An Unusual Subway Stop in New York • Hacker News Board

Re: An Unusual Subway Stop in New York

#11

Post by pcurve » Sun, Sep 20, 2015, 9:15 PM UTC

yummyfajitas wrote: post #5

This article is a bit clueless. The state has more than adequately provided the MTA with money. The place where the state failed is providing sufficient oversight to make sure the MTA isn't wasting it. Paris spent 1.3B euro on the 14 line, which has 9 stations. The MTA spent 2.4B on a single stop on the 7 line. MTA construction costs drastically exceed worldwide norms - the MTA spends $1B/kilometer. http://www.systra…

The port authority bus station renovation proposal had sticker price of $9 billion.

Compared that to $500 million Japan spent renovating their Tokyo Station a few years ago which involved:

- Adding 3rd floor level, raising roof.

- reconstructing intricate decorations and motifs before it was bombed in the war.

- station hotel renovation

- installation of earthquake proof underground seismic buffers and dampers. (hundreds of them)

- 5 year long

All that for $500 million. In the middle of Tokyo.

Construction cost in the U.S. is a complete joke.

Re: An Unusual Subway Stop in New York

#12

Post by pcurve » Sun, Sep 20, 2015, 9:27 PM UTC

morgante wrote: post #7

yummyfajitas wrote: post #5

This article is a bit clueless. The state has more than adequately provided the MTA with money. The place where the state failed is providing sufficient oversight to make sure the MTA isn't wasting it. Paris spent 1.3B euro on the 14 line, which has 9 stations. The MTA spent 2.4B on a single stop on the 7 line. MTA construction costs drastically exceed worldwide norms - the MTA spends $1B/kilometer. http://www.systra…

Why are costs so much higher in NY though?

The proposed Hudson River tunnel has price tag of $20 billion.

The 30 mile+ Channel Tunnel cost less. Go figure.

Re: An Unusual Subway Stop in New York

#13

Post by PhantomGremlin » Mon, Sep 21, 2015, 12:58 AM UTC

yummyfajitas wrote: post #5

This article is a bit clueless. The state has more than adequately provided the MTA with money. The place where the state failed is providing sufficient oversight to make sure the MTA isn't wasting it. Paris spent 1.3B euro on the 14 line, which has 9 stations. The MTA spent 2.4B on a single stop on the 7 line. MTA construction costs drastically exceed worldwide norms - the MTA spends $1B/kilometer. http://www.systra…

Funding is adequate, costs are simply out of control

Yeah, that's the bottom line. Govt funded infrastructure projects are totally out of control, it's not just NYC.

My favorite example is local, in Oregon. In 1982 a very fine bridge was opened across the Columbia River. It cost $170 million.[1] Fast forward to recently. Before the plug was finally pulled, estimated costs for a second bridge a few miles away were $2.8 billion.[2] And that was for a scaled down version. Other estimates were as high as $10 billion.

Yes we've had some inflation in the last 30 years. But the cost increases far outpace inflation. And nobody in government cares. All they do is say "we need it", without doing any critical thinking. What they really mean is "we want it".

It's like the teenagers in my house. They want everything, they don't care how much it costs. They haven't earned the money they want to spend, so to them any possible costs are meaningless.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_L._Jackson_Memorial_Brid... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_River_Crossing

Re: An Unusual Subway Stop in New York

#14

Post by brenschluss » Mon, Sep 21, 2015, 2:40 AM UTC

shalmanese wrote: post #9

morgante wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why are costs so much higher in NY though?

Costs are higher throughout the entire US for infrastructure projects. The US routinely pays an order of magnitude more per mile for similarly scoped projects compared to countries like Spain. The root cause appears to be in the unique way projects are bid on in the US, where details need to be laid out in excruciating detail ahead of time and then any unplanned changes are cause for cost padding.

Sincerely curious: What's an alternative to the bidding process you mention?

Re: An Unusual Subway Stop in New York

#15

Post by rmxt » Tue, Sep 22, 2015, 1:59 AM UTC

brenschluss wrote: post #14

shalmanese wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Costs are higher throughout the entire US for infrastructure projects. The US routinely pays an order of magnitude more per mile for similarly scoped projects compared to countries like Spain. The root cause appears to be in the unique way projects are bid on in the US, where details need to be laid out in excruciating detail ahead of time and then any unplanned changes are cause for cost padding.

Sincerely curious: What's an alternative to the bidding process you mention?

Historically, most projects in the United States performed by public agencies have been of the "Design-Bid-Build" variety, but there are a number of other styles. Most of which involve the owner/agency contracting to fewer entities who do more of the various types of work that need to be done (design, constructing, managing, operating, financing etc.). Traditionally, in Design-Bid-Build the owner contracts with one company to design, they perform the bidding process, and a separate entity does the building, with financing also coming from their own operating/capital budget. The alternatives shown here [1] spice up that process. DBB isn't completely evil, the wiki page does a good breakdown of it's pros and cons. [2]

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_delivery_method

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design%E2%80%93bid%E2%80%93bui...