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The Second Ave. subway cost explosions are driven by a combination of union grift, overly litigious third parties, onerous design requirements driven by politic

by abduhl 3y ago

The Second Ave. subway cost explosions are driven by a combination of union grift, overly litigious third parties, onerous design requirements driven by politics rather than engineering, and the requirement of building stations in the middle of New York. The problem in DC is similar but also impeded by the fact that Metro does not want to take responsibility for any new track (see the Purple Line fiasco). Your point still stands that America's approach to infrastructure (and underground in particular) is costly; however, those costs are not nearly as bad outside of major metropolitan cities. Underground work in the Vegas area is relatively inexpensive in my experience (I have worked on underground projects in all three of these locations within the last decade).

rayiner 3y ago
New York and DC are especially bad, but LA still paid a billion dollars a mile for its recent subway expansion. If built as a subway, the 68-mile network would cost at least $50 billion. The gross domestic product of the entire Las Vegas region is just $136 billion. A $50 billion infrastructure project would be like New York City taking on a $750 billion infrastructure project. You could build a much smaller subway network. But at that point, the value proposition of the network in a sprawling city like Las Vegas evaporates. (Especially in a city as hot as Los Vegas, where long walks from subway stations to destinations will be miserable.) Baltimore is much denser than Las Vegas, and the one underground line has a ridership of just 2 million people annually. Limited subway networks that don’t go anywhere are worthless.
- abduhl 3y ago
  NYC's subway system has nearly 1000 miles of track. The cost of that was spread over years. Similarly, the 68 mile network proposed here will be built over years. Based on Boring Company's own PR, it took them a year to build 1.7 miles of track at the convention center. 68 miles will take them 40 years. Considering the reality of construction schedules and the fact that none of this is permitted or designed and using your $50B number, this will take half a century or more to build. So that amounts to less than $1 billion a year. Does NYC take on $15 billion in infrastructure projects a year? Probably. I find it entirely plausible that NYC would take on $750 billion in infrastructure projects over half a century. Hell, if NYC were to attempt to build their own subway network again using the Second Ave. number (and conceding that it's inflated), it would take nearly $5 TRILLION dollars. Handicap that number for the inflated cost and we're still looking at NYC having already spent multiples of the amount you are asserting NYC would equivalently have to take on on a project-to-project basis with this. As to the rest of your post, I agree - this proposed 68 mile tunnel system in a place that lacks the requisite urban density for public transit efficiency will have limited ridership and will be worthless, if it's ever completed. More likely it will be abandoned partway through and will only serve to become a literal obstacle to future tunnels/development.
  - rayiner 3y ago
    NYC has not spent $750 billion on subway expansion (adjusted for inflation) even over more than a century. To use the IND 8th Avenue line as a benchmark, the second to last trunk line, the 14 route miles were built for about $4 billion in today’s money. The whole system has 248 route miles, almost all of it built before 1948. Assuming it was built at the same per-mile cost as the 8th Avenue Line, that’s about $70 billion or so in today’s dollars for most of the original network. The NYC MTA spends $7 billion a year on capital expenditures, not $15 billion. Most of that is maintenance, not expansion. No transit system can spend anything close to 100% of their budget on expansion over that time horizon. So your $1 billion a year is probably more like $2 billion accounting for maintenance. That is more than the entire Las Vegas budget.

by abduhl 3y ago

rayiner 3y ago

New York and DC are especially bad, but LA still paid a billion dollars a mile for its recent subway expansion. If built as a subway, the 68-mile network would cost at least $50 billion. The gross domestic product of the entire Las Vegas region is just $136 billion. A $50 billion infrastructure project would be like New York City taking on a $750 billion infrastructure project. You could build a much smaller subway network. But at that point, the value proposition of the network in a sprawling city like Las Vegas evaporates. (Especially in a city as hot as Los Vegas, where long walks from subway stations to destinations will be miserable.) Baltimore is much denser than Las Vegas, and the one underground line has a ridership of just 2 million people annually. Limited subway networks that don’t go anywhere are worthless.

abduhl 3y ago
NYC's subway system has nearly 1000 miles of track. The cost of that was spread over years. Similarly, the 68 mile network proposed here will be built over years. Based on Boring Company's own PR, it took them a year to build 1.7 miles of track at the convention center. 68 miles will take them 40 years. Considering the reality of construction schedules and the fact that none of this is permitted or designed and using your $50B number, this will take half a century or more to build. So that amounts to less than $1 billion a year. Does NYC take on $15 billion in infrastructure projects a year? Probably. I find it entirely plausible that NYC would take on $750 billion in infrastructure projects over half a century. Hell, if NYC were to attempt to build their own subway network again using the Second Ave. number (and conceding that it's inflated), it would take nearly $5 TRILLION dollars. Handicap that number for the inflated cost and we're still looking at NYC having already spent multiples of the amount you are asserting NYC would equivalently have to take on on a project-to-project basis with this. As to the rest of your post, I agree - this proposed 68 mile tunnel system in a place that lacks the requisite urban density for public transit efficiency will have limited ridership and will be worthless, if it's ever completed. More likely it will be abandoned partway through and will only serve to become a literal obstacle to future tunnels/development.
- rayiner 3y ago
  NYC has not spent $750 billion on subway expansion (adjusted for inflation) even over more than a century. To use the IND 8th Avenue line as a benchmark, the second to last trunk line, the 14 route miles were built for about $4 billion in today’s money. The whole system has 248 route miles, almost all of it built before 1948. Assuming it was built at the same per-mile cost as the 8th Avenue Line, that’s about $70 billion or so in today’s dollars for most of the original network. The NYC MTA spends $7 billion a year on capital expenditures, not $15 billion. Most of that is maintenance, not expansion. No transit system can spend anything close to 100% of their budget on expansion over that time horizon. So your $1 billion a year is probably more like $2 billion accounting for maintenance. That is more than the entire Las Vegas budget.