7 ms·

How Engineers Are Building a New Railroad Under New York City

35 points by Anechoic 13y ago

BasilAwad 13y ago
"To keep the soft ground from collapsing, engineers snaked coils of coolant through the soil to form a protective arch of frozen earth. That let crews work safely while traffic rumbled overhead. Cost: $1 million per foot."
- EvanKelly 13y ago
  I wonder if this is the cost of actually applying this technique, or also includes the cost of researching and testing the safety of this method prior to using it on this project.
  - Anechoic 13y ago
    It likely includes all of the preliminary engineering geotech, and environmental work that came before implementation. You can't just freeze the ground like that, there are a lot of potential adverse effects (ground) shifts being the biggest) that have to be accounted for and mitigated.
  - vkou 13y ago
    I interpreted that to be the cost of building a foot of tunnel, not the technique.
BasilAwad 13y ago
$8.24 billion for 7 miles of tunnel
- coldtea 13y ago
  What's the point of this? That you can do it cheaper? Under New York? With the necessary precautions and the same specs?
  - BasilAwad 13y ago
    amazement. sorry for the ambiguity.
- blackjack48 13y ago
  That's about standard for a deep-bore tunnel in the U.S. these days. The 1.7 mile long Central Subway in SF is $1.6b (without factoring in the inevitable cost overruns.)
jlarocco 13y ago
Seems a bit excessive just to shorten commute times for only 160000 people. Are there other benefits?
- w1ntermute 13y ago
  They will probably get a lot of new riders as well.
  - greenyoda 13y ago
    A good point. It might convince some people who currently drive into the city to take the train instead.
- vkou 13y ago
  Given that most of us spend... 1/3 of their waking time at work, I think it's safe to say that a commuter's time is worth ~1/3 of their average wage. 20 minutes saved in a round-trip, times 250 days a year, times 160,000 people is 800,000,000 man-minutes, or ~13,000,000 man-hours a year. With an average NYC income of $20/hour, and time being worth a third of hourly income... that's $87,000,000 of life saved, per year. At 8.4 billion dollars for the construction, that does look bleak. If you bump up the commuter's average wage to ~$50/hour, though, we'd be looking at ~220,000,000 of life saved, per year. However, that's the lower bound on the public benefit of the project. Some of the costs will be paid through user fees. Others through economic development among the areas served by the line. As far as ditch-digging projects go, this one's probably on par for public ROI. If we did nothing but count coppers, America would never have built the Interstates.
  - coldtea 13y ago
    >With an average NYC income of $20/hour, that's $66,000,000 of life saved, per year. If you only factor in salary. How about the improvement in their quality of life? It's not like everything has to be justified by it's effects on businesses.
    - 13y ago
Rygu 13y ago
We have a similar subway project going here in Amsterdam called the North-South line. It's more than 8 years late, went over its budget multiple times, and is still not finished. City is completing it anyway and hopes it will start making money in ~3013. Also the line's route is questionably useful to the locals. Somewhere someone is filling his pockets with an evil grin.
- warfangle 13y ago
  We have a similar subway project (remember, the project referenced in the OP is a light rail project). It's more than 70 years late, went over its budget multiple times, and is still not finished. Unfortunately, the line's route is definitely useful to the locals. It's called the 2nd avenue line :/
samscully 13y ago
I worked in a tunnel crew in the summer holidays during my degree. It was interesting to see the cultural similarities and differences when I moved into programming. It is probably one of the few industries (at least in the UK) where the majority of the power is in the hands of the workers and not the managers. They were paid significantly more than the managers and broadly speaking the job went ahead on their schedule. Unlike in programming a mistake could cost one of your coworkers their life, which seemed to have something to do with the strong camaraderie, but did also lead to a deep suspicion of unproven outsiders (like myself for the first few weeks I worked there). I prefer to be able to experiment with things and I was a bit too much of a delicate flower to be happy in that environment. I wonder how much the culture in different industries arises from people with certain personalities self selecting into or out of them, and how much is the actual nature of the work changing you.
idont 13y ago
I have mixed feelings... does the US know that many big cities in developping countries have better subways (automated, brand new, clean, without pee smell, ?). Officials should at least be motivated to fix the minimum: like digital display in wagons displaying the right stations... ;)
- coldtea 13y ago
  >I have mixed feelings... does the US know that many big cities in developping countries have better subways (automated, brand new, clean, without pee smell, ?). Yes, but those countries also believe in public works.
  - mcnees287 13y ago
    We believe in defense.
    - muench 13y ago
      We believe the best defense is a good offense. (fixed that for you!)
      - mcnees287 13y ago
        That's defense; it's purely semantics.
        coldtea 13y ago
        Semantics plus dead people plus losing the moral high ground.
    - coldtea 13y ago
      You mean in offence and grabbing other countries resources at gun point. True. But it's beside the point. It's not like you are a nation of "spartans" that spend all they money in "defence" and live in relative poorness. More like a nation of couch potatoes, which has relegated their defence to paid specialists (like in feudal times), and which spends more on pet food, Netflix and similar BS than they do in public works and infrastructure. Especially in areas where poor and/or black are living.
kposehn 13y ago
Ok, NYC transit has something I need to point out that freaking owns: Express trains. All across the US, municipalities keep building annoying light-rail systems and basic commuter lines. They have one class of train: stop everywhere and waste your time. What NYC has that I love is express trains on almost every line. Want to go from Penn Station straight to JFK airport? Easy. Want to go from uptown right down to Wall St.? There's a train for that. Most cities - and nations - could learn a lot from NYC being able to handle such a diverse set of schedules. Now if they could only do something about the rats...
- rayiner 13y ago
  What's amazing is that someone had the foresight to build the express lines a century ago. Honestly, every time I walk through GCT I'm proud to be a human and an engineer.
  - kposehn 13y ago
    GCT is indeed a wonder to behold.
  - T-hawk 13y ago
    The foresight came from the invisible hand of capitalism. Remember the NYC subway started as two competing private companies. They each strived to offer the best service to compete with each other, which included building tracks for express service. By contrast, modern-day government civil works projects serve political purposes first and foremost, with quality of service coming in somewhere lower on the list of considerations. Everybody's going to vote for a politician who brings transit to their neighborhood or business; nobody's going to flip that vote because the trains are slow.
    - rayiner 13y ago
      No, the foresight came from the Board of Rapid Transit Railroad Commissioners, organized pursuant to statute, which specified the route and the design of the IRT Subway (what is now the 1/2/3 and 4/5/6) and bid out the contracts for its construction and operation. The construction was paid for by the city, which issued bonds to finance the construction. The Manhattan BRT lines were also built under such contracts. The lines were leased out to the IRT and the BRT (both of which were in large part formed for the purpose of executing these contracts) for operation at a contractually fixed fare. So not quite the invisible hand. Today we'd call it a public private partnership, if we were feeling charitable, or maybe government-sponsored duopoly if we weren't. The closest modern analogy is probably the U.S. defense sector. The BRT and IRT were "competing" in the same way that Lockheed and Boeing "compete." The government figures out what to build, while private companies figure out how to build it, and the government foots the bill. I personally think it's an incredibly effective structure, but then again I think there is a place for oligopolies that are quasi-extensions of the government.
fnazeeri 13y ago
My father-in-law is working on this project. I've been having conversations about this for a long time...great to see it in the press...
greenyoda 13y ago
More details here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Side_Access https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Side_Access

35 points by Anechoic 13y ago

"To keep the soft ground from collapsing, engineers snaked coils of coolant through the soil to form a protective arch of frozen earth. That let crews work safely while traffic rumbled overhead. Cost: $1 million per foot."

EvanKelly 13y ago
I wonder if this is the cost of actually applying this technique, or also includes the cost of researching and testing the safety of this method prior to using it on this project.
- Anechoic 13y ago
  It likely includes all of the preliminary engineering geotech, and environmental work that came before implementation. You can't just freeze the ground like that, there are a lot of potential adverse effects (ground) shifts being the biggest) that have to be accounted for and mitigated.
- vkou 13y ago
  I interpreted that to be the cost of building a foot of tunnel, not the technique.

BasilAwad 13y ago

$8.24 billion for 7 miles of tunnel

coldtea 13y ago
What's the point of this? That you can do it cheaper? Under New York? With the necessary precautions and the same specs?
- BasilAwad 13y ago
  amazement. sorry for the ambiguity.
blackjack48 13y ago
That's about standard for a deep-bore tunnel in the U.S. these days. The 1.7 mile long Central Subway in SF is $1.6b (without factoring in the inevitable cost overruns.)

jlarocco 13y ago

Seems a bit excessive just to shorten commute times for only 160000 people. Are there other benefits?

w1ntermute 13y ago
They will probably get a lot of new riders as well.
- greenyoda 13y ago
  A good point. It might convince some people who currently drive into the city to take the train instead.
vkou 13y ago
Given that most of us spend... 1/3 of their waking time at work, I think it's safe to say that a commuter's time is worth ~1/3 of their average wage. 20 minutes saved in a round-trip, times 250 days a year, times 160,000 people is 800,000,000 man-minutes, or ~13,000,000 man-hours a year. With an average NYC income of $20/hour, and time being worth a third of hourly income... that's $87,000,000 of life saved, per year. At 8.4 billion dollars for the construction, that does look bleak. If you bump up the commuter's average wage to ~$50/hour, though, we'd be looking at ~220,000,000 of life saved, per year. However, that's the lower bound on the public benefit of the project. Some of the costs will be paid through user fees. Others through economic development among the areas served by the line. As far as ditch-digging projects go, this one's probably on par for public ROI. If we did nothing but count coppers, America would never have built the Interstates.
- coldtea 13y ago
  >With an average NYC income of $20/hour, that's $66,000,000 of life saved, per year. If you only factor in salary. How about the improvement in their quality of life? It's not like everything has to be justified by it's effects on businesses.
  - 13y ago

Rygu 13y ago

We have a similar subway project going here in Amsterdam called the North-South line. It's more than 8 years late, went over its budget multiple times, and is still not finished. City is completing it anyway and hopes it will start making money in ~3013. Also the line's route is questionably useful to the locals. Somewhere someone is filling his pockets with an evil grin.

warfangle 13y ago
We have a similar subway project (remember, the project referenced in the OP is a light rail project). It's more than 70 years late, went over its budget multiple times, and is still not finished. Unfortunately, the line's route is definitely useful to the locals. It's called the 2nd avenue line :/

samscully 13y ago

I worked in a tunnel crew in the summer holidays during my degree. It was interesting to see the cultural similarities and differences when I moved into programming. It is probably one of the few industries (at least in the UK) where the majority of the power is in the hands of the workers and not the managers. They were paid significantly more than the managers and broadly speaking the job went ahead on their schedule. Unlike in programming a mistake could cost one of your coworkers their life, which seemed to have something to do with the strong camaraderie, but did also lead to a deep suspicion of unproven outsiders (like myself for the first few weeks I worked there). I prefer to be able to experiment with things and I was a bit too much of a delicate flower to be happy in that environment. I wonder how much the culture in different industries arises from people with certain personalities self selecting into or out of them, and how much is the actual nature of the work changing you.

idont 13y ago

I have mixed feelings... does the US know that many big cities in developping countries have better subways (automated, brand new, clean, without pee smell, ?). Officials should at least be motivated to fix the minimum: like digital display in wagons displaying the right stations... ;)

coldtea 13y ago
>I have mixed feelings... does the US know that many big cities in developping countries have better subways (automated, brand new, clean, without pee smell, ?). Yes, but those countries also believe in public works.
- mcnees287 13y ago
  We believe in defense.
  - muench 13y ago
    We believe the best defense is a good offense. (fixed that for you!)
    - mcnees287 13y ago
      That's defense; it's purely semantics.
      - coldtea 13y ago
        Semantics plus dead people plus losing the moral high ground.
  - coldtea 13y ago
    You mean in offence and grabbing other countries resources at gun point. True. But it's beside the point. It's not like you are a nation of "spartans" that spend all they money in "defence" and live in relative poorness. More like a nation of couch potatoes, which has relegated their defence to paid specialists (like in feudal times), and which spends more on pet food, Netflix and similar BS than they do in public works and infrastructure. Especially in areas where poor and/or black are living.

kposehn 13y ago

Ok, NYC transit has something I need to point out that freaking owns: Express trains. All across the US, municipalities keep building annoying light-rail systems and basic commuter lines. They have one class of train: stop everywhere and waste your time. What NYC has that I love is express trains on almost every line. Want to go from Penn Station straight to JFK airport? Easy. Want to go from uptown right down to Wall St.? There's a train for that. Most cities - and nations - could learn a lot from NYC being able to handle such a diverse set of schedules. Now if they could only do something about the rats...

rayiner 13y ago
What's amazing is that someone had the foresight to build the express lines a century ago. Honestly, every time I walk through GCT I'm proud to be a human and an engineer.
- kposehn 13y ago
  GCT is indeed a wonder to behold.
- T-hawk 13y ago
  The foresight came from the invisible hand of capitalism. Remember the NYC subway started as two competing private companies. They each strived to offer the best service to compete with each other, which included building tracks for express service. By contrast, modern-day government civil works projects serve political purposes first and foremost, with quality of service coming in somewhere lower on the list of considerations. Everybody's going to vote for a politician who brings transit to their neighborhood or business; nobody's going to flip that vote because the trains are slow.
  - rayiner 13y ago
    No, the foresight came from the Board of Rapid Transit Railroad Commissioners, organized pursuant to statute, which specified the route and the design of the IRT Subway (what is now the 1/2/3 and 4/5/6) and bid out the contracts for its construction and operation. The construction was paid for by the city, which issued bonds to finance the construction. The Manhattan BRT lines were also built under such contracts. The lines were leased out to the IRT and the BRT (both of which were in large part formed for the purpose of executing these contracts) for operation at a contractually fixed fare. So not quite the invisible hand. Today we'd call it a public private partnership, if we were feeling charitable, or maybe government-sponsored duopoly if we weren't. The closest modern analogy is probably the U.S. defense sector. The BRT and IRT were "competing" in the same way that Lockheed and Boeing "compete." The government figures out what to build, while private companies figure out how to build it, and the government foots the bill. I personally think it's an incredibly effective structure, but then again I think there is a place for oligopolies that are quasi-extensions of the government.

fnazeeri 13y ago

My father-in-law is working on this project. I've been having conversations about this for a long time...great to see it in the press...

greenyoda 13y ago

More details here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Side_Access https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_Side_Access