4 ms·

Seems questionable to me. Yes the Second Ave Subway is expensive, but how many cities are building new subway lines underground through incredibly dense existin

Seems questionable to me. Yes the Second Ave Subway is expensive, but how many cities are building new subway lines underground through incredibly dense existing infrastructure? Also, US taxpayers may be making up for it by paying more upfront but less per ride (unless you live in DC or San Fran): City Cost per Ride Mexico $0.15 Beijing $0.29 Seoul $0.55 Moscow $0.69 Tokyo $1.68 Barcelona $1.76 NYC $1.96 Boston $2.00 Paris $2.25 Chicago $2.25 Toronto $2.37 Berlin $2.95 DC $3.08 San Fran $3.18 Stockholm $3.96 London $4.41 Source: http://www.treehugger.com/cars/subway-fares-around-the-world.html http://www.treehugger.com/cars/subway-fares-around-the-world...

lucaspiller 14y ago
In London the Crossrail project (started 2005, due to open 2019, estimate £16b / $26b) is going from the East to West right through the middle of the city. Tottenham Court Road station (and many of the buildings surrounding it) are practically being rebuild. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossrail http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossrail
DannyBee 14y ago
Since these numbers were published in 2009, D.C.'s metro has raised fares ~80-100%. Mainly due to construction costs and ridiculous maintenance costs for the stations, like many millions to repair escalators that break every year
burnsbothends 14y ago
I disagree. Pittsburgh, for example, is worse than all those listed. $3.25-$4.50. And much of it is above ground, in residential areas. Only including major metros leaves out a large part of the picture- across the US, transit is VERY cost prohibitive.
- yxhuvud 14y ago
  Well, it is cheap to build above ground, but there is also a lot more maintenance.
vidarh 14y ago
At least for London, that list is very wrong. The most expensive single zone journey on Oyster is 2 GBP, or $3.20 at current exchange rates.
- lifeisstillgood 14y ago
  Hate to be pedantic about it but the oyster is a discount card (that everyone but tourists uses) - a single is really about 4 quid all zones
  - Evbn 14y ago
    The NYC price is for the discounted MetroCard as well.
  - Lockyy 14y ago
    Indeed, £2 seemed extremely low, especially considering a return ticket along the liverpool -> wirral line in the north is >£3.50
    - NickPollard 14y ago
      The £2 he mentioned is a single, so a return would be £4 (there are no returns on the underground, only singles and all-day passes) Regarding Oyster vs. paper tickets, I believe the non-Oyster prices are deliberately inflated to coerce people into using Oyster, as it is much better for the system if they do (especially on buses, where Oyster payments make stops so much quicker).
      - Ntrails 14y ago
        I've been writing the odd letter to ministers etc to get an Oyster style system implemented nationally. No ticket booking. No queueing. No hassle. Lowest/discounted prices. But of course the government won't countenance actually organising something that might be better for rail users, not to mention that as soon as it was mentioned the unions said it was just a way to reduce staffing (may or may not be a side effect) at stations and made moves to stop it.
deleted 14y ago
[deleted]
raldi 14y ago
Quoth the article: -------- Tunneling in any dense urban environment is an expensive proposition, but the $5 billion price tag for just the first two miles of the Second Avenue subway cannot be explained by engineering difficulties. The segment runs mainly beneath a single broad avenue, unimpeded by rivers, super-tall skyscraper foundations or other subway lines.
- bearmf 14y ago
  But it does run through one of the most densely populated areas in the world. See Manhattan Community Board 8 at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_most_densely_populated_country_subdivisions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_most_densely_popula...
jrockway 14y ago
The numbers don't make sense to me. The NYC subway costs $2.25. Is this figure weighted to account for reduced fare users? Similarly, the Muni in San Francisco is $2. BART is commuter rail, despite its name, so I don't think its fares should be counted as "subway" even though some of it is underground. Finally, Tokyo has a zoned system, ranging from 130 yen for short JR trips to more than 1000 yen for Tokyo<->Chiba trips. And none of this includes monthly passes, 10 ride discounts, or the MTA's 7% "bonus".
- settrans 14y ago
  The $1.96 figure is presumably the pre-2011 effective fare counting the 15% bonus, i.e. $2.25/1.15.
snogglethorpe 14y ago
> Yes the Second Ave Subway is expensive, but how many cities are building new subway lines underground through incredibly dense existing infrastructure? Tokyo for one. E.g. the very recently built Fukutoshin line, deep tunneled subway underneath some of the busiest areas of the city (the tunneling is complicated in part because it had to dodge myriad existing subway lines), including very elaborate and expensive stations, had a cost-per-km about 1/4 that of the SAS. The Fukutoshin line is also overbuilt in various ways because it will be interlined in the future with the Tokyu Toyoko line (an extremely high-ridership suburban line). A number of recently built subway lines in the Tokyo area had many problems, and were considered extremely expensive—but they were still much cheaper than the SAS... So it isn't "complexity," it isn't "density," and it isn't high wages (Japan is not a low-wage country!). It's not fares—Tokyo transit fares are roughly on par with NYC; they're distance-based, so sometimes higher, sometimes lower, but it works out to roughly the same thing. Arguably it isn't even unionization, as Japanese industry is heavily unionized, although of course Japanese unions are rather different than U.S. unions. One difference may be that Tokyo actually keeps building subway (and other rail) lines, and thus has has kept around the necessary in-house organization and knowledge for doing so, and has a wide selection of competent contractors available. U.S. cities typically have none of these things, and end up relying on consultants (and may not even have the competence or freedom to choose the consultants well), and a limited selection of contractors. [The NYC contracting situation is reportedly pretty dire, with a very few contractors having figured out how to game the system.]
shimon_e 14y ago
China is very densely built. They're building metros under all their major cities.

lucaspiller 14y ago

In London the Crossrail project (started 2005, due to open 2019, estimate £16b / $26b) is going from the East to West right through the middle of the city. Tottenham Court Road station (and many of the buildings surrounding it) are practically being rebuild. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossrail http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crossrail

DannyBee 14y ago

Since these numbers were published in 2009, D.C.'s metro has raised fares ~80-100%. Mainly due to construction costs and ridiculous maintenance costs for the stations, like many millions to repair escalators that break every year

burnsbothends 14y ago

I disagree. Pittsburgh, for example, is worse than all those listed. $3.25-$4.50. And much of it is above ground, in residential areas. Only including major metros leaves out a large part of the picture- across the US, transit is VERY cost prohibitive.

yxhuvud 14y ago
Well, it is cheap to build above ground, but there is also a lot more maintenance.

vidarh 14y ago

At least for London, that list is very wrong. The most expensive single zone journey on Oyster is 2 GBP, or $3.20 at current exchange rates.

lifeisstillgood 14y ago
Hate to be pedantic about it but the oyster is a discount card (that everyone but tourists uses) - a single is really about 4 quid all zones
- Evbn 14y ago
  The NYC price is for the discounted MetroCard as well.
- Lockyy 14y ago
  Indeed, £2 seemed extremely low, especially considering a return ticket along the liverpool -> wirral line in the north is >£3.50
  - NickPollard 14y ago
    The £2 he mentioned is a single, so a return would be £4 (there are no returns on the underground, only singles and all-day passes) Regarding Oyster vs. paper tickets, I believe the non-Oyster prices are deliberately inflated to coerce people into using Oyster, as it is much better for the system if they do (especially on buses, where Oyster payments make stops so much quicker).
    - Ntrails 14y ago
      I've been writing the odd letter to ministers etc to get an Oyster style system implemented nationally. No ticket booking. No queueing. No hassle. Lowest/discounted prices. But of course the government won't countenance actually organising something that might be better for rail users, not to mention that as soon as it was mentioned the unions said it was just a way to reduce staffing (may or may not be a side effect) at stations and made moves to stop it.

deleted 14y ago

[deleted]

raldi 14y ago

Quoth the article: -------- Tunneling in any dense urban environment is an expensive proposition, but the $5 billion price tag for just the first two miles of the Second Avenue subway cannot be explained by engineering difficulties. The segment runs mainly beneath a single broad avenue, unimpeded by rivers, super-tall skyscraper foundations or other subway lines.

bearmf 14y ago
But it does run through one of the most densely populated areas in the world. See Manhattan Community Board 8 at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_most_densely_populated_country_subdivisions http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_the_most_densely_popula...

jrockway 14y ago

The numbers don't make sense to me. The NYC subway costs $2.25. Is this figure weighted to account for reduced fare users? Similarly, the Muni in San Francisco is $2. BART is commuter rail, despite its name, so I don't think its fares should be counted as "subway" even though some of it is underground. Finally, Tokyo has a zoned system, ranging from 130 yen for short JR trips to more than 1000 yen for Tokyo<->Chiba trips. And none of this includes monthly passes, 10 ride discounts, or the MTA's 7% "bonus".

settrans 14y ago
The $1.96 figure is presumably the pre-2011 effective fare counting the 15% bonus, i.e. $2.25/1.15.

snogglethorpe 14y ago

> Yes the Second Ave Subway is expensive, but how many cities are building new subway lines underground through incredibly dense existing infrastructure? Tokyo for one. E.g. the very recently built Fukutoshin line, deep tunneled subway underneath some of the busiest areas of the city (the tunneling is complicated in part because it had to dodge myriad existing subway lines), including very elaborate and expensive stations, had a cost-per-km about 1/4 that of the SAS. The Fukutoshin line is also overbuilt in various ways because it will be interlined in the future with the Tokyu Toyoko line (an extremely high-ridership suburban line). A number of recently built subway lines in the Tokyo area had many problems, and were considered extremely expensive—but they were still much cheaper than the SAS... So it isn't "complexity," it isn't "density," and it isn't high wages (Japan is not a low-wage country!). It's not fares—Tokyo transit fares are roughly on par with NYC; they're distance-based, so sometimes higher, sometimes lower, but it works out to roughly the same thing. Arguably it isn't even unionization, as Japanese industry is heavily unionized, although of course Japanese unions are rather different than U.S. unions. One difference may be that Tokyo actually keeps building subway (and other rail) lines, and thus has has kept around the necessary in-house organization and knowledge for doing so, and has a wide selection of competent contractors available. U.S. cities typically have none of these things, and end up relying on consultants (and may not even have the competence or freedom to choose the consultants well), and a limited selection of contractors. [The NYC contracting situation is reportedly pretty dire, with a very few contractors having figured out how to game the system.]

shimon_e 14y ago

China is very densely built. They're building metros under all their major cities.