If we lowered transit construction costs, we could build more transit
January 28, 2016 7:14 PM Subscribe
US transit projects are way more expensive than those in similar countries. Addressing the reasons why could help us build more transit.
The bigger problem, in California at least, is that we can't afford to operate transit. We've got the buses. But they run until 8 pm instead of all night because we can't pay the drivers.
posted by slidell at 7:29 PM on January 28, 2016 [17 favorites]
posted by slidell at 7:29 PM on January 28, 2016 [17 favorites]
Well Google's going to fix that.
posted by sammyo at 7:33 PM on January 28, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by sammyo at 7:33 PM on January 28, 2016 [1 favorite]
Talk to a crew doing road maintenance or repair.
That doesn't seem especially relevant to an article about the construction costs of tunneled subways.
posted by ripley_ at 7:35 PM on January 28, 2016 [15 favorites]
That doesn't seem especially relevant to an article about the construction costs of tunneled subways.
posted by ripley_ at 7:35 PM on January 28, 2016 [15 favorites]
It is indicative of a system that is not subject to rational market forces.
posted by yesster at 7:37 PM on January 28, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by yesster at 7:37 PM on January 28, 2016 [3 favorites]
One possibility they left out is collusion amoung those bidding on the contracts. It is the only thing that makes sense to me. We should bring back the CCC and manage the labor directly instead of using big companies.
posted by humanfont at 7:38 PM on January 28, 2016 [20 favorites]
posted by humanfont at 7:38 PM on January 28, 2016 [20 favorites]
Yesster--
Here in Texas, at least, TXDoT exists essentially as a corporate-welfare agency for in-state construction firms. Which creates a different set of perverse incentives, but at least we don't have that problem.
posted by adamrice at 7:38 PM on January 28, 2016 [6 favorites]
Here in Texas, at least, TXDoT exists essentially as a corporate-welfare agency for in-state construction firms. Which creates a different set of perverse incentives, but at least we don't have that problem.
posted by adamrice at 7:38 PM on January 28, 2016 [6 favorites]
There is a lot that is missing here. For example, is it just transit that is expensive, or do other big infrastructure projects cost more in the US as well? This is more like the germ of a longer article, rather than a serious attempt to address the issue.
This can't be "market efficient" in any reasonable sense.
Mobilization of crew and equipment are not the biggest components of most construction projects (and even less so if you are renting equipment locally, rather than hauling your own). Everyone will be buying materials locally because short haul distances are necessary for those. Companies that specialize in road/highway projects will often keep their crews moving from project to project around the country; their efficiencies come from completing projects quickly and never having down time between projects. Margins are tight because of the intense competition, so being efficient and constantly working is the only way to make money. Hiring local is great pork but not necessarily the cheap option.
Highway projects are easily broken into a lot of small contracts or sections that can be completed by smaller or midsized local or regional companies because everything is so standardized (and hence why road projects are such great political patronage machines), but there are a much smaller number of companies that can take on huge civil infrastructure projects like subways. That might not automatically drive up costs, but it would take a different contracting and design approach to control costs than for smaller projects.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:44 PM on January 28, 2016 [26 favorites]
This can't be "market efficient" in any reasonable sense.
Mobilization of crew and equipment are not the biggest components of most construction projects (and even less so if you are renting equipment locally, rather than hauling your own). Everyone will be buying materials locally because short haul distances are necessary for those. Companies that specialize in road/highway projects will often keep their crews moving from project to project around the country; their efficiencies come from completing projects quickly and never having down time between projects. Margins are tight because of the intense competition, so being efficient and constantly working is the only way to make money. Hiring local is great pork but not necessarily the cheap option.
Highway projects are easily broken into a lot of small contracts or sections that can be completed by smaller or midsized local or regional companies because everything is so standardized (and hence why road projects are such great political patronage machines), but there are a much smaller number of companies that can take on huge civil infrastructure projects like subways. That might not automatically drive up costs, but it would take a different contracting and design approach to control costs than for smaller projects.
posted by Dip Flash at 7:44 PM on January 28, 2016 [26 favorites]
OK. Thank you. What you said makes sense to me.
posted by yesster at 7:47 PM on January 28, 2016 [3 favorites]
posted by yesster at 7:47 PM on January 28, 2016 [3 favorites]
A lot of it has to be economies of scale. Every time there's a train project here, hundreds of millions of dollars goes to stuff like designing control systems, modifying the cars to meet special requirements, building maintenance facilities, training personnel, and other stuff that's basically fixed-cost. Then none of the contractors have any familiarity with building train lines, since there are so few out there, so it takes them forever.
Solution: maybe several cities could get together and design their transit projects as a group? Bid out 5 projects in 5 cities at once -- constructed to similar standards by the same crew, around the same time.
posted by miyabo at 7:49 PM on January 28, 2016 [9 favorites]
Solution: maybe several cities could get together and design their transit projects as a group? Bid out 5 projects in 5 cities at once -- constructed to similar standards by the same crew, around the same time.
posted by miyabo at 7:49 PM on January 28, 2016 [9 favorites]
The American with Disabilities Act also can increase costs. Putting a lift in every station (just one example) can drive up the cost of a line by millions. It isn't just the lift alone- you would need to have proper grading, which may mean the station takes up more space, and so on.
posted by Monday at 7:56 PM on January 28, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by Monday at 7:56 PM on January 28, 2016 [1 favorite]
Here is a more substantive post on transportation costs too much, 39 hypotheses and counting . Disclaimer, I know the author.
posted by jadepearl at 7:59 PM on January 28, 2016 [9 favorites]
posted by jadepearl at 7:59 PM on January 28, 2016 [9 favorites]
> The American with Disabilities Act also can increase costs. Putting a lift in every station (just one example) can drive up the cost of a line by millions.
While it is true those other countries don't have an American with Disabilities Act, every mass transit system I've used in the last six countries I've been to all had handicap accessible services and access. Even former East Berlin raised subway stations had elevators on them.
posted by mrzarquon at 8:02 PM on January 28, 2016 [31 favorites]
While it is true those other countries don't have an American with Disabilities Act, every mass transit system I've used in the last six countries I've been to all had handicap accessible services and access. Even former East Berlin raised subway stations had elevators on them.
posted by mrzarquon at 8:02 PM on January 28, 2016 [31 favorites]
ALso, change the way bidding is done.
First bid out the contract for designing a new project. Make it the designer's duty to make the construction bid attractive to multiple bidders.
posted by ocschwar at 8:04 PM on January 28, 2016 [1 favorite]
First bid out the contract for designing a new project. Make it the designer's duty to make the construction bid attractive to multiple bidders.
posted by ocschwar at 8:04 PM on January 28, 2016 [1 favorite]
Putting a lift in every station (just one example)
Every goddamn bus I've ridden upon since the very early '90s can KNEEL - air is let out of its suspension until you can wheel onto a ramp, then the suspension goes up, re-inflated as the ramp is lifted to the passenger level.
The bold new thing that is actually more than a half decade old are busses with bike-racks up front. Just... bike your way to your job or court appointment or doctor! In February. In New England.
posted by Slap*Happy at 8:08 PM on January 28, 2016 [4 favorites]
Every goddamn bus I've ridden upon since the very early '90s can KNEEL - air is let out of its suspension until you can wheel onto a ramp, then the suspension goes up, re-inflated as the ramp is lifted to the passenger level.
The bold new thing that is actually more than a half decade old are busses with bike-racks up front. Just... bike your way to your job or court appointment or doctor! In February. In New England.
posted by Slap*Happy at 8:08 PM on January 28, 2016 [4 favorites]
Is this where we dream of turning all the self-driving car BS into self-driving boring machines instead?
posted by dame at 8:13 PM on January 28, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by dame at 8:13 PM on January 28, 2016 [1 favorite]
First bid out the contract for designing a new project. Make it the designer's duty to make the construction bid attractive to multiple bidders.
I've never been involved in a big civil project and probably never will, but from the outside those projects look like perfect cases for design/build contracts, rather than the traditional separated design and build contracts. Having an integrated design and construction team should, if managed correctly, avoid expensive dead-ends and redesigns, but those contracts need to be structured carefully to incentivize savings rather than cost overruns.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:13 PM on January 28, 2016 [6 favorites]
I've never been involved in a big civil project and probably never will, but from the outside those projects look like perfect cases for design/build contracts, rather than the traditional separated design and build contracts. Having an integrated design and construction team should, if managed correctly, avoid expensive dead-ends and redesigns, but those contracts need to be structured carefully to incentivize savings rather than cost overruns.
posted by Dip Flash at 8:13 PM on January 28, 2016 [6 favorites]
Is this where we dream of turning all the self-driving car BS into self-driving boring machines instead?
A Bertha in every pot!
posted by mwhybark at 8:21 PM on January 28, 2016 [9 favorites]
A Bertha in every pot!
posted by mwhybark at 8:21 PM on January 28, 2016 [9 favorites]
The problem here in Toronto, and why the desperately needed Downtown Relief Line is going to stay a pipe dream for a long time to come, is that every incoming mayor creates a new transit plan. Miller had one, Ford hated it and came up with something ridiculous, Tory trashed that and there's another one. In nine years, three new major plans. It's beyond ridiculous, and we are already past the point of needing shovels in the ground to avert a crisis a decade from now.
And yeah, for some stupid reason everyone custom designs their own system. Buy some damn thing off the shelf that is already proven to work! With our new streetcars they had to replace bits of track all over the city because they have a different turning radius, inflating the cost of the project. Build to the existing standard, you twits.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:26 PM on January 28, 2016 [5 favorites]
And yeah, for some stupid reason everyone custom designs their own system. Buy some damn thing off the shelf that is already proven to work! With our new streetcars they had to replace bits of track all over the city because they have a different turning radius, inflating the cost of the project. Build to the existing standard, you twits.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:26 PM on January 28, 2016 [5 favorites]
(And of course Bombardier is way behind on delivery of said streetcars)
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:30 PM on January 28, 2016
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 8:30 PM on January 28, 2016
I wonder if there are consequential demographic differences between the workers who build these kinds of things in the US vs. elsewhere in the world.
posted by clockzero at 8:38 PM on January 28, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by clockzero at 8:38 PM on January 28, 2016 [1 favorite]
I agree that putting bike racks on busses only during the month of February is silly. We can lease those racks for December and January as well at only a small additional cost!
posted by fitnr at 8:44 PM on January 28, 2016 [5 favorites]
posted by fitnr at 8:44 PM on January 28, 2016 [5 favorites]
One thing I've seen in working on the planning side with US government agencies is the lack of trust in government; this is basically America's founding principle, but it means that a vast amount of time and effort is put into paperwork to make sure that no money is wasted; it's remarkable. (The environmental impact study for bike lanes in San Francisco is a classic.)
It's cited in the article, but Alon Levy has written some great stuff on transit infrastructure costs at his blog. One of the best sayings I've heard in the field I picked up from Levy's blog; the German saying "Organization before Electronics before Concrete".
As an example, true bus rapid transit - with 100% separated and prioritized guideways, level platforms, off-vehicle payment and the works - is a reasonable solution to huge numbers of transit problems - maybe not the most extreme examples in the article of subway expansion in Manhattan, or the Central Subway in SF, or another Rosslyn station and Potomac crossing, but for core transit in all but about 10 big cities and for suburban feeders and radial transit in the rest. It's a fraction of the The fundamental reason it doesn't get built is that it requires turning over a road from cars to buses, and that's politically suicide anywhere.
And yeah, for some stupid reason everyone custom designs their own system. Buy some damn thing off the shelf that is already proven to work! With our new streetcars they had to replace bits of track all over the city because they have a different turning radius, inflating the cost of the project. Build to the existing standard, you twits.
"Existing standard" and "Toronto streetcars" are diametric opposites; the gauge of the track in Toronto is different from literally any other place in the world; it's not even listed amongst the dozens of existing gauges on Wikipedia's article.
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 9:08 PM on January 28, 2016 [11 favorites]
It's cited in the article, but Alon Levy has written some great stuff on transit infrastructure costs at his blog. One of the best sayings I've heard in the field I picked up from Levy's blog; the German saying "Organization before Electronics before Concrete".
As an example, true bus rapid transit - with 100% separated and prioritized guideways, level platforms, off-vehicle payment and the works - is a reasonable solution to huge numbers of transit problems - maybe not the most extreme examples in the article of subway expansion in Manhattan, or the Central Subway in SF, or another Rosslyn station and Potomac crossing, but for core transit in all but about 10 big cities and for suburban feeders and radial transit in the rest. It's a fraction of the The fundamental reason it doesn't get built is that it requires turning over a road from cars to buses, and that's politically suicide anywhere.
And yeah, for some stupid reason everyone custom designs their own system. Buy some damn thing off the shelf that is already proven to work! With our new streetcars they had to replace bits of track all over the city because they have a different turning radius, inflating the cost of the project. Build to the existing standard, you twits.
"Existing standard" and "Toronto streetcars" are diametric opposites; the gauge of the track in Toronto is different from literally any other place in the world; it's not even listed amongst the dozens of existing gauges on Wikipedia's article.
posted by Homeboy Trouble at 9:08 PM on January 28, 2016 [11 favorites]
I meant existing standard as in the infrastructure that is already in place, for which Bombardier has been building streetcars for decades. Sorry for being unclear.
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 9:10 PM on January 28, 2016
posted by feckless fecal fear mongering at 9:10 PM on January 28, 2016
The bold new thing that is actually more than a half decade old are busses with bike-racks up front. Just... bike your way to your job or court appointment or doctor! In February. In New England.
They do in Chicago. I don't know *why* they do, but they do. And, of course, between March and October, there are a lot more.
US transit projects are way more expensive than those in similar countries. Addressing the reasons why could help us build more transit.
God this is easy.
1) Labor costs. Part of this is by not having real socialized medicine and only half-assed socialized retirement, that means the workers need to be paid more. Or enslaved, which is a popular option in a few countries with massive "public" projects. Lord, they're trying to make everyone work for slave wages, but construction tends to have strong unions who demand fair pay and working conditions.
2) Land costs. The places that need transit the most are the places that are already built out. The reason the California HCR is doomed is that land costs are going to force it to run up the east side of California -- where nobody lives. And in NYC? Nothing is more expensive than land.
3) NIMBY. As long as people are mad that "those people" could get on a train and come anywhere near them, they will fight tooth and nail. NOTHING drives the cost up like fighting the ninetieth lawsuit (or in the case of nuclear plants, 9000th.) In places like Europe, people don't mind the trains so they don't fight them tooth and nail. In places like China, you move, or they move you, or they kill you.
4) You work for many masters here. You have the Federal Government, the State Government, the County Governments and the City Governments that your lines pass though. Each and every one of them has rules and regulations. You have to meet all of them. Far worse, you then have to prove that you met all of them, especially the contradictory ones.*
So. If we just acted like, oh, China or Qatar, the construction costs would plummet. If we acted like, say, England and had one set of rules? That would be huge. And, to be blunt, if we *quite literally* killed everyone who said "not in my back yard" the costs would plummet. But I'm not actually interesting in living in a society that enslaves workers and empties out neighborhoods at a whim, doubly so by simply killing anybody who disagrees too loudly, even for something as worthy as better public transit.
Call me picky.
Oh, it isn't cheap everywhere -- Crossrail in London? 1 billion US per kilometer of track. The only reason its affordable at all is they're not building that much track, but building a long set of tunnels under a 2000 year old city with quite a few underground transit lines already, ones you DARE NOT break for an extended period of time? That's NP hard.
* I agree with the GOP in one thing. We have too much government. I disagree, however, on the answer. The answer is not to get rid of the Federal Government, the answer is to get rid of the City, County and State Governments being able to change the rules at will and have *one* set of rules that applies everywhere in the nation. The feds are easy to work with -- there's only one federal government. You want high speed rail between Minneapolis/Chicago/Indianapolis/Cincinnati? You now have four state, dozens of county, and hundreds of municipal governments in play, and they're all going to fuck with you in different ways. Indeed, get rid of the feds and it may be impossible to build that line if one state says "You can't use fossil fuel engines or in cab signals" and the next saying "you cannot use electric engines and must use in cab signals."
Commerce Clause: It's the law *AND* it's a good idea!
posted by eriko at 9:28 PM on January 28, 2016 [35 favorites]
They do in Chicago. I don't know *why* they do, but they do. And, of course, between March and October, there are a lot more.
US transit projects are way more expensive than those in similar countries. Addressing the reasons why could help us build more transit.
God this is easy.
1) Labor costs. Part of this is by not having real socialized medicine and only half-assed socialized retirement, that means the workers need to be paid more. Or enslaved, which is a popular option in a few countries with massive "public" projects. Lord, they're trying to make everyone work for slave wages, but construction tends to have strong unions who demand fair pay and working conditions.
2) Land costs. The places that need transit the most are the places that are already built out. The reason the California HCR is doomed is that land costs are going to force it to run up the east side of California -- where nobody lives. And in NYC? Nothing is more expensive than land.
3) NIMBY. As long as people are mad that "those people" could get on a train and come anywhere near them, they will fight tooth and nail. NOTHING drives the cost up like fighting the ninetieth lawsuit (or in the case of nuclear plants, 9000th.) In places like Europe, people don't mind the trains so they don't fight them tooth and nail. In places like China, you move, or they move you, or they kill you.
4) You work for many masters here. You have the Federal Government, the State Government, the County Governments and the City Governments that your lines pass though. Each and every one of them has rules and regulations. You have to meet all of them. Far worse, you then have to prove that you met all of them, especially the contradictory ones.*
So. If we just acted like, oh, China or Qatar, the construction costs would plummet. If we acted like, say, England and had one set of rules? That would be huge. And, to be blunt, if we *quite literally* killed everyone who said "not in my back yard" the costs would plummet. But I'm not actually interesting in living in a society that enslaves workers and empties out neighborhoods at a whim, doubly so by simply killing anybody who disagrees too loudly, even for something as worthy as better public transit.
Call me picky.
Oh, it isn't cheap everywhere -- Crossrail in London? 1 billion US per kilometer of track. The only reason its affordable at all is they're not building that much track, but building a long set of tunnels under a 2000 year old city with quite a few underground transit lines already, ones you DARE NOT break for an extended period of time? That's NP hard.
* I agree with the GOP in one thing. We have too much government. I disagree, however, on the answer. The answer is not to get rid of the Federal Government, the answer is to get rid of the City, County and State Governments being able to change the rules at will and have *one* set of rules that applies everywhere in the nation. The feds are easy to work with -- there's only one federal government. You want high speed rail between Minneapolis/Chicago/Indianapolis/Cincinnati? You now have four state, dozens of county, and hundreds of municipal governments in play, and they're all going to fuck with you in different ways. Indeed, get rid of the feds and it may be impossible to build that line if one state says "You can't use fossil fuel engines or in cab signals" and the next saying "you cannot use electric engines and must use in cab signals."
Commerce Clause: It's the law *AND* it's a good idea!
posted by eriko at 9:28 PM on January 28, 2016 [35 favorites]
Here in Texas, at least, TXDoT exists essentially as a corporate-welfare agency for in-state construction firms.
When we visited Austin a few years ago, one of the things we noted about the recently constructed highways and overpasses was how Goddamned high they were. Soaring. At first we thought it was so the big Texas Cowboy hats would have enough headroom when their wearers drove beneath. Then we realized it was probably just graft for the engineers and the aggregate companies.
posted by notyou at 9:33 PM on January 28, 2016 [1 favorite]
When we visited Austin a few years ago, one of the things we noted about the recently constructed highways and overpasses was how Goddamned high they were. Soaring. At first we thought it was so the big Texas Cowboy hats would have enough headroom when their wearers drove beneath. Then we realized it was probably just graft for the engineers and the aggregate companies.
posted by notyou at 9:33 PM on January 28, 2016 [1 favorite]
The fundamental reason it doesn't get built is that it requires turning over a road from cars to buses, and that's politically suicide anywhere.
Or you get what we've had here in MN a few times now... Suburbs demand their fair share of transit funding from the core cities. Bus rapid transit turns out to be the most economical alternative. But of course they need to build a whole new freeway to make it fast, right? And once the road is already there, why not let cars on it? About 3 years later the road is completely jammed with car traffic and the buses (which are empty) quietly stop running. The entire cost of the freeway gets billed to the transit agency budget though. This has happened twice so far (I-394 and the Cedar Avenue Transit project) and is staged to happen again (Gold Line).
Trains may be more expensive initially, but at least they aren't subject to this kind of bait-and-switch.
posted by miyabo at 9:37 PM on January 28, 2016 [17 favorites]
Or you get what we've had here in MN a few times now... Suburbs demand their fair share of transit funding from the core cities. Bus rapid transit turns out to be the most economical alternative. But of course they need to build a whole new freeway to make it fast, right? And once the road is already there, why not let cars on it? About 3 years later the road is completely jammed with car traffic and the buses (which are empty) quietly stop running. The entire cost of the freeway gets billed to the transit agency budget though. This has happened twice so far (I-394 and the Cedar Avenue Transit project) and is staged to happen again (Gold Line).
Trains may be more expensive initially, but at least they aren't subject to this kind of bait-and-switch.
posted by miyabo at 9:37 PM on January 28, 2016 [17 favorites]
transit rage
posted by moink at 10:03 PM on January 28, 2016 [4 favorites]
posted by moink at 10:03 PM on January 28, 2016 [4 favorites]
For those of you who love transit... and think about it all the time... and sometimes experience transit rage at your local DoT's bad choices... Consider designing your own transport systems with OpenTTD [www] [screenshot]. It's a real pleasure.
posted by moink at 10:16 PM on January 28, 2016 [7 favorites]
posted by moink at 10:16 PM on January 28, 2016 [7 favorites]
Graft and corruption by contractors is the first reason that springs to mind. The history of the last two or three decades has been private industry enriching itself at the expense of everyone else by any means necessary.
If billions have vanished from the public purse in unaccountable transit construction costs, private industry would be the first place to look - like the couple of trillion that vanished for the Iraq War and the couple of trillion that vanished from the pockets of individuals during the global financial crisis.
There's very little detailed oversight of government spending in the US - we're basically relying on contractors' honesty and respect for government to prevent them from robbing the system blind, and it's been decades since anyone actually respected government.
Most people forget or never knew that on September 10, 2001, Rumsfeld announced that $2.3 trillion dollars in Pentagon spending were unaccounted for.
It seems extremely likely that there has been even less oversight since then - not to mention nearly two-thirds of a trillion dollars spent on Homeland Security as fast as humanly possible.
The $12 billion dollars sent to Iraq as bricks of $100 bills that people played football with (most of which you will not be surprised to learn was unaccounted for) is I believe just the tip of the iceberg.
Note that criminal activity is not mentioned even as a hypothetical possibility in the article - the article ends up just shrugging and saying, "No idea". But a fish does not notice water...
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 10:37 PM on January 28, 2016 [8 favorites]
If billions have vanished from the public purse in unaccountable transit construction costs, private industry would be the first place to look - like the couple of trillion that vanished for the Iraq War and the couple of trillion that vanished from the pockets of individuals during the global financial crisis.
There's very little detailed oversight of government spending in the US - we're basically relying on contractors' honesty and respect for government to prevent them from robbing the system blind, and it's been decades since anyone actually respected government.
Most people forget or never knew that on September 10, 2001, Rumsfeld announced that $2.3 trillion dollars in Pentagon spending were unaccounted for.
It seems extremely likely that there has been even less oversight since then - not to mention nearly two-thirds of a trillion dollars spent on Homeland Security as fast as humanly possible.
The $12 billion dollars sent to Iraq as bricks of $100 bills that people played football with (most of which you will not be surprised to learn was unaccounted for) is I believe just the tip of the iceberg.
Note that criminal activity is not mentioned even as a hypothetical possibility in the article - the article ends up just shrugging and saying, "No idea". But a fish does not notice water...
posted by lupus_yonderboy at 10:37 PM on January 28, 2016 [8 favorites]
> Trains may be more expensive initially, but at least they aren't subject to this kind of bait-and-switch.
I currently love watching (since I no longer live there) Seattle struggle to build a tunnel where no one said building a tunnel should happen, yet their transit board is able to finish lightrail ahead of schedule and under budget.
posted by mrzarquon at 10:47 PM on January 28, 2016 [7 favorites]
I currently love watching (since I no longer live there) Seattle struggle to build a tunnel where no one said building a tunnel should happen, yet their transit board is able to finish lightrail ahead of schedule and under budget.
posted by mrzarquon at 10:47 PM on January 28, 2016 [7 favorites]
I wonder how much the engineering challenges of climate change the costs. NYC is going to have to cope with way more ice and snow than Barcelona.
Monday: "The American with Disabilities Act also can increase costs. Putting a lift in every station (just one example) can drive up the cost of a line by millions. It isn't just the lift alone- you would need to have proper grading, which may mean the station takes up more space, and so on."
Not only is impossible to believe places like Spain and France don't have similar requirements this is one place where compromise should never happen. The ADA helps everyone eventually whether it is someone getting old enough to need a walker or a 14 year old soccer player who breaks a leg.
Slap*Happy: "Every goddamn bus I've ridden upon since the very early '90s can KNEEL - air is let out of its suspension until you can wheel onto a ramp, then the suspension goes up, re-inflated as the ramp is lifted to the passenger level. "
Busses with the addition of $100 in switches have been able to kneel since the 50s as that is at least how long they been air ride. The only real cost add here is the fold out ramp. I'd bet that adds several thousand to the cost of the bus but that is way cheaper than having dedicated bus service for wheelchair users. And once again it helps out lots of people from the old person with a shopping cart, through the football player with a busted leg, to the single parent with a stroller.
Do European and Japanese buses not incorporate this ability?
posted by Mitheral at 10:50 PM on January 28, 2016 [11 favorites]
Monday: "The American with Disabilities Act also can increase costs. Putting a lift in every station (just one example) can drive up the cost of a line by millions. It isn't just the lift alone- you would need to have proper grading, which may mean the station takes up more space, and so on."
Not only is impossible to believe places like Spain and France don't have similar requirements this is one place where compromise should never happen. The ADA helps everyone eventually whether it is someone getting old enough to need a walker or a 14 year old soccer player who breaks a leg.
Slap*Happy: "Every goddamn bus I've ridden upon since the very early '90s can KNEEL - air is let out of its suspension until you can wheel onto a ramp, then the suspension goes up, re-inflated as the ramp is lifted to the passenger level. "
Busses with the addition of $100 in switches have been able to kneel since the 50s as that is at least how long they been air ride. The only real cost add here is the fold out ramp. I'd bet that adds several thousand to the cost of the bus but that is way cheaper than having dedicated bus service for wheelchair users. And once again it helps out lots of people from the old person with a shopping cart, through the football player with a busted leg, to the single parent with a stroller.
Do European and Japanese buses not incorporate this ability?
posted by Mitheral at 10:50 PM on January 28, 2016 [11 favorites]
The environmental impact study for bike lanes in San Francisco is a classic
My understanding is that that's not just a case of benign bureaucratic creep, but rather of a well-intentioned law (CEQA) being intentionally repurposed as a NIMBY filibuster. The people who are filing lawsuits about bike lanes aren't doing so out of a naive overabundance of caution for the environment.
posted by en forme de poire at 11:16 PM on January 28, 2016 [7 favorites]
My understanding is that that's not just a case of benign bureaucratic creep, but rather of a well-intentioned law (CEQA) being intentionally repurposed as a NIMBY filibuster. The people who are filing lawsuits about bike lanes aren't doing so out of a naive overabundance of caution for the environment.
posted by en forme de poire at 11:16 PM on January 28, 2016 [7 favorites]
The answer is not to get rid of the Federal Government, the answer is to get rid of the City, County and State Governments being able to change the rules at will and have *one* set of rules that applies everywhere in the nation. The feds are easy to work with -- there's only one federal government.
Regressing to China is not a good basis for democratic government. We have regulations at various levels because that is what we voted for, and we voted for those regulations, because the federal government wouldn't do anything about related issues that were allowed to happen in a regulatory vacuum. Issues that only came about because they saved rich people a few bucks, like dumping chemicals upstream of drinking water supplies, having child and prison labor make our stuff, replacing food and drug ingredients with poison, and so on. The same issues, incidentally, that China is having to deal with as it modernizes.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 11:41 PM on January 28, 2016
Regressing to China is not a good basis for democratic government. We have regulations at various levels because that is what we voted for, and we voted for those regulations, because the federal government wouldn't do anything about related issues that were allowed to happen in a regulatory vacuum. Issues that only came about because they saved rich people a few bucks, like dumping chemicals upstream of drinking water supplies, having child and prison labor make our stuff, replacing food and drug ingredients with poison, and so on. The same issues, incidentally, that China is having to deal with as it modernizes.
posted by a lungful of dragon at 11:41 PM on January 28, 2016
We don't really have to compare ourselves to a nondemocratic country to look poorly in terms of construction costs, though. Other democracies with good labor laws and without the power to unilaterally uproot people also tend to beat us in terms of construction costs.
I remember reading somewhere (I think here? warning, it's the Economist, but aside from one paragraph they mostly stay away from snitting about unions) that procurement rules specifically play a big role, similarly to how they did with the ACA website debacle. The argument is, basically, that: the laws surrounding who can even apply for a contract are so complicated only a handful of firms are even in contention; the government usually has to go with the lowest bidder and so can't really consider factors like speed or reliability, which also leads people to shamelessly fudge cost estimates to be as "optimistic" as possible and then over-run; there's a lot of revolving-door BS with industry consultants who play one side then the other; and even in pretty egregious cases, contracting firms usually aren't able to be held accountable for going way over time and budget, so there's no incentive for them to deliver realistic estimates.
posted by en forme de poire at 11:51 PM on January 28, 2016 [5 favorites]
I remember reading somewhere (I think here? warning, it's the Economist, but aside from one paragraph they mostly stay away from snitting about unions) that procurement rules specifically play a big role, similarly to how they did with the ACA website debacle. The argument is, basically, that: the laws surrounding who can even apply for a contract are so complicated only a handful of firms are even in contention; the government usually has to go with the lowest bidder and so can't really consider factors like speed or reliability, which also leads people to shamelessly fudge cost estimates to be as "optimistic" as possible and then over-run; there's a lot of revolving-door BS with industry consultants who play one side then the other; and even in pretty egregious cases, contracting firms usually aren't able to be held accountable for going way over time and budget, so there's no incentive for them to deliver realistic estimates.
posted by en forme de poire at 11:51 PM on January 28, 2016 [5 favorites]
Mass transit is expensive and perhaps poorly dealt with in the United States, but the reason for that is emphatically not because there are accommodations for people with disabilities. The elevator to an elevated train platform or a kneeling bus (seriously?) are not the things pushing spending over some totally reasonable budget. Seriously, installing an elevator is not costing millions, or even outrageous thousands. Beyond that, public transportation often serves people who don't drive - at least here, that includes people in wheelchairs, the elderly, families with strollers, people who are blind, people who might appreciate a kneeling bus or an elevator up a flight of stairs.
And as for those bike racks, they don't just get used in the winter ... and when I use them, it's because I like being able to bike around campus but I don't like driving down our crowded main road that the bus takes. And, currently I use them because it's January and too cold for me to want to bike five miles to campus, but I like being able to get to my bus stop quickly and then travel easily around campus. Just because you don't see utility for a particular aspect of transit doesn't mean that utility is non-existent!
posted by ChuraChura at 2:11 AM on January 29, 2016 [20 favorites]
And as for those bike racks, they don't just get used in the winter ... and when I use them, it's because I like being able to bike around campus but I don't like driving down our crowded main road that the bus takes. And, currently I use them because it's January and too cold for me to want to bike five miles to campus, but I like being able to get to my bus stop quickly and then travel easily around campus. Just because you don't see utility for a particular aspect of transit doesn't mean that utility is non-existent!
posted by ChuraChura at 2:11 AM on January 29, 2016 [20 favorites]
(The point I was trying to make about the ADA is that a significant number of people using mass transit are affected by mobility and accessibility issues, so not only does it make sense to follow the law when it comes to accessibility of transit because it is the law... It also makes sense because that is how you serve your customer base)
posted by ChuraChura at 2:15 AM on January 29, 2016 [10 favorites]
posted by ChuraChura at 2:15 AM on January 29, 2016 [10 favorites]
I think pretty much every train station built in the UK after the mid nineties has "step free access" to the platform. Pretty much every bus kneels and has a ramp. There's active works to retrofit older train stations with lifts (although for some of the Victorian-era underground stations that's a big challenge).
So whatever it is that makes American transit cost so much, it's not disability access.
Saying that, the rest of the world isn't immune to the problem. Edinburgh built a tram line that cost 3 times the original budgeted amount and ended up being half the original planned length.
posted by leo_r at 2:21 AM on January 29, 2016 [5 favorites]
So whatever it is that makes American transit cost so much, it's not disability access.
Saying that, the rest of the world isn't immune to the problem. Edinburgh built a tram line that cost 3 times the original budgeted amount and ended up being half the original planned length.
posted by leo_r at 2:21 AM on January 29, 2016 [5 favorites]
Busses with the addition of $100 in switches have been able to kneel since the 50s as that is at least how long they been air ride. The only real cost add here is the fold out ramp. I'd bet that adds several thousand to the cost of the bus but that is way cheaper than having dedicated bus service for wheelchair users. And once again it helps out lots of people from the old person with a shopping cart, through the football player with a busted leg, to the single parent with a stroller.It's also stop infrastructure--you need a cement pad to flip the ramp onto. I rode ours a bit recently, both to not drive and to help teach my kids to navigate some basic routes alone. We have to go two miles to pick up a bus that goes to the county library. If it hadn't moved out to the road it did, that road and the next arterial road over would have no bus service at all. To my semi untrained eye, there world need to be some stop construction to even start running a bus line on those roads. So you're stuck in cars or biking three miles to and from the existing lines.
Our "school bus" (yes, damned boondoggle charter school) drops and picks up off four miles from home (but the school has a carpool match service).
So the kid takes a bike then city bus to school and back daily. Dollar coins for "tokens". This is along a major arterial road and they just. this. YEAR. updated the bus route to run every half hour. I hope by summer 2017 my kids are skilled and mature enough to be able to be left home a week or two during the summer and take their bikes to the bus stops and take themselves to the library and the movies and such.
We moved out of our last "planned suburb" (which got a single bus route a year before we left) when the county decided to A) widen the east west mini Interstate B) but not with any connecting mass transit options (light rail, dedicated fast busses) C) and make those extra lanes variable toll lanes.
I bring up transit with co workers now and then. At least one in a group has lived in New York and laughs at what the rest of the country considers transit.
And let's not forget the CCC and WPA infrastructure that is also crumbling around us ....
posted by tilde at 2:32 AM on January 29, 2016 [2 favorites]
It's also stop infrastructure--you need a cement pad to flip the ramp onto.
Where I grew up, more often than not, the bus stops were a pole in a patch of dirt. Sometimes a cement kerb. Side walk? Not usually.
And they just put a bus line in my parents' suburb community. Not a cement pad in sight so I guess wheel bound riders need to wait on nearby driveways (there are no sidewalks).
I am not saying that ADA is driving up costs crazy, just pointing out its the vehicles and the accommodating infrastructure that make up two matching parts of that line item.
posted by tilde at 2:38 AM on January 29, 2016
Where I grew up, more often than not, the bus stops were a pole in a patch of dirt. Sometimes a cement kerb. Side walk? Not usually.
And they just put a bus line in my parents' suburb community. Not a cement pad in sight so I guess wheel bound riders need to wait on nearby driveways (there are no sidewalks).
I am not saying that ADA is driving up costs crazy, just pointing out its the vehicles and the accommodating infrastructure that make up two matching parts of that line item.
posted by tilde at 2:38 AM on January 29, 2016
Cost per-kilometre is a pretty terrible metric to use for metro construction cost. There's a reason no planning agency will ever use it when trying to work out the BCR of a transport project. Well, at least no sane one. Generally speaking, the whole point of a metro line is that you're moving people relatively small distances, fast. It also completely fails to account for the massive differences in local political, social and physical geography.
And that's really an important thing to always remember with this. Comparing one metro system to another is nearly always an apples-to-oranges comparison. There are a thousand local factors that can influence project cost.
Crossrail, for example, had to carry the cost of completely surveying the route through central London for unexploded ordinance - a problem shared with certain cities in Germany and elsewhere that were heavily bombed in WW2. That's not something New York or Toronto likely have to worry about, but then they'll also have their own unique issues.
Anyway, that's not to say that I disagree with the underlying point that building transit systems in the US seems to be excessively expensive. My area of interest is obviously London's (and by extension Europe's) systems and projects but whenever I've had cause to look at projects across the pond I've rarely been left with the feeling that they're being done well or in a particularly cost-effective manner.
Whilst not claiming to have all (or potentially any) of the answers, the two things that have always seemed to me to be a big contributing factor to this are actually:
A lack of knowledge on the commissioning side
If the body commissioning the work hasn't built up an institutional knowledge of how to properly scope, tender and govern a large infrastructure project then it'll go wrong in some way. It's fucking ludicrous the level of detail you have to think about even before you get to the proposal phase and consultants only get you so far, no matter how good you are at it. You need that internal knowledge or you will miss something.
Doesn't matter what you are - local government agency, national government agency, transport authority, whatever. The above rule applies.
It goes beyond planning as well. Because once shovels (or boring machines) are in the ground you need to be able to actively work with your delivering bodies to react to the inevitable hiccups that still occur, and just as importantly, to keep them honest and encourage them to innovate.
A lack of maturity on the supplier side
Building transport infra is fucking hard. It requires specialist skills and lots of people with them, and unless there's a continuous flow of projects over years that enable the marketplace to build up those skills and support them in both in individuals and companies then you, or your suppliers indirectly, are going to have to dump that on the project cost - both in terms of time and money.
Crossrail estimate that about 5.7bn dollars and three years of their financial/time costs are related to the fact that the UK let its infrastructure supply chain go to absolute shit from the 1980s onwards. They had to build an entire academy to teach us Brits how to tunnel again for example - not just for their own direct employees, but for the supply chain to use to train people up.
Now, of course, if you're not fussed about hiring locally then this isn't a problem - and that's why a lot of European metros are cheaper. Because Europe (and obviously I include the UK in this) is a far more tightly packed marketplace and thus you've got a greater ability to hire in skills from other countries that haven't let their tunnelling industries die. Want a new metro in Stockholm? Hire some Germans to pop over and do it. They might even give you a discount on the trains afterwards.
If you want, or need (as in the US, largely) to rely on local talent though, then you're going to need to make some serious investment. Of course that stuff then pays off on future projects - which is why (in a shocking and unusual burst of forward thinking for the UK) Crossrail is being done the way it is, because theoretically it means it should be cheaper to build Crossrail 2 and set UK companies up to better compete elsewhere in the EU - but it does mean an absolute wedge of cost being added to your first project.
And, of course, even when you do build those skills up, they'll quickly disappear if you don't immediately start building something else afterwards, because ultimately everyone, from the people spraycreteing the tunnel walls to the people running the project, need to earn a wage. And if there are no jobs at home then someone else in the world (*cough*China*cough*) will happily steal away all your local talent if you're not using it.
The TL;DR version of why metros are expensive to build
Building metros isn't like riding a bike, where if you've done it once you never forget how. It's more like baking. The more you do it the better you become at it. And the better you become at it, the cheaper it gets.
And whatever you do, once you've started building them, don't fucking stop.
posted by garius at 3:48 AM on January 29, 2016 [29 favorites]
And that's really an important thing to always remember with this. Comparing one metro system to another is nearly always an apples-to-oranges comparison. There are a thousand local factors that can influence project cost.
Crossrail, for example, had to carry the cost of completely surveying the route through central London for unexploded ordinance - a problem shared with certain cities in Germany and elsewhere that were heavily bombed in WW2. That's not something New York or Toronto likely have to worry about, but then they'll also have their own unique issues.
Anyway, that's not to say that I disagree with the underlying point that building transit systems in the US seems to be excessively expensive. My area of interest is obviously London's (and by extension Europe's) systems and projects but whenever I've had cause to look at projects across the pond I've rarely been left with the feeling that they're being done well or in a particularly cost-effective manner.
Whilst not claiming to have all (or potentially any) of the answers, the two things that have always seemed to me to be a big contributing factor to this are actually:
A lack of knowledge on the commissioning side
If the body commissioning the work hasn't built up an institutional knowledge of how to properly scope, tender and govern a large infrastructure project then it'll go wrong in some way. It's fucking ludicrous the level of detail you have to think about even before you get to the proposal phase and consultants only get you so far, no matter how good you are at it. You need that internal knowledge or you will miss something.
Doesn't matter what you are - local government agency, national government agency, transport authority, whatever. The above rule applies.
It goes beyond planning as well. Because once shovels (or boring machines) are in the ground you need to be able to actively work with your delivering bodies to react to the inevitable hiccups that still occur, and just as importantly, to keep them honest and encourage them to innovate.
A lack of maturity on the supplier side
Building transport infra is fucking hard. It requires specialist skills and lots of people with them, and unless there's a continuous flow of projects over years that enable the marketplace to build up those skills and support them in both in individuals and companies then you, or your suppliers indirectly, are going to have to dump that on the project cost - both in terms of time and money.
Crossrail estimate that about 5.7bn dollars and three years of their financial/time costs are related to the fact that the UK let its infrastructure supply chain go to absolute shit from the 1980s onwards. They had to build an entire academy to teach us Brits how to tunnel again for example - not just for their own direct employees, but for the supply chain to use to train people up.
Now, of course, if you're not fussed about hiring locally then this isn't a problem - and that's why a lot of European metros are cheaper. Because Europe (and obviously I include the UK in this) is a far more tightly packed marketplace and thus you've got a greater ability to hire in skills from other countries that haven't let their tunnelling industries die. Want a new metro in Stockholm? Hire some Germans to pop over and do it. They might even give you a discount on the trains afterwards.
If you want, or need (as in the US, largely) to rely on local talent though, then you're going to need to make some serious investment. Of course that stuff then pays off on future projects - which is why (in a shocking and unusual burst of forward thinking for the UK) Crossrail is being done the way it is, because theoretically it means it should be cheaper to build Crossrail 2 and set UK companies up to better compete elsewhere in the EU - but it does mean an absolute wedge of cost being added to your first project.
And, of course, even when you do build those skills up, they'll quickly disappear if you don't immediately start building something else afterwards, because ultimately everyone, from the people spraycreteing the tunnel walls to the people running the project, need to earn a wage. And if there are no jobs at home then someone else in the world (*cough*China*cough*) will happily steal away all your local talent if you're not using it.
The TL;DR version of why metros are expensive to build
Building metros isn't like riding a bike, where if you've done it once you never forget how. It's more like baking. The more you do it the better you become at it. And the better you become at it, the cheaper it gets.
And whatever you do, once you've started building them, don't fucking stop.
posted by garius at 3:48 AM on January 29, 2016 [29 favorites]
Oh and just to add that, like wages/benefits, disabled access is pretty much a minor line item if you're building new transport systems, rail or bus. In both cases the tech is pretty much standard now and with stations you're normally digging a bunch of shafts that you were planning on blocking up afterwards anyway.
At the most basic level, sticking some lifts in them instead is no biggie as long as you planned to do so from the start. And if you can't do that, then you just make your escalator box wider and stick an incline lift in instead.
Retro-fitting it into a metro system though is an absolute nightmare. It's worth reading this board paper from TfL on making the Underground Step Free for a guide to just how hard it is to do on a 150ish year old network.
posted by garius at 3:57 AM on January 29, 2016 [4 favorites]
At the most basic level, sticking some lifts in them instead is no biggie as long as you planned to do so from the start. And if you can't do that, then you just make your escalator box wider and stick an incline lift in instead.
Retro-fitting it into a metro system though is an absolute nightmare. It's worth reading this board paper from TfL on making the Underground Step Free for a guide to just how hard it is to do on a 150ish year old network.
posted by garius at 3:57 AM on January 29, 2016 [4 favorites]
I'm with Dip Flash on this one: this is only relevant if public transit projects are disproportionately more expensive than other major construction projects. And my sense (at least from watching things unfold around Boston) is that they're not. Boston has undertaken two major construction projects in the last decade: The Big Dig, which was primarily for highways, and the GLX, which is light rail (built after an environmental suit was brought against the Big Dig, of course). The Big Dig is synonymous with "costs ballooned and contractors squeezed every last dollar they could." The GLX is now in danger of being cancelled entirely, because of similar cost overruns. Honestly, the only difference between the two of them is political will. You see this in every facet of transit spending. Subway cars that service hundreds of thousands of passenger trips a day are 50 years old and literally falling apart, but there's no money to replace them. A big pothole in the interstate, though, and there will be a repair crew out there before lunch time, because "we have to."
Public transit construction costs aren't any more exorbitant than road construction costs. They just get used an excuse not to built light rail, in a way that highway costs never do.
posted by Mayor West at 4:50 AM on January 29, 2016 [8 favorites]
Public transit construction costs aren't any more exorbitant than road construction costs. They just get used an excuse not to built light rail, in a way that highway costs never do.
posted by Mayor West at 4:50 AM on January 29, 2016 [8 favorites]
Mitheral, buses in Japan can kneel.
Also, Japanese train stations have elevators. At least all those built this century. A lot of the older ones are being retrofitted. (Most of them are not architecturally significant.)
The Toei Oedo and Fukutoshin lines run under massively populated areas and service stations with multiple pre-existing lines. They run deeper to avoid as many as five other lines in some cases (which means longer elevator and escalator runs, as well as deeper air shafts, in addition to the cost of drilling deeper). They took years and years and years to build. And yet they still come in at a fraction of the cost of US projects.
America, yer doin' it RONG.
posted by oheso at 4:54 AM on January 29, 2016 [2 favorites]
Also, Japanese train stations have elevators. At least all those built this century. A lot of the older ones are being retrofitted. (Most of them are not architecturally significant.)
The Toei Oedo and Fukutoshin lines run under massively populated areas and service stations with multiple pre-existing lines. They run deeper to avoid as many as five other lines in some cases (which means longer elevator and escalator runs, as well as deeper air shafts, in addition to the cost of drilling deeper). They took years and years and years to build. And yet they still come in at a fraction of the cost of US projects.
America, yer doin' it RONG.
posted by oheso at 4:54 AM on January 29, 2016 [2 favorites]
This point has been made but I want to reinforce it, workers are really not responsible for this mess. There are people who imply that we need Chinese-level worker protections in order to contain costs but that doesn't explain how Spain and Germany make things work with labor laws Americans can only dream of.
PS Follow Alon Levy and Market Urbanism on the Twitters, do it!
posted by Octaviuz at 5:16 AM on January 29, 2016 [10 favorites]
PS Follow Alon Levy and Market Urbanism on the Twitters, do it!
posted by Octaviuz at 5:16 AM on January 29, 2016 [10 favorites]
Interesting stuff garius! What was it that let the 'infrastructure supply chain go to absolute shit from the 1980s onwards.'?
posted by asok at 5:20 AM on January 29, 2016
posted by asok at 5:20 AM on January 29, 2016
I came by to post something very similar to en forme de poire's comment. My understanding is that the bidding process in most municipalities is almost designed to produce cost overruns and expensive redesigns, because submitting a realistic bid is pretty much a guarantee that you won't get the job.
posted by tobascodagama at 5:24 AM on January 29, 2016 [2 favorites]
posted by tobascodagama at 5:24 AM on January 29, 2016 [2 favorites]
Stringent, inefficient union work rules could be a problem. Yet we see union friendly-countries like France and Sweden building transit cheaply.
I wonder whether that's a cultural difference. If France and Sweden are anything like Germany (or like Australia in the 1980s), their union-friendliness involves inviting the unions onto company boards and making them stakeholders, rather than just labour suppliers, which makes them more amenable to compromise. In the English-speaking world post-Reagan/Thatcher, labour relations tends towards a more adversarial model, where the unions are kept strictly on the labour side of the line, which does not incline them towards compromise, and, in reaction, leads to pushes for union-busting “right to work” laws and such.
posted by acb at 5:41 AM on January 29, 2016 [6 favorites]
I wonder whether that's a cultural difference. If France and Sweden are anything like Germany (or like Australia in the 1980s), their union-friendliness involves inviting the unions onto company boards and making them stakeholders, rather than just labour suppliers, which makes them more amenable to compromise. In the English-speaking world post-Reagan/Thatcher, labour relations tends towards a more adversarial model, where the unions are kept strictly on the labour side of the line, which does not incline them towards compromise, and, in reaction, leads to pushes for union-busting “right to work” laws and such.
posted by acb at 5:41 AM on January 29, 2016 [6 favorites]
I want to go to tunnelling academy! (Thanks for the interesting posts, garius.)
posted by dame at 5:45 AM on January 29, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by dame at 5:45 AM on January 29, 2016 [1 favorite]
Oh, it isn't cheap everywhere -- Crossrail in London? 1 billion US per kilometer of track. The only reason its affordable at all is they're not building that much track, but building a long set of tunnels under a 2000 year old city with quite a few underground transit lines already, ones you DARE NOT break for an extended period of time?
Crossrail, for example, had to carry the cost of completely surveying the route through central London for unexploded ordinance - a problem shared with certain cities in Germany and elsewhere that were heavily bombed in WW2.
And there's more. There are also apparently quite a few secret government facilities (tunnels, bunkers, and so on) under London. Being secret, a tunnel project is not going to be given a list of them, so part of the process involved submitting proposed routes to a government agency, which would, some time later, reply tersely whether the route was permissible or not.
Also, isn't the land title system in England a bit of a mess?
posted by acb at 5:49 AM on January 29, 2016 [1 favorite]
Crossrail, for example, had to carry the cost of completely surveying the route through central London for unexploded ordinance - a problem shared with certain cities in Germany and elsewhere that were heavily bombed in WW2.
And there's more. There are also apparently quite a few secret government facilities (tunnels, bunkers, and so on) under London. Being secret, a tunnel project is not going to be given a list of them, so part of the process involved submitting proposed routes to a government agency, which would, some time later, reply tersely whether the route was permissible or not.
Also, isn't the land title system in England a bit of a mess?
posted by acb at 5:49 AM on January 29, 2016 [1 favorite]
Is this where we dream of turning all the self-driving car BS into self-driving boring machines instead?
Possibly. Since it's MetaFilter, it's definitely the one where motorists explain how anything other than this will never work in the US because Reasons.
posted by entropicamericana at 6:16 AM on January 29, 2016 [5 favorites]
Possibly. Since it's MetaFilter, it's definitely the one where motorists explain how anything other than this will never work in the US because Reasons.
posted by entropicamericana at 6:16 AM on January 29, 2016 [5 favorites]
Interesting stuff garius! What was it that let the 'infrastructure supply chain go to absolute shit from the 1980s onwards.'?
Freezes in investment in new infrastructure - particularly rail. It's a situation the country - and London in particular - is still trying to recover from (and a contributing factor to the current epic overcrowding on UK rail, particularly in the South East).
There was even, effectively, a twelve year "maintainance freeze" imposed by the Thatcher / post-Thatcher administrations on the London Underground. The Kings Cross Fire in 1987 finally spurred London Underground into kicking back against that and trying to modernise itself by hook or by crook but then privitization caused a whole raft of other issues and money shortages that meant under-investment continued.
This was why, in part, the Jubilee Line extension was such a disaster. Crossrail is good because it is standing on the shoulder of a failed giant, so to speak. Lots of people either worked on Jubilee or were doing stuff abroad (e.g. Hong Kong Airport) when it happened, and were determined not to make the same mistakes if they ever got a chance to do some big infra in the UK again.
And there's more. There are also apparently quite a few secret government facilities (tunnels, bunkers, and so on) under London. Being secret, a tunnel project is not going to be given a list of them, so part of the process involved submitting proposed routes to a government agency, which would, some time later, reply tersely whether the route was permissible or not
To be honest, this wasn't too much of a problem. But largely because Crossrail's route has been safeguarded since the 1970s and most of its proposed tunnel levels were calculated in the early 2000s, slightly on the sly (as they'd yet to be given official permission to build it) by TfL.
Yes. That's how long it took to finally get the money agreed and signed off to build it!
Land was very much an issue though. Lot's of time spent on that, and it still ultimately involved doing some less-than-popular (but basically unavoidable, unfortunately) stuff in Soho.
posted by garius at 6:22 AM on January 29, 2016 [3 favorites]
Freezes in investment in new infrastructure - particularly rail. It's a situation the country - and London in particular - is still trying to recover from (and a contributing factor to the current epic overcrowding on UK rail, particularly in the South East).
There was even, effectively, a twelve year "maintainance freeze" imposed by the Thatcher / post-Thatcher administrations on the London Underground. The Kings Cross Fire in 1987 finally spurred London Underground into kicking back against that and trying to modernise itself by hook or by crook but then privitization caused a whole raft of other issues and money shortages that meant under-investment continued.
This was why, in part, the Jubilee Line extension was such a disaster. Crossrail is good because it is standing on the shoulder of a failed giant, so to speak. Lots of people either worked on Jubilee or were doing stuff abroad (e.g. Hong Kong Airport) when it happened, and were determined not to make the same mistakes if they ever got a chance to do some big infra in the UK again.
And there's more. There are also apparently quite a few secret government facilities (tunnels, bunkers, and so on) under London. Being secret, a tunnel project is not going to be given a list of them, so part of the process involved submitting proposed routes to a government agency, which would, some time later, reply tersely whether the route was permissible or not
To be honest, this wasn't too much of a problem. But largely because Crossrail's route has been safeguarded since the 1970s and most of its proposed tunnel levels were calculated in the early 2000s, slightly on the sly (as they'd yet to be given official permission to build it) by TfL.
Yes. That's how long it took to finally get the money agreed and signed off to build it!
Land was very much an issue though. Lot's of time spent on that, and it still ultimately involved doing some less-than-popular (but basically unavoidable, unfortunately) stuff in Soho.
posted by garius at 6:22 AM on January 29, 2016 [3 favorites]
Not only is impossible to believe places like Spain and France don't have similar requirements this is one place where compromise should never happen. The ADA helps everyone eventually whether it is someone getting old enough to need a walker or a 14 year old soccer player who breaks a leg.
True, but there is no doubt. The ADA does increase costs. It's a little bit for buses -- you need kneeling buses and flip-outr ramps, plus hinged seats and anchors for chairs. It's about the same for surface rail, you either need something like that, or you need elevated platforms. It's quite a bit more for elevated lines, because you need elevators and those simply are not cheap, and it's very much more for subways, where you have to dig out the extra space for the elevators.
This doesn't mean that the ADA wasn't a good thing. But the reality is that ADA compliant stations cost more, ranging from "a bit more" to "quite a bit more" and occasional "doubling the cost."
There are lots of things that cost more, and yet, we should pay that cost.
Busses with the addition of $100 in switches have been able to kneel since the 50s as that is at least how long they been air ride.
It's a little more than that (you need a controller that runs each suspension member, not all of them in parallel) -- and air suspension itself costs more. The real cost was developing low-floor buses. Formerly, there was a box with the suspension, the motor, and the stairs to the deck above the wheels, which gave you a flat floor for the seats. For low floor, you have to change everything forward of the rear wheels. Since you were using that space, a lot of the stuff that was there goes onto the roof, so the body needs to be stronger.
Once they *did* it, they figured out how to get the cost down some, but ADA complaint buses cost more, and it's the low-floor that's the primary driver of that cost. High floor buses are much easier to build, and very hard to make ADA complaint.
Your core point, though, is very true -- the cost of ADA compliant buses, over the time you'd use a bus, is fairly minor. I think the first ones cost 25% more, but many of them were also picking up other features, like air conditioning. Nowadays? It's probably about 10% more, but I don't have any high-floor buses to compare to (they're all low-floor now.)
There's active works to retrofit older train stations with lifts (although for some of the Victorian-era underground stations that's a big challenge).
Enormous in many cases, because not only are they so disability hostile, they're that and deep underground. For Chicago to make its underground stations ADA compliant means (usually) two elevators, one from ground to the mezzanine, and one from the mezz to the central platform. A few (Chicago on the Red leaps to mind) have edge platforms, you need 3 there.
But the stations in Chicago aren't deep like the Northern or Victoria lines are, and you often have the platforms in very different places and no flat mezzanine to connect them. I suspect that in a few cases, building an entirely new station will be cheaper than trying to make the old one ADA compliant (read that as the UK compliance rules, obviously, I don't know the name for them.)
New builds, like the DLR and the Jubilee Line Extension, are complaint. But that didn't help the cost either, the Jubilee line is quite deep.
However, that was able to be handled because they knew it going in when they built the station and simply dug a bigger hole for it, made the platforms center-platform to reduce the number of convenances needed, and things like that. Building new to compliance is much much easier than retrofitting. Getting Grand/Blue and LaSalle/Blue compliant in Chicago will be hard, getting something like Bank or Oxford Circus in London compliant may simply be impossible due to costs. It's easy to see where the Tube has become compliant -- on new-built lines, lines on the surface, and the few stations that have had to see massive reconstruction for other reasons (Heathrow and King's Cross leap to mind, there will be more when Crossrail comes online.)
posted by eriko at 6:53 AM on January 29, 2016 [2 favorites]
True, but there is no doubt. The ADA does increase costs. It's a little bit for buses -- you need kneeling buses and flip-outr ramps, plus hinged seats and anchors for chairs. It's about the same for surface rail, you either need something like that, or you need elevated platforms. It's quite a bit more for elevated lines, because you need elevators and those simply are not cheap, and it's very much more for subways, where you have to dig out the extra space for the elevators.
This doesn't mean that the ADA wasn't a good thing. But the reality is that ADA compliant stations cost more, ranging from "a bit more" to "quite a bit more" and occasional "doubling the cost."
There are lots of things that cost more, and yet, we should pay that cost.
Busses with the addition of $100 in switches have been able to kneel since the 50s as that is at least how long they been air ride.
It's a little more than that (you need a controller that runs each suspension member, not all of them in parallel) -- and air suspension itself costs more. The real cost was developing low-floor buses. Formerly, there was a box with the suspension, the motor, and the stairs to the deck above the wheels, which gave you a flat floor for the seats. For low floor, you have to change everything forward of the rear wheels. Since you were using that space, a lot of the stuff that was there goes onto the roof, so the body needs to be stronger.
Once they *did* it, they figured out how to get the cost down some, but ADA complaint buses cost more, and it's the low-floor that's the primary driver of that cost. High floor buses are much easier to build, and very hard to make ADA complaint.
Your core point, though, is very true -- the cost of ADA compliant buses, over the time you'd use a bus, is fairly minor. I think the first ones cost 25% more, but many of them were also picking up other features, like air conditioning. Nowadays? It's probably about 10% more, but I don't have any high-floor buses to compare to (they're all low-floor now.)
There's active works to retrofit older train stations with lifts (although for some of the Victorian-era underground stations that's a big challenge).
Enormous in many cases, because not only are they so disability hostile, they're that and deep underground. For Chicago to make its underground stations ADA compliant means (usually) two elevators, one from ground to the mezzanine, and one from the mezz to the central platform. A few (Chicago on the Red leaps to mind) have edge platforms, you need 3 there.
But the stations in Chicago aren't deep like the Northern or Victoria lines are, and you often have the platforms in very different places and no flat mezzanine to connect them. I suspect that in a few cases, building an entirely new station will be cheaper than trying to make the old one ADA compliant (read that as the UK compliance rules, obviously, I don't know the name for them.)
New builds, like the DLR and the Jubilee Line Extension, are complaint. But that didn't help the cost either, the Jubilee line is quite deep.
However, that was able to be handled because they knew it going in when they built the station and simply dug a bigger hole for it, made the platforms center-platform to reduce the number of convenances needed, and things like that. Building new to compliance is much much easier than retrofitting. Getting Grand/Blue and LaSalle/Blue compliant in Chicago will be hard, getting something like Bank or Oxford Circus in London compliant may simply be impossible due to costs. It's easy to see where the Tube has become compliant -- on new-built lines, lines on the surface, and the few stations that have had to see massive reconstruction for other reasons (Heathrow and King's Cross leap to mind, there will be more when Crossrail comes online.)
posted by eriko at 6:53 AM on January 29, 2016 [2 favorites]
Talking to our leaders and asking questions about costs might be a good place to start.
When you talk to your "leaders" and the response is "we (the state leg, not local metro leaders) will stomp any idea you have about improving local public transit into a pulp and bury it in the ground under asphalt without looking back because we are adamantly opposed to anything that costs taxpayer money and we're getting sweet sweet kickbacks from the big auto dealers in town and outside money from Koch interests," as happened in Nashville with the Amp, that's actually the worst possible place to start.
posted by blucevalo at 6:57 AM on January 29, 2016 [6 favorites]
When you talk to your "leaders" and the response is "we (the state leg, not local metro leaders) will stomp any idea you have about improving local public transit into a pulp and bury it in the ground under asphalt without looking back because we are adamantly opposed to anything that costs taxpayer money and we're getting sweet sweet kickbacks from the big auto dealers in town and outside money from Koch interests," as happened in Nashville with the Amp, that's actually the worst possible place to start.
posted by blucevalo at 6:57 AM on January 29, 2016 [6 favorites]
As an example, true bus rapid transit - with 100% separated and prioritized guideways, level platforms, off-vehicle payment and the works - is a reasonable solution to huge numbers of transit problems - maybe not the most extreme examples in the article of subway expansion in Manhattan, or the Central Subway in SF, or another Rosslyn station and Potomac crossing, but for core transit in all but about 10 big cities and for suburban feeders and radial transit in the rest. It's a fraction of the The fundamental reason it doesn't get built is that it requires turning over a road from cars to buses, and that's politically suicide anywhere.
Very true. Worse, then people try to implement in-lane BRT, which fails badly at the "R" part when traffic is bad, and *the key way* to make transit attractive is to make it fast.
Cost per-kilometre is a pretty terrible metric to use for metro construction cost.
Compared to other cities? Maybe not. Compared to other projects in that city? It's one of the key drivers. Cost per km/usage per day*time saved by the new route= cost per pax-hour, and that's a core number in deciding any transportation project. At least, it should be, if you're building a bridge to nowhere, you're spending millions to get 12 people across something a day. If you build Crossrail, you're spending billions to literally get millions of people to/through London faster, and suddenly, 50B UKP turns into fractions of a pence per pax hour.
posted by eriko at 7:00 AM on January 29, 2016 [1 favorite]
Very true. Worse, then people try to implement in-lane BRT, which fails badly at the "R" part when traffic is bad, and *the key way* to make transit attractive is to make it fast.
Cost per-kilometre is a pretty terrible metric to use for metro construction cost.
Compared to other cities? Maybe not. Compared to other projects in that city? It's one of the key drivers. Cost per km/usage per day*time saved by the new route= cost per pax-hour, and that's a core number in deciding any transportation project. At least, it should be, if you're building a bridge to nowhere, you're spending millions to get 12 people across something a day. If you build Crossrail, you're spending billions to literally get millions of people to/through London faster, and suddenly, 50B UKP turns into fractions of a pence per pax hour.
posted by eriko at 7:00 AM on January 29, 2016 [1 favorite]
When you talk to your "leaders" and the response is "we (the state leg, not local metro leaders) will stomp any idea you have about improving local public transit into a pulp and bury it in the ground under asphalt without looking back because we are adamantly opposed to anything that costs taxpayer money and we're getting sweet sweet kickbacks from the big auto dealers in town and outside money from Koch interests,"
Also: "We're tired of the big city living on our tax money!" (read, "You're spending money on 'those people?' Fuck that!") Never mind that the tax money flow is almost always from the city to the rest of the state (notable exception: Detroit) and you can see that fundamentally, it's racism.
They ran away from the city to get away from 'those people' and put their kids in private school to make sure that they weren't near 'those people' and now they refuse to do anything for cities and schools that they're not using.
Reason 17 of many we need to burn state/county/municipal governments to the ground in the US. I think it is one of the *prime* reason we do things like this so badly.
Sorry for using "those people," but I refuse to use the words they actually use (being a white male, they assume I agree with them) and that when this became a big thing in the US, it meant only African-Americans, now it also includes Hispanic Americans, Muslims of any color, and hell, immigrants of any type. Except European, of course.
posted by eriko at 7:09 AM on January 29, 2016 [7 favorites]
Also: "We're tired of the big city living on our tax money!" (read, "You're spending money on 'those people?' Fuck that!") Never mind that the tax money flow is almost always from the city to the rest of the state (notable exception: Detroit) and you can see that fundamentally, it's racism.
They ran away from the city to get away from 'those people' and put their kids in private school to make sure that they weren't near 'those people' and now they refuse to do anything for cities and schools that they're not using.
Reason 17 of many we need to burn state/county/municipal governments to the ground in the US. I think it is one of the *prime* reason we do things like this so badly.
Sorry for using "those people," but I refuse to use the words they actually use (being a white male, they assume I agree with them) and that when this became a big thing in the US, it meant only African-Americans, now it also includes Hispanic Americans, Muslims of any color, and hell, immigrants of any type. Except European, of course.
posted by eriko at 7:09 AM on January 29, 2016 [7 favorites]
Compared to other cities? Maybe not. Compared to other projects in that city? It's one of the key drivers. Cost per km/usage per day*time saved by the new route= cost per pax-hour, and that's a core number in deciding any transportation project.
Agreed - but that was my point.
A strict "it goes this far and costs this much" approach isn't what you use to establish value. You have to do more than that and account for people impacted, time saved etc. etc.
posted by garius at 7:13 AM on January 29, 2016 [1 favorite]
Agreed - but that was my point.
A strict "it goes this far and costs this much" approach isn't what you use to establish value. You have to do more than that and account for people impacted, time saved etc. etc.
posted by garius at 7:13 AM on January 29, 2016 [1 favorite]
A strict "it goes this far and costs this much" approach isn't what you use to establish value.
Agreed. My point was "the US isn't the only one with massively expensive transit projects." The statement in the FPP was "why does everything cost so much to build here?" and the point of Crossrail was "It's not just here where it is massively expensive per kilometer to build it."
Building Crossrail is clearly worth it -- I've always asserted that Crossrail should have come before HS1, though as I type this, it may be that it did but HS1 was just so much easier and quicker to build. I know that they had to do a ton of survey work before they could start construction, and look at the trainsets they would use and what those would require before they could break ground. HS1 had well defined route and well defined trainsets.
posted by eriko at 7:19 AM on January 29, 2016
Agreed. My point was "the US isn't the only one with massively expensive transit projects." The statement in the FPP was "why does everything cost so much to build here?" and the point of Crossrail was "It's not just here where it is massively expensive per kilometer to build it."
Building Crossrail is clearly worth it -- I've always asserted that Crossrail should have come before HS1, though as I type this, it may be that it did but HS1 was just so much easier and quicker to build. I know that they had to do a ton of survey work before they could start construction, and look at the trainsets they would use and what those would require before they could break ground. HS1 had well defined route and well defined trainsets.
posted by eriko at 7:19 AM on January 29, 2016
(The point I was trying to make about the ADA is that a significant number of people using mass transit are affected by mobility and accessibility issues, so not only does it make sense to follow the law when it comes to accessibility of transit because it is the law... It also makes sense because that is how you serve your customer base)
Sorry, but there's no denying that the ADA has hobbled the transit agencies in the US.
The first generation of wheelchair-ready buses was expensive, and immature, and it resulted in the buses wearing out even faster than buses usually do. If you rode buses in the early 90's, you might recall the ones where the suspension was obviously kaput because you would feel eery seam on the road. And they quickly started listing to starboard more heavily than Fox News. And then they crapped out. That was a big chunk of change.
Then came the paratransit requirement to compensate for existing non-adaptable transit infrastructure (like subway stops without elevators).
All of this was unfunded. And there is no counterpart for private driving. Disabled drivers have to pay out of pocket for modifications if they need a car with pedals or gear shifters moved around.
Obviously the answer is that if we assign these mandates to the transit agencies, the money to pay them should come from general taxation, not the transit budgets. But let's not deny that this is a problem.
posted by ocschwar at 7:25 AM on January 29, 2016
Ah sorry eriko - I clearly misread your first comment slightly. In part I think that was because there was a bit of "OMG Kilometre cost" in the original article and its links. You're right. We're essentially saying the same thing.
For anyone interested, by the way, you can read a bit about how the UK Department for Transport make their BCR assesssments here. It's not a perfect methodology by any means, but is useful nonetheless.
posted by garius at 7:32 AM on January 29, 2016 [1 favorite]
For anyone interested, by the way, you can read a bit about how the UK Department for Transport make their BCR assesssments here. It's not a perfect methodology by any means, but is useful nonetheless.
posted by garius at 7:32 AM on January 29, 2016 [1 favorite]
Sorry, but there's no denying that the ADA has hobbled the transit agencies in the US.
In that it has made things more expensive in comparison to the past, yes. But it can't account for why it increases costs in comparison to similar countries (such as the EU nations) which have either equivalent or even stronger requirements.
posted by garius at 7:39 AM on January 29, 2016 [8 favorites]
In that it has made things more expensive in comparison to the past, yes. But it can't account for why it increases costs in comparison to similar countries (such as the EU nations) which have either equivalent or even stronger requirements.
posted by garius at 7:39 AM on January 29, 2016 [8 favorites]
When you talk to your "leaders" and the response is "we (the state leg, not local metro leaders) will stomp any idea you have about improving local public transit into a pulp and bury it in the ground under asphalt without looking back because we are adamantly opposed to anything that costs taxpayer money and we're getting sweet sweet kickbacks from the big auto dealers in town and outside money from Koch interests," as happened in Nashville with the Amp, that's actually the worst possible place to start.
I'm still so mad about all the Amp stuff (though the name was dumb). It was like everything I hate about local politics joined together and won: Nominally liberal West-side lawn-sign NIMBYs, racist Belle Meade rich people (people talked in community meetings about how poor people would come to their neighborhood on the bus, see how nice the houses were and rob them), Lee Fucking Beamen and the Koch brothers, Williamson County white flight Republicans using the state legislature to block anything Nashville tries to do with even a whiff of liberalism or good things for poor people, and the local media being chickenshit with "sure we need transit but maybe this particular plan isn't right" and then retroactively decreeing that the problem with the whole thing was that the mayor didn't get enough buy-in. Now we'll end up with no major transit projects for another decade and then maybe something hilariously expensive.
posted by ghharr at 7:53 AM on January 29, 2016 [2 favorites]
I'm still so mad about all the Amp stuff (though the name was dumb). It was like everything I hate about local politics joined together and won: Nominally liberal West-side lawn-sign NIMBYs, racist Belle Meade rich people (people talked in community meetings about how poor people would come to their neighborhood on the bus, see how nice the houses were and rob them), Lee Fucking Beamen and the Koch brothers, Williamson County white flight Republicans using the state legislature to block anything Nashville tries to do with even a whiff of liberalism or good things for poor people, and the local media being chickenshit with "sure we need transit but maybe this particular plan isn't right" and then retroactively decreeing that the problem with the whole thing was that the mayor didn't get enough buy-in. Now we'll end up with no major transit projects for another decade and then maybe something hilariously expensive.
posted by ghharr at 7:53 AM on January 29, 2016 [2 favorites]
Does anyone have a speed comparison for building transit systems in the US vs. Europe/Japan? I have a conjecture that part of the problem in the US these days is slowdowns from lawsuits, bidding practices, inability to simply bury injured workers where they fall, need not to contaminate the water supply with a fun combination of inorganic and organic toxins, etc.
Part of this is wondering if we went back to cut and cover for metro systems, how much would the time and expense drop?
posted by Hactar at 7:54 AM on January 29, 2016
Part of this is wondering if we went back to cut and cover for metro systems, how much would the time and expense drop?
posted by Hactar at 7:54 AM on January 29, 2016
So I worked in civil engineering (federal government) for a while, and although I wasn't doing transit or transportation, I think there are a lot of similarities. Two points:
I do think the lack of economy of scale is a factor. When we've only got a handful of cities that have major rail/subway systems, and they're only doing new projects once a decade (if that!), then there's not going to be many contractors with enough experience to bid these jobs. One of the worst projects I worked on was where we were building a thing that was so unique there was really only the one contractor who could do it for us. This contractor had us over a barrel, we all knew it, and he JUST DID NOT CARE. Overbudget, overschedule, you name it. They're probably still trying to close out that contract for all I know. The best project I ever worked on was the one where we were essentially building a very very long fence, very very fast. And it was in like, 2010 or so (when the economy was still solidly in the toilet), so I think every contractor under the sun bid on that project. Bids came in like 50% under our estimate. And construction finished ON TIME. It was amazing.
The other thing that I agree is probably a factor, is labor costs. There was one cost estimator in my office who had transferred to Chicago from like, Alabama? Mississippi? I forget where exactly, but one of the small cities down south. His first project up here, he got all his numbers for what equipment it was going to need, and what materials, and how much labor, plugged it into the software (or however they do it), and he could not believe the number that came out. He thought for sure there was something wrong with the software, because the final estimate was so, so much higher than he had expected. So what was going on? Turns out, labor costs in Chicago >> labor costs in the south. That was it. Backhoes and dump trucks and gravel and soil and whathaveyou all cost about the same. But not labor. And where do we build transit projects? Not usually in the south. Now this is the extent of my knowledge about the topic, so I honestly don't know if projects in Chicago are getting ripped off by labor, or if it's construction workers in the south who are getting ripped off. Probably a bit of both.
posted by gueneverey at 8:26 AM on January 29, 2016 [4 favorites]
I do think the lack of economy of scale is a factor. When we've only got a handful of cities that have major rail/subway systems, and they're only doing new projects once a decade (if that!), then there's not going to be many contractors with enough experience to bid these jobs. One of the worst projects I worked on was where we were building a thing that was so unique there was really only the one contractor who could do it for us. This contractor had us over a barrel, we all knew it, and he JUST DID NOT CARE. Overbudget, overschedule, you name it. They're probably still trying to close out that contract for all I know. The best project I ever worked on was the one where we were essentially building a very very long fence, very very fast. And it was in like, 2010 or so (when the economy was still solidly in the toilet), so I think every contractor under the sun bid on that project. Bids came in like 50% under our estimate. And construction finished ON TIME. It was amazing.
The other thing that I agree is probably a factor, is labor costs. There was one cost estimator in my office who had transferred to Chicago from like, Alabama? Mississippi? I forget where exactly, but one of the small cities down south. His first project up here, he got all his numbers for what equipment it was going to need, and what materials, and how much labor, plugged it into the software (or however they do it), and he could not believe the number that came out. He thought for sure there was something wrong with the software, because the final estimate was so, so much higher than he had expected. So what was going on? Turns out, labor costs in Chicago >> labor costs in the south. That was it. Backhoes and dump trucks and gravel and soil and whathaveyou all cost about the same. But not labor. And where do we build transit projects? Not usually in the south. Now this is the extent of my knowledge about the topic, so I honestly don't know if projects in Chicago are getting ripped off by labor, or if it's construction workers in the south who are getting ripped off. Probably a bit of both.
posted by gueneverey at 8:26 AM on January 29, 2016 [4 favorites]
What's clear is there are plenty of groups with solutions for transit in the form of vehicles and infrastructure but there are no agencies in America who are experienced enough to build in these areas while tumbling through regulatory hurdles and lawsuits related to issues like compulsory purchase and land use. I look at Atlanta's Beltline project and there is one one transit project that seems to be getting it right by not focusing any further than walk/bike. The problem is how designers and constructors can move definitely beyond drive/park/ride as the mode of entry into the transit system by the majority of users in most suburban-metro transit networks. Most train stations are badly placed if you look at how they are used, notwithstanding NYC. Metro North is a good example of badly placed stations affecting overall use despite a high number of riders based on opportunity cost.
The other situation is overcoming knowledge deficit on the commissioning side. Most transit planners seem to genuinely discount new infrastructure and seek efficiencies in their current models, which is why there has been a slow decay in most transit systems nationally. As well, cities find it hard to develop new transit infrastructure because funding is not prioritised unless there is an immediate economic need. I tried to commission a bus stop in England and the amount of paperwork required was genuinely off putting.
posted by parmanparman at 8:37 AM on January 29, 2016
The other situation is overcoming knowledge deficit on the commissioning side. Most transit planners seem to genuinely discount new infrastructure and seek efficiencies in their current models, which is why there has been a slow decay in most transit systems nationally. As well, cities find it hard to develop new transit infrastructure because funding is not prioritised unless there is an immediate economic need. I tried to commission a bus stop in England and the amount of paperwork required was genuinely off putting.
posted by parmanparman at 8:37 AM on January 29, 2016
I wonder if issues building transit infrastructure could be cross-examined against issues building military hardware to find common elements that could be solved benefiting both types of projects.
posted by ZeusHumms at 9:23 AM on January 29, 2016
posted by ZeusHumms at 9:23 AM on January 29, 2016
Unfortunately, the linked article is a bit thin on evidence. Ideally, the budgets of public works projects should be somewhat public and available to do some analysis against, in this modern era of open government data access.
It sounds like the bidding process could better incorporate feedback so as to more incentivize on-time and on-budget performance, but I don't know what current oversight exists to prevent a bid of $1 winning the race to the bottom and being shocked when the project is over budget.
(Let me derail ever so briefly to point out that China has private property laws, although not knowing that can be excused, since the first only dates back to 2007. There's a bunch of pictures of Spite/nail houses on the internet, many from China.)
posted by fragmede at 9:36 AM on January 29, 2016 [1 favorite]
It sounds like the bidding process could better incorporate feedback so as to more incentivize on-time and on-budget performance, but I don't know what current oversight exists to prevent a bid of $1 winning the race to the bottom and being shocked when the project is over budget.
(Let me derail ever so briefly to point out that China has private property laws, although not knowing that can be excused, since the first only dates back to 2007. There's a bunch of pictures of Spite/nail houses on the internet, many from China.)
posted by fragmede at 9:36 AM on January 29, 2016 [1 favorite]
Fundamentally, transit systems require competent planning and execution.
The US is terrible at both, and is unlikely to get better any time soon.
posted by aramaic at 9:54 AM on January 29, 2016
The US is terrible at both, and is unlikely to get better any time soon.
posted by aramaic at 9:54 AM on January 29, 2016
Fundamentally, transit systems require competent planning and execution.
The US is terrible at both, and is unlikely to get better any time soon.
Having decent public transit would involve acknowledging the idea of a common good, which goes against cold war-era anti-socialist ideology. Which is why public transit (and public schools, and public health care) in the US will suck, because beggars can't be choosers/individual liberty/property rights/this is the USA, not Soviet France.
posted by acb at 10:01 AM on January 29, 2016 [9 favorites]
The US is terrible at both, and is unlikely to get better any time soon.
Having decent public transit would involve acknowledging the idea of a common good, which goes against cold war-era anti-socialist ideology. Which is why public transit (and public schools, and public health care) in the US will suck, because beggars can't be choosers/individual liberty/property rights/this is the USA, not Soviet France.
posted by acb at 10:01 AM on January 29, 2016 [9 favorites]
The article seems to dismiss land acquisition costs very fast without addressing whether big projects in the US need to acquire more land than the equivalent in Paris and Tokyo - what percentage of projects in America/elsewhere actually require new land, and what's the average amount purchased?
posted by the agents of KAOS at 10:05 AM on January 29, 2016
posted by the agents of KAOS at 10:05 AM on January 29, 2016
ripley_: "That doesn't seem especially relevant to an article about the construction costs of tunneled subways."
But that's not what this article is about.
In fact, one of the core statements in the article is that everybody has their own hobby horse for why transit construction is expensive, and even if you consider all of them, it's still difficult to figure out how it got so bad here.
It's not just tunneled construction either. The WMATA Silver Line cost a bloody fortune to build. Most of it was built in a pre-existing highway median, and it's almost entirely aboveground. Every corner that could have been cut was cut, and it still cost a ridiculous sum of money to build. As far as transit construction goes, it doesn't get much easier than the Silver Line.
Even the people running the project seem to have no clue how costs are spiraling out of control, because bids for the second portion of the project all came in way under the forecasted budget.
By contrast, the original build-out of the DC metro wrapped up in 2004. WMATA managed almost all of its own construction up until that point, and costs were much, much lower. The Blue Line was extended 3 miles to Largo in 2003 for $450 million. This isn't exactly cheap, but the project included several underground segments, two stations, and a lot of land-acquisition. It was a pretty good bang for the buck. Today, adding a new infill station in Alexandria (Potomac Yards) is likely going to cost more than that.
Maybe it's that transit agencies have little in-house expertise left. Maybe it's that they're always living from paycheck to paycheck. I honestly don't know. As the article alludes to, this is a problem with no obvious answers.
Crossrail and East Side access are admittedly not a great examples of high costs. Crossrail and ESA were both massively ambitious and complicated projects that needed to happen in the midst of cities that were very active, dense, and old. They were always going to be expensive, and the large payoff potential meant that the designers focused on doing things right instead of killing the project by a thousand small cuts.
This immunity to costs undoubtedly introduced many some smaller and unnecessary inefficiencies, but the sheer scale of both of those projects was always going to make them exorbitantly expensive.
posted by schmod at 10:09 AM on January 29, 2016 [6 favorites]
But that's not what this article is about.
In fact, one of the core statements in the article is that everybody has their own hobby horse for why transit construction is expensive, and even if you consider all of them, it's still difficult to figure out how it got so bad here.
It's not just tunneled construction either. The WMATA Silver Line cost a bloody fortune to build. Most of it was built in a pre-existing highway median, and it's almost entirely aboveground. Every corner that could have been cut was cut, and it still cost a ridiculous sum of money to build. As far as transit construction goes, it doesn't get much easier than the Silver Line.
Even the people running the project seem to have no clue how costs are spiraling out of control, because bids for the second portion of the project all came in way under the forecasted budget.
By contrast, the original build-out of the DC metro wrapped up in 2004. WMATA managed almost all of its own construction up until that point, and costs were much, much lower. The Blue Line was extended 3 miles to Largo in 2003 for $450 million. This isn't exactly cheap, but the project included several underground segments, two stations, and a lot of land-acquisition. It was a pretty good bang for the buck. Today, adding a new infill station in Alexandria (Potomac Yards) is likely going to cost more than that.
Maybe it's that transit agencies have little in-house expertise left. Maybe it's that they're always living from paycheck to paycheck. I honestly don't know. As the article alludes to, this is a problem with no obvious answers.
Crossrail and East Side access are admittedly not a great examples of high costs. Crossrail and ESA were both massively ambitious and complicated projects that needed to happen in the midst of cities that were very active, dense, and old. They were always going to be expensive, and the large payoff potential meant that the designers focused on doing things right instead of killing the project by a thousand small cuts.
This immunity to costs undoubtedly introduced many some smaller and unnecessary inefficiencies, but the sheer scale of both of those projects was always going to make them exorbitantly expensive.
posted by schmod at 10:09 AM on January 29, 2016 [6 favorites]
the agents of KAOS: "The article seems to dismiss land acquisition costs very fast without addressing whether big projects in the US need to acquire more land than the equivalent in Paris and Tokyo - what percentage of projects in America/elsewhere actually require new land, and what's the average amount purchased?"
I'd turn again to the WMATA Silver Line, which was built on a preexisting public ROW, and was still ridiculously expensive. Ditto for the upcoming Maryland Purple Line. Land acquisition costs might be discouraging some projects, but there are plenty that don't require much new land, and are still exorbitantly expensive.
posted by schmod at 10:12 AM on January 29, 2016 [2 favorites]
I'd turn again to the WMATA Silver Line, which was built on a preexisting public ROW, and was still ridiculously expensive. Ditto for the upcoming Maryland Purple Line. Land acquisition costs might be discouraging some projects, but there are plenty that don't require much new land, and are still exorbitantly expensive.
posted by schmod at 10:12 AM on January 29, 2016 [2 favorites]
Also the Green Line Extension in greater Boston. No land acquisitions. Ballooning costs due to the project being overly bespoke and getting locked in with one contractor.
posted by ocschwar at 1:36 PM on January 29, 2016 [1 favorite]
posted by ocschwar at 1:36 PM on January 29, 2016 [1 favorite]
I hope someone is using Seattle's two current tunneling projects as a natural experiment.
posted by clew at 2:45 PM on January 29, 2016 [6 favorites]
posted by clew at 2:45 PM on January 29, 2016 [6 favorites]
One thing that's noticeably cheaper in Japan: the politicians.
Seriously, you can buy the entire house, both sides of the aisle, for political pocket lint.
(Incidentally, Hactar, hitobashira hasn't been practiced here in centuries. Although I note that Wikipedia says 'citation needed' on that ... )
posted by oheso at 3:57 PM on January 29, 2016 [1 favorite]
Seriously, you can buy the entire house, both sides of the aisle, for political pocket lint.
(Incidentally, Hactar, hitobashira hasn't been practiced here in centuries. Although I note that Wikipedia says 'citation needed' on that ... )
posted by oheso at 3:57 PM on January 29, 2016 [1 favorite]
Getting Grand/Blue and LaSalle/Blue compliant in Chicago will be hard, getting something like Bank or Oxford Circus in London compliant may simply be impossible due to costs.
Bank is going to be completely rebuilt in the future anyway (which will require the complete closure of that branch of the Northern line for several months) and will presumably be made step-free at that time.
posted by atrazine at 7:37 AM on February 1, 2016
Bank is going to be completely rebuilt in the future anyway (which will require the complete closure of that branch of the Northern line for several months) and will presumably be made step-free at that time.
posted by atrazine at 7:37 AM on February 1, 2016
« Older This generation got no destination to hold | Lutheran Insulter Newer »
This thread has been archived and is closed to new comments
It didn't address something I've been observing for years.
Talk to a crew doing road maintenance or repair.
The road is in South Dakota, but the entire crew, and the company awarded the contract, is from Mississippi.
Go to a road in Colorado, and the company and crew is from South Dakota.
This can't be "market efficient" in any reasonable sense.
posted by yesster at 7:26 PM on January 28, 2016 [1 favorite]