How Madrid built its metro cheaply (2024) • Hacker News Board

Re: How Madrid built its metro cheaply (2024)

#81

Post by 0zer0 » Thu, Jun 18, 2026, 9:02 AM UTC

Schiendelman wrote: post #79

thatmf wrote: post #8

> Unlike infrastructure projects in Britain or America, which are heavily reliant on external consultants to handle all stages of the project, this group of well-paid in-house engineers led much of the Madrid Metro expansion. The team stayed largely the same throughout the different projects, meaning that they were able to learn from their experience and apply it to future projects. Imagine that: building expertise i…

There are serious issues with that approach. If you don't have continuous funding from the projects, you end up with a big overhead of highly paid engineers without work for them to do. Then you have to lay them off, so you lose the institutional knowledge anyway. We tried this early on with sound transit in Washington state, and because engineering work is boom and bust on a project by project basis, the model just…

I think it is for this reason that Switzerland has a fixed budget for their railway construction. And it seems to pay off, Swiss railway is exceptional.

Re: How Madrid built its metro cheaply (2024)

#82

Post by sillyfluke » Thu, Jun 18, 2026, 9:03 AM UTC

jerojero wrote: post #70

raybb wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Its natural for companies to push boundaries for better and better profits. It's sort of their nature. Things might be fine in Australia and NZ right now, but as the hydric crisis deepens we might see a need for government to step up. I think a problem is that, if you have a market-first approach you run the risk of the businesses growing so large and powerful that when you do need to intervene, it has become an impo…

>if you have a market-first approach you run the risk of the businesses growing so large and powerful that when you do need to intervene, it has become an impossible task.

It's also said that four companies control 85% beef market in the US, which normally should make people rather queasy I would think.

Re: How Madrid built its metro cheaply (2024)

#83

Post by BrenBarn » Thu, Jun 18, 2026, 9:10 AM UTC

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…

I mean, if you can have higher unemployment but still build good subways and overall have a good quality of life, maybe that suggests unemployment isn't a great metric for evaluating societies.

Re: How Madrid built its metro cheaply (2024)

#84

Post by fsloth » Thu, Jun 18, 2026, 9:19 AM UTC

On the topic of public engineering projects overall, I'm wondering are there better books on this topic than Robert Caro's "Power broker"?

Which is basically "Soul of a new machine" for municipalities with all the political mess this implies. How do you get stuff done - and at what price.

Re: How Madrid built its metro cheaply (2024)

#85

Post by flr03 » Thu, Jun 18, 2026, 9:21 AM UTC

fer wrote: post #50

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

In Spain it is the same, the Metro de Madrid being an anomaly rather than the norm (for now). Some flagrant cases: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ciudad_Real_International_Airp... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castell%C3%B3n%E2%80%93Costa_A... https://maps.app.goo.gl/8BRnx8eQFfihvHmv5 https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2019/05/17/inenglish/15580... The 2008 crisis had a special flavor in Spain, cajas de ahorros (privat…

At least Spain has something, UK has something to show for it the numbers are crazy.

Re: How Madrid built its metro cheaply (2024)

#86

Post by the_gipsy » Thu, Jun 18, 2026, 9:29 AM UTC

aianus wrote: post #60

thelastgallon wrote: post #19

Meanwhile, bay area has companies with market cap of 30T (50T?), has nonexistent/incompatible and the slowest public transit. 1) BART 'works' for a subset of the population. 2) ACE train is one route only, from Stockton to San Jose. 3) Caltrain is one straight line. Caltrain has a bullet train that takes an hour for ~20-30 miles. 4) There is a ferry service for some parts of north bay. There are probably dozens of ot…

Why would anyone prefer public transit over a self driving comfortable personal car?

Why would anyone prefer airline transit over a comfortable private jet?

Re: How Madrid built its metro cheaply (2024)

#87

Post by gjulianm » Thu, Jun 18, 2026, 9:35 AM UTC

I am not sure how much do I trust an article about Madrid's metro that doesn't mention the fact that one of those expansions (Line 7, in San Fernando de Henares) was done with political instead of technical criteria, ending up in several hundreds losing their homes and a metro line that has to close every once in a while for repairs.

I am also heavily distrusting of the "75 percent of passengers described themselves as ‘very satisfied’". The infrastructure might be ok now, but the frequencies are getting worse (except when the pope visits, in that case they apparently have the money) and in rush hour everything is packed.

Re: How Madrid built its metro cheaply (2024)

#88

Post by rob74 » Thu, Jun 18, 2026, 9:52 AM UTC

cladopa wrote: post #71

As an engineer myself working for them 20 years ago, we were certainly not well paid like the article said. Quite the contrary: I was still on University(had not finished the final project) and had to do most of the hard technical work myself for someone else to just overview the results and sign. My salary was miserable. Once I had finished I could earn 3 to 4 times more on several places. They were also extremely c…

> the tunnelling machines that had all the pieces replicated inhouse

Wait... did you build your own tunnel boring machines? Or just spare parts for them?

Re: How Madrid built its metro cheaply (2024)

#89

Post by brunorro » Thu, Jun 18, 2026, 9:58 AM UTC

Well, it grew up really well but that was "geologically easy". Madrid lies over a granitic floor, tunneling there is easier and faster than it would be in Barcelona, Amsterdam or London.

So, after having lived in Barcelona and Madrid... Both metros are excellent, but besides covering a smaller area, I still prefer Barcelona metro than Madrid one. IMHO, Barcelona metro looks more like the one in the german cities and Madrid metro looks like London one.

Said that, this year Madrid metro users have been quite angry at some line closures at the same time than tunnels were fixed at the same time in the city. It is mostly a managing problem as well, as some of the trains (quite old in some cases) are still being rented instead of bought.

Line 7B grew up as well but in San Fernando de Henares some buildings got structural cracks and some houses (over 50) had to be bulldozed.

Metro works from 06:00 to 01:00, but there is nothing before of after that time. In Barcelona, for instance, Monday to Thursday works 5:00 to 00:00, on Friday 5:00 to 02:00, and from 05:00 on Saturday to 00:00 on Sunday non-stop. That has been for some years now and means lots of drunk people not taking the car.

In Barcelona, metro schedules are tighter as well. In Barcelona, in rush hours you may have a train every 2,5 minutes, in some cases less than 2 minutes. In Madrid it's more like 4 minutes. Trains are newer in Barcelona, too (and wider because most lines use iberic gauge), but that was because until the 90s Barcelona trains had some asbestos on them.

Anyways, a metro is not only about the trains, it's also about the stations. Most of Madrid ones have conditioned air and have better lighting than not only the Barcelona ones, but the European ones as well. But, again IMHO, signage in Madrid metro is HORRIBLE. Most of the signs are on the walls, when you are walking on a crowded corridor is easy to take the wrong direction. I need a magnifier to read the metro plan on the wagons. Also, it takes some time to understand that it "drives on its left" in a country where everything else "drives on its right". Not a big thing, but if you come from somewhere in Europe it may take you some time until you get used to all of it.

Re: How Madrid built its metro cheaply (2024)

#90

Post by notarobot123 » Thu, Jun 18, 2026, 10:23 AM UTC

thomasfl wrote: post #47

thelastgallon wrote: post #19

Meanwhile, bay area has companies with market cap of 30T (50T?), has nonexistent/incompatible and the slowest public transit. 1) BART 'works' for a subset of the population. 2) ACE train is one route only, from Stockton to San Jose. 3) Caltrain is one straight line. Caltrain has a bullet train that takes an hour for ~20-30 miles. 4) There is a ferry service for some parts of north bay. There are probably dozens of ot…

Private companies and competition, solve a lot of problems in the society. Like making food supply work. Planning and building cities and public transport is something the public sector is better at solving. Clean, nice and walkable cities with a good working public transport system, is important for the local economy to work. City planning is the art of compromises - no body get’s what they want, but overall everybo…

> Like making food supply work

Producers make what will sell but without any incentives, subsidies or regulation this would be a mess of profit chasing, unsafe practices and fragile supply chains.

In my view, the value of the public sector is in setting the rule of the game for private actors in exactly this kind of way (rules and incentives) instead of the politics of picking winners and losers directly or making direct decisions about what to build where, etc. Rule makers play the meta-game of designing how the game works and they leave agents free to play as they wish.