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How Madrid built its metro cheaply (2024)

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Re: How Madrid built its metro cheaply (2024)

#121

Post by rsynnott »

zelphirkalt wrote: post #73

Having been in Madrid and having used the metro, I was also impressed by how well it works. Seemingly always on time, and very good price service ratio. You can buy "rides" and one ride means get in at any station and get out at any other station of the whole network, interchange as many times as you want. For, at the time, 1.16 Euro. Compare that to Berlin, where you can pay some 4 Euro or so for limited amount of s…

Though in practice if you live there you probably have a Deutschland-Ticket; the 4 euro fee would be primarily for visitors. Even as a visitor you should just buy an X-day pass in the terrible app if you're going to be using it a lot, assuming that the terrible app deigns to let you do that and doesn't just throw cryptic errors.

(What is with German public transport ticket-buying apps? They all seem to be very broken.)

Re: How Madrid built its metro cheaply (2024)

#122

Post by presentation »

stymaar wrote: post #116
throw0101a wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> in-house expertise This is under-appreciated. > I believe that the U.S. suffers from a distinct lack of state capacity. We’ve outsourced many of our core government functions to nonprofits and consultants, resulting in cost bloat and the waste of taxpayer money. We’ve farmed out environmental regulation to the courts and to private citizens, resulting in paralysis for industry and infrastructure alike. And we’ve le…

> * https://www.noahpinion.blog/p/america-needs-a-bigger-better- ... Woah, this is really a “worst person you known just made a great point” moment for me.

Curious, what do you dislike about him? I find many of his takes to be pretty reasonable, though he gets temperamental and snarky sometimes.

Re: How Madrid built its metro cheaply (2024)

#123

Post by throwaway_2626 »

contubernio wrote: post #40
hnav wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What came first, the wage or the cost of housing?

In Madrid where the average monthly pretax salary is below 1500 a shared room with four strangers costs 400-709 a month and small aprtments in bad neighborhoods cost 3000-4000 a square meter to buy.

Average monthly pretax salary in Madrid: 2 575.46 EUR (source in es_ES: https://www.abc.es/espana/madrid/evolucionado-salario-medio-...)

Also, a shared apartment costs as much as you say. Not a room (source: idealista.es).

Purchase prices are high, but I'm curious as to what you consider a bad neighborhood, given the overall safety statistics in Spain, and Madrid in particular.

Housing affordability is a real problem, but misrepresenting data is counterproductive, as it can be easily disproven.

Re: How Madrid built its metro cheaply (2024)

#124

Post by gib444 »

KaiserPro wrote: post #113
gib444 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK infrastructure projects are about creating jobs and making their friends rich first, and providing some kind of useful infrastructure last (and also optional) There is so much thievery of public funds it's just corruption disguised as incompetence and the public believe it every time

> the UK infrastructure projects are about creating jobs and making their friends rich first, So out and out corruption is rare in the UK. For example Farage has just received 5 million in dodgy money, which is more money than all of the previous political money scandals since Mandelson. But to your point, most of the time and money in uk infra is spent trying to navigate planning laws and nimbys

And who ensures those planning laws remain as they are - expensive and annoying and enabling of NIMBYs? Politicians. These things were created with laws, they can be undone with them

We rarely have impediments such as a minority government who can't change laws

You don't need to dig too deep to connect the dots.

Re: How Madrid built its metro cheaply (2024)

#125

Post by presentation »

pibaker wrote: post #25
hnav wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

- Figuring out NIMBY-ism. Anywhere you run a tunnel you're gonna have people suing you and stalling for decades. Less so if you use a tunnel bore machine, but cut and cover is pretty much a non-starter. - Cost of labor is insanely high due to cost of housing. Short of jumping straight back into the 19th century, setting up temporary housing and bringing in guest laborers this is pretty much non-negotiable. - Not a to…

> Cost of labor is insanely high due to cost of housing This is not the reason. Labor is expensive even in parts of the US with low housing costs. The real, simple reason is the US has a more prosperous economy where the average worker has more opportunity than their Spanish peers. Just look at unemployment rates. The US is at 4.3% right now compared to Spain's 10%. Even at the peak of the GFC the US barely had over…

So does that imply that there is a Goldilocks zone of prosperity where society are wealthy enough to afford good infrastructure but not too wealthy so as to become unable to build infrastructure cost effectively? Interesting that too much prosperity would actually lower living standards.

Re: How Madrid built its metro cheaply (2024)

#126

Post by zipy124 »

KaiserPro wrote: post #113
gib444 wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In the UK infrastructure projects are about creating jobs and making their friends rich first, and providing some kind of useful infrastructure last (and also optional) There is so much thievery of public funds it's just corruption disguised as incompetence and the public believe it every time

> the UK infrastructure projects are about creating jobs and making their friends rich first, So out and out corruption is rare in the UK. For example Farage has just received 5 million in dodgy money, which is more money than all of the previous political money scandals since Mandelson. But to your point, most of the time and money in uk infra is spent trying to navigate planning laws and nimbys

That depends how you define political money scandals. Just looking in recent history you have COVID-19 and the associated scandals [1] which includes the govt trying to get £122 million + extras back from a company run by Baroness Mone in the house of lords. That's a political money scandal.

Or you could go for the Greensill scandal [2] with David Cameron who may have made as much as up to $60 million from it.

Nick clegg received $20 million + from working for meta after being in power.

There are so many more to choose from, Farage has just been the most obvious and worst at hiding it.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controversies_regarding_COVID-...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Greensill_scandal

Re: How Madrid built its metro cheaply (2024)

#127

Post by eitally »

raybb wrote: post #62
tsimionescu wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Private companies and competition, solve a lot of problems in the society. Like making food supply work. Is there any food market in the developed world that is not heavily subsidized by the state?

New Zealand and Australia have very minimal subsidies. I do wonder what it would be like if our system was designed to feed people rather than to make money. It's baffling that in Florida the land of oranges you see little cups of pealed that say product of Spain and packaged in Thailand. I know supply chains are complex and labor costs are a big factor but still.

Just FYI, the orange industry in Florida is almost at zero now, due mostly to citrus greening. https://www.npr.org/2026/05/10/nx-s1-5771748/florida-farmers...

Re: How Madrid built its metro cheaply (2024)

#128

Post by sokka_h2otribe »

BDPW wrote: post #111
Schiendelman wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With a small country, stable government, and national level funding, that's perfectly feasible. I wish that would work in the US, but we have hundreds of transit agencies that do capital projects.

Has nothing to do with size, see Japan and China.

What does it have to do with then?

My understanding japan has a surprisingly private train system, and China fits the model of "works when it's constantly expanding"

Re: How Madrid built its metro cheaply (2024)

#129

Post by thewhitetulip »

porridgeraisin wrote: post #115
thewhitetulip wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Some metros are PPP Some are by contractors However, all are perpetually delayed Pune metro line 3's construction status was 85+% for over 1yr now Land acquisition was over a long time ago. Progress on road is just invisible despite being built by a private company which will operate it for the next 30yrs

All Indian metros without exception are managed by SPVs. Land acquisition is not something that gets over. It is a continuous process. Then the court cases if any always show up with some delay, and that can revoke transfers. Then you have to look for alternative land parcels, which may involve minor reroutes in the worst case. It's the same with finances, everything comes in tranches, land, money, everything. > Pune…

Interesting. So do they not work on the things were land acquisition is solved?

I see at least 4 stations daily where there has been literally 0 progress in the past few months.

They could finish rest of the job right? Until land issue is resolved (which don't revokve around that land like stairs etc)

Re: How Madrid built its metro cheaply (2024)

#130

Post by eitally »

ak217 wrote: post #31
neil_s wrote: post #2

What would need to be true for SF to replicate this? Would we need alignment at the mayor, state assembly and SFMTA levels?

For many years, I observed the San Francisco Caltrain DTX (Downtown Extension, recently rebranded "The Portal"). This is the most important transit missing link in Northern California that is expected to connect two of the highest ridership transit arteries in the Bay Area and eventually unlock single-seat rail transit between Sacramento, San Francisco, San Jose, and points south. DTX is a two-mile tunnel planned to…

100% agree on all points!

And moreover, CHRSRA, while it is certainly delayed and over budget, appears to be a fairly well-run program with delays due primarily to external issues created by state & local government. It doesn't help that it receives nearly universal bad press, but I think that'll change by next year as they start laying track [connecting the stations and above grade crossings that have been long built].

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