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The U.S. Gets Less Subway for Its Money Than Its Peers

citylab.com

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Re: The U.S. Gets Less Subway for Its Money Than Its Peers

#41

Post by ajross »

thatswrong0 wrote: post #23
wnevets wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I forgot that Europe is known for its lack of regulations, red tape, unions, and somewhat unaccountable government agencies running the show.

My point was that it's not a "supposedly efficient capitalistic market" that we're dealing with in the U.S. I didn't even mention Europe.

The whole point of the limited article was a comparison to other developed nations. You can't be surprised when you jump in to "explain" the reason behind the difference to have people point out that it's disproven by the very article we are discussing!

Re: The U.S. Gets Less Subway for Its Money Than Its Peers

#42

Post by athenot »

scythe wrote: post #27

It seems like European infrastructure construction is more centralized than its American counterpart. In the Bay Area, there are two competing transit providers, each funded by the same taxpayers. Every city seems to run its own show, and CAHSR infamously rejected offers from European companies to do construction. It's just my view from 10000 feet, but the average city council has few civil engineers on board, so may…

In Paris, you have the national train company (SNCF) who competes with the Parisian subway system (RATP). To make matters even more complicated, some suburban rail lines are operated by one over the tracks of the other. This is seamless until one of them goes on strike...

For the geek part: when trains shift from one network to the other (RER B between Châtelet and Gare du Nord), they free-wheel while they transition power from one network to the power of the other one. On the rare occasion that a train has to stop in the middle of that dead zone, it can't move anymore...

Re: The U.S. Gets Less Subway for Its Money Than Its Peers

#43

Post by potatolicious »

mulmen wrote: post #19
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Note, too, that the New York City Subway was almost entirely privately funded and built.

How was that possible and why does it not seem to happen today? What changed? Is it still privately owned?

I don't think GP is correct in saying that the NYC subway was privately funded and built - the funding was largely public, with the resulting infrastructure leased to private companies to operate.

The initial IRT subway was funded by the city with bond issuance, which then contracted the construction and operation of the railway to private bodies.

Later expansions were funded by a mix of public and private funds - but again, with the city retaining ownership of the property and leasing to private hands for operation.

The NYC subway was never a private enterprise in the usual understanding of the word. It's frustrating when achievements like the NYC subway are attributed to free-market triumphalism when there's nothing in its history that justifies this conclusion.

Re: The U.S. Gets Less Subway for Its Money Than Its Peers

#44

Post by yonran »

Symmetry wrote: post #11

A pretty good article I read recently getting into the breakdown of what exactly we're paying more for in the US versus other places. https://pedestrianobservations.com/2018/01/27/construction-c...

Note that both the citylab article and pedestrianobservations are from the same author, Alon Levy. I also liked his article (https://www.the-american-interest.com/2017/02/10/why-we-cant...) summarizing best practices from Madrid (offline: https://tunnelbuilder.com/metrosur/edition2pdf/page2.pdf archived: https://web.archive.org/web/20171216155555/https://tunnelbui...).

Re: The U.S. Gets Less Subway for Its Money Than Its Peers

#45

Post by trophycase »

nostromo wrote: post #33
bsder wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agenda much? Is anybody in this thread doing basic math? 200 ghost workers at $100K per year (probably a bit high, thanks) is $20 million per year. Um, so much for that causing the cost overrun. Project management is generally the failure. And, generally, it starts with the asinine "low bid" rules. Everyone successful at dealing with the government knows that you bid as low as possible to get the contract and then yo…

$100k isn’t a high estimate at all. The article says they were costing $1k a day . > All we knew is they were each being paid about $1,000 every day.

Ok that's great and all but don't try to derail the major point which is that this pay is an extremely small fraction of the cost.

Re: The U.S. Gets Less Subway for Its Money Than Its Peers

#46

Post by GuiA »

bkohlmann wrote: post #9
heurist wrote: post #4

The US seems to get less of everything for its money than its peers. Geographic spread is a major macro factor, but you'd still think that a supposedly efficient capitalistic market would at least handle local services better.

For market based goods, the US does deliver pretty phenomenal, innovative and minimally priced outputs. Groceries, energy, technology, etc. "Local services" are almost always driven by non-market based considerations. Politics, not economics, determines contract awards for public works. It's as far from the market as you can get. And our society receives commensurate "value."

Heh. True in some ways, not in some others. Groceries for example - yes, I can buy chicken at Walmart for much cheaper than I would in the EU, for instance. But the chicken I’d buy in the EU would be of much higher quality. If I want a comparable chicken (not cage raised, not full of hormones, etc), I’ll end up going to Whole Foods or similar upscale store and end up paying roughly the same as I would in the EU.

Re: The U.S. Gets Less Subway for Its Money Than Its Peers

#47

Post by jonknee »

rco8786 wrote: post #38
jonknee wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Agenda much? Is anybody in this thread doing basic math? 200 ghost workers at $100K per year (probably a bit high, thanks) is $20 million per year. Did you bother to read the article? Right at the start it says these 200 workers "were each being paid about $1,000 every day".

That's still only $73mil/year. A small fraction of the billions.

And it's just one example of the inefficiencies...

Re: The U.S. Gets Less Subway for Its Money Than Its Peers

#48

Post by seanmcdirmid »

ucaetano wrote: post #39

The US probably has the best, most efficient private sector of any developed country. And the worst, most inefficient public sector of any developed country. It chooses to prioritize the private sector over the public sector. Other countries choose otherwise. Each model has its advantages and disadvantages. This (efficiency of building public transit) is the outcome of the US model.

> And the worst, most inefficient public sector of any developed country.

I'm pretty sure most who live in their own developed country think their own public sector is the most inefficient. Well, maybe not the Swiss.

Re: The U.S. Gets Less Subway for Its Money Than Its Peers

#49

Post by closeparen »

heurist wrote: post #17
thatswrong0 wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> supposedly efficient capitalistic market Unfortunately that's not what we have when dealing with regulations, red tape, unions, and somewhat unaccountable government agencies running the show.

I don't think it's fair to call out unions/government without calling out large capital investors as well. We wouldn't have suburbs or massive shopping malls without huge real estate investors pumping money into major developments that exist to drain money out of a market. Large developments are a net drain on local economies and produce far less efficient markets than small incremental developments based on organic…

Since there is broad societal consensus* that capital should not be permitted to intensify urban environments, it had better build suburbs, or we’ll all be homeless.

*with a little bit of scrappy opposition emerging in the last few years.

Re: The U.S. Gets Less Subway for Its Money Than Its Peers

#50

Post by potatolicious »

rco8786 wrote: post #38
jonknee wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Agenda much? Is anybody in this thread doing basic math? 200 ghost workers at $100K per year (probably a bit high, thanks) is $20 million per year. Did you bother to read the article? Right at the start it says these 200 workers "were each being paid about $1,000 every day".

That's still only $73mil/year. A small fraction of the billions.

That's the tip of the iceberg - the linked article goes into much more detail.

Procurement practice and staffing practice are huge contributors to the excessive cost. The projects are massively overstaffed contrasted with comparable projects elsewhere - the article:

> "The staffing of tunnel-boring machines came up repeatedly in interviews with contractors. The so-called T.B.M.s are massive contraptions, weighing over 1,000 tons and stretching up to 500 feet from cutting wheel to thrust system, but they largely run automatically. Other cities typically man the machine with fewer than 10 people."

> "It is not just tunneling machines that are overstaffed, though. A dozen New York unions work on tunnel creation, station erection and system setup. Each negotiates with the construction companies over labor conditions, without the M.T.A.’s involvement. And each has secured rules that contractors say require more workers than necessary."

> "In New York, “underground construction employs approximately four times the number of personnel as in similar jobs in Asia, Australia, or Europe,” according to an internal report by Arup, a consulting firm that worked on the Second Avenue subway and many similar projects around the world."

The fictional no-show jobs that are pure corruption make up only a small amount of the cost of projects - a much larger portion are jobs are real, but largely unnecessary.

The other big practice cited in the article is that the unions do not negotiate with the MTA, but rather with contractors. Contractors, receiving a percentage of the total cost of the contract, have no incentive to reign in labor costs and staffing - and in fact have every incentive to do exactly the opposite.

A cheaper, smaller contract employing fewer people is worth less to the contractor. Realistically the city or the MTA should be negotiating with labor unions directly.

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