. https://twitter.com/2AvSagas/status/1064907564230557696 https://twitter.com/2AvSagas/status/1064907564230557696 But it's mostly the fact that the leadership doesn't care, doesn't have to care, and is actively incentivized not to care.