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Everyone who wants to find fault with modern constructions trots out the Second Avenue Subway as an example. This subway is an obvious route for convenience an

Everyone who wants to find fault with modern constructions trots out the Second Avenue Subway as an example. This subway is an obvious route for convenience and as such was first proposed more than a hundred years ago. At that time analysis of the geology and hydrology along the route as well as the very large amount of infrastructure including other subways already in place resulted in the conclusion that a subway along Second Avenue would be unreasonably expensive to construct. The idea kept being proposed every couple of decades or so and the conclusion was always the same: Far too much complication and expense to reasonably construct. Then in the 90s politicians decided that miraculous new tunnel boring technology would solve all problems and make a subway along Second Avenue easy and cheap to construct. This new technology turned out to have some complications and as a result all the nearly hundred years of cost estimates stating that a subway along Second Avenue would be unreasonably complicated and expensive to construct turned out to be true. It is to the credit of our modernity that the project was completed at all. The real lesson here is not one of generalized slowing, but of a lack of rational analysis, particularly when a wealth of information is available.

bobthepanda 4y ago
It is worth noting that the second phase costs even more per mile to build, despite the fact that pretty much all the tunnels already exist from an earlier attempt, are structurally intact, and will be reused.
- steveBK123 4y ago
  Yup. $8B for .. 2-3 stations, 1.5 miles of track and 0.75 mile of new tunnel. Incredible.
darkerside 4y ago
This reminds me of political discourse. We solve all the easy problems (murder is wrong, we all agree), and then we're left with the tough questions like abortion and civil rights. It's not that we can't agree, it's that we solved everything that is solvable (without great difficulty). Maybe we've now built everything that's easy to build, and all that's left is the hard stuff.
klooney 4y ago
Alon Levy and the transit costs project are a great source of actual hard analysis on this- https://pedestrianobservations.com/2023/02/25/the-issue-of-consultants/ https://pedestrianobservations.com/2023/02/25/the-issue-of-c... has a great concise breakdown, pasted here because no one will click through: Based on around 100 interviews and many diagrams and reports, we managed to decompose the New York construction cost premium over low-cost countries, which is about a full order of magnitude, into the following items: The stations are overbuilt by a factor of 3, which contributes an overall factor of 2 cost premium The systems are not standardized, which contributes a factor of about 2.3 cost premium for the systems and 1.35 overall Labor costs (including supervisors and other white-collar workers) are 50% of hard costs in New York where they should be about 25%, contributing a factor of 3 premium on labor costs and 1.5 overall Procurement problems including the privatization of risk, change order risk, agency micromanagement of contractors, general red tape, and profit stemming from too little competition double overall costs Soft costs are depending on what one counts either 21% on top of hard costs where they should be 7%, or 46% where they should be 20%
- zdragnar 4y ago
  I can't speak too much to the first several points, but noting - agency micromanagement of contractors - general red tape is very fitting and a direct contribution to - too little competition I worked with a startup company ~8 years ago that wanted to go after government contracts. According to the owners, everyone they demo'd the product to said it was very clearly superior to what they were currently using. Unfortunately, the people who would use it are not the people that sign off on paying for it. Those people had checklists of irrelevant requirements, slow response times, almost certainly pressure to select "certain" vendors (i.e. those who threw money into lobbying the right folk). It got to the point where they seriously considered hiring a consulting company whose sole purpose was to help others navigate all the red tape that gets thrown in your way when you try to get government contracts. In the end, they realized that they were better off pivoting entirely to the private sector instead of doing a half and half approach. I seem to recall a similar tale with the lead pipe retrofitting in Flint, MI... contractors to do the job were picked not necessarily by speed and capability, but by other qualities. Regardless of how they were chosen, though, the city failed to deliver. Despite the crisis starting in April 2014, residents and activists had to sue the city in 2017 to actually get the work completed, and it still isn't done. Mostly done, but not completely... 8 years later.
asdff 4y ago
The second ave subway was supposed to be a replacement for the elevated train they tore out. At this point, they should consider just building a modern elevate train down second ave if digging is such a boondoggle. I think the only reason it was torn down is that business owners thought it to be unsightly.
- drchickensalad 4y ago
  0% chance that will happen. It greatly lowers property values which will cause every single owner on the path to come out swinging.
  - asdff 4y ago
    I feel like there is value for a property having it be in walking distance to the would be second ave el. It also needn't look like the 100 year old cast iron els in the bronx or brooklyn. Modern elevated rail is fully welded, so no cathunk cathunk or really any screeching, and it usually sits on a cement bed, which is more aesthetically appealing than the old steel beam els that tend to drip stuff that ruins your paint job in nyc or chicago. In Culver city, for example, there is a pocket park under a portion of their elevated expo line: https://goo.gl/maps/fUFW2xQ9z4imj9XE8 https://goo.gl/maps/fUFW2xQ9z4imj9XE8

bobthepanda 4y ago

It is worth noting that the second phase costs even more per mile to build, despite the fact that pretty much all the tunnels already exist from an earlier attempt, are structurally intact, and will be reused.

steveBK123 4y ago
Yup. $8B for .. 2-3 stations, 1.5 miles of track and 0.75 mile of new tunnel. Incredible.

darkerside 4y ago

This reminds me of political discourse. We solve all the easy problems (murder is wrong, we all agree), and then we're left with the tough questions like abortion and civil rights. It's not that we can't agree, it's that we solved everything that is solvable (without great difficulty). Maybe we've now built everything that's easy to build, and all that's left is the hard stuff.

klooney 4y ago

Alon Levy and the transit costs project are a great source of actual hard analysis on this- https://pedestrianobservations.com/2023/02/25/the-issue-of-consultants/ https://pedestrianobservations.com/2023/02/25/the-issue-of-c... has a great concise breakdown, pasted here because no one will click through: Based on around 100 interviews and many diagrams and reports, we managed to decompose the New York construction cost premium over low-cost countries, which is about a full order of magnitude, into the following items: The stations are overbuilt by a factor of 3, which contributes an overall factor of 2 cost premium The systems are not standardized, which contributes a factor of about 2.3 cost premium for the systems and 1.35 overall Labor costs (including supervisors and other white-collar workers) are 50% of hard costs in New York where they should be about 25%, contributing a factor of 3 premium on labor costs and 1.5 overall Procurement problems including the privatization of risk, change order risk, agency micromanagement of contractors, general red tape, and profit stemming from too little competition double overall costs Soft costs are depending on what one counts either 21% on top of hard costs where they should be 7%, or 46% where they should be 20%

zdragnar 4y ago
I can't speak too much to the first several points, but noting - agency micromanagement of contractors - general red tape is very fitting and a direct contribution to - too little competition I worked with a startup company ~8 years ago that wanted to go after government contracts. According to the owners, everyone they demo'd the product to said it was very clearly superior to what they were currently using. Unfortunately, the people who would use it are not the people that sign off on paying for it. Those people had checklists of irrelevant requirements, slow response times, almost certainly pressure to select "certain" vendors (i.e. those who threw money into lobbying the right folk). It got to the point where they seriously considered hiring a consulting company whose sole purpose was to help others navigate all the red tape that gets thrown in your way when you try to get government contracts. In the end, they realized that they were better off pivoting entirely to the private sector instead of doing a half and half approach. I seem to recall a similar tale with the lead pipe retrofitting in Flint, MI... contractors to do the job were picked not necessarily by speed and capability, but by other qualities. Regardless of how they were chosen, though, the city failed to deliver. Despite the crisis starting in April 2014, residents and activists had to sue the city in 2017 to actually get the work completed, and it still isn't done. Mostly done, but not completely... 8 years later.

asdff 4y ago

The second ave subway was supposed to be a replacement for the elevated train they tore out. At this point, they should consider just building a modern elevate train down second ave if digging is such a boondoggle. I think the only reason it was torn down is that business owners thought it to be unsightly.

drchickensalad 4y ago
0% chance that will happen. It greatly lowers property values which will cause every single owner on the path to come out swinging.
- asdff 4y ago
  I feel like there is value for a property having it be in walking distance to the would be second ave el. It also needn't look like the 100 year old cast iron els in the bronx or brooklyn. Modern elevated rail is fully welded, so no cathunk cathunk or really any screeching, and it usually sits on a cement bed, which is more aesthetically appealing than the old steel beam els that tend to drip stuff that ruins your paint job in nyc or chicago. In Culver city, for example, there is a pocket park under a portion of their elevated expo line: https://goo.gl/maps/fUFW2xQ9z4imj9XE8 https://goo.gl/maps/fUFW2xQ9z4imj9XE8