Why It's So Expensive to Build Urban Rail in the U.S.

[subterranean]

Why It's So Expensive to Build Urban Rail in the U.S.
Jan 26, 2018 at 1:27 AM by Alon Levy

In late December, The New York Times published a bombshell article by Brian Rosenthal about high construction costs on the New York City subway. Doing painstaking investigative work building on a set of numbers I blogged about in 2011, Rosenthal showed how, at $2.6 billion per mile, New York’s Second Avenue Subway broke records for its costs, and that all of the reasons subway officials offered were excuses.

Source: https://www.citylab.com/transportati...the-us/551408/

[CastleScott]

Well before you can even do actual construction there's the studies, environmental engineering, land for right of way has to be aquired and etc (additional costs happen due to local political bickering and NIMBY's). After construction starts there's utilities that have to be relocated then route prep and then more-its always a challenge building a line in tight places like in most downtowns..

Btw just reading this-it looks like the project in Phoenix is almost a bargin..

[huggkruka]

Originally Posted by CastleScott

Well before you can even do actual construction there's the studies, environmental engineering, land for right of way...

That doesn't really explain why the US pays 2-7 times more per mile than Europe - we have all those challenges too. Interesting article, seems its uphill for transit enthusiasts in the US on every level...

[mrnyc]

Originally Posted by huggkruka

That doesn't really explain why the US pays 2-7 times more per mile than Europe - we have all those challenges too. Interesting article, seems its uphill for transit enthusiasts in the US on every level...

well speaking of europe parallels sometimes rail transit tends to get done easier in states with one large metro like for example arizona, colorado, washington state, massachusetts, than it does in states like ohio or pennsylvania where there is more in-state competition for money for things like transit.

of course it also doesnt help when you have an ohio governor that is a dim-witted suburban-minded idiot like kasich who had fed money for a new statewide rail service in hand and gave it back (so florida could eventually get it for their new rail).

[lrt's friend]

Originally Posted by mrnyc

well speaking of europe parallels sometimes rail transit tends to get done easier in states with one large metro like for example arizona, colorado, washington state, massachusetts, than it does in states like ohio or pennsylvania where there is more in-state competition for money for things like transit.

of course it also doesnt help when you have an ohio governor that is a dim-witted suburban-minded idiot like kasich who had fed money for a new statewide rail service in hand and gave it back (so florida could eventually get it for their new rail).

This certainly does not apply in Europe where countries with a number of major cities, like Germany and Switzerland, have built some of the best rail infrastructure. In North America, we have the long standing obsession with cars that make it difficult for other public modes of transport to get financial support. This may be slowly changing, but in those places where the car is most entrenched, will have the most difficulty of investing elsewhere.

[ardecila]

Originally Posted by CastleScott

Well before you can even do actual construction there's the studies, environmental engineering, land for right of way has to be aquired and etc (additional costs happen due to local political bickering and NIMBY's). After construction starts there's utilities that have to be relocated then route prep and then more-its always a challenge building a line in tight places like in most downtowns..

Btw just reading this-it looks like the project in Phoenix is almost a bargin..

Yeah, the Phoenix project is about as dead simple as light rail gets, it was a straight-line extension, at grade, down the middle of a major (some might say oversized) arterial street.

Still, it's very similar to Houston's light rail system and Nashville's planned one, so maybe there's something to be learned. All three are in red states with (one presumes) relatively few environmental laws and NIMBY obstructionism, but Phoenix is the only one to build for under $100M/mile.

[jd3189]

Glad someone beat me to it. I never liked the fact that it's hard to build rail systems in this country.

[M II A II R II K]

Why Does Subway Construction Cost So Much? Congress Wants to Find Out

Read More: https://www.nytimes.com/2018/03/28/n...-congress.html

.....

The Government Accountability Office said on Wednesday that it was preparing to launch a study of why transit construction is so much more expensive in the United States than in other parts of the world. Special attention is expected to be paid to New York City, where recent projects have cost far more than anticipated. Auditors plan to examine contracting policies, station design, project routing, regulatory barriers and other elements that drive cost, comparing practices in different cities in the United States and abroad, officials said. A final report with recommendations is to be issued by the end of the year.

- Elsewhere in the world, a mile of subway track typically costs $500 million or less. “It’s fantastic that people are really paying attention to this issue,” said Dani Simons, a spokeswoman for the Regional Plan Association, a research and advocacy group that released its own report on high transit construction costs last month. “We’re very excited that they’re doing this study.” A spokesman for the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which runs the subways, said the authority was already acting to reduce construction costs. --- “The M.T.A. under new leadership is aggressively tackling these issues through working groups dedicated to procurement reform and containing construction costs,” said the spokesman, Jon Weinstein. “We are implementing new processes and procedures to streamline work, stop customization and reduce change orders — all of which will help us drive down costs.”

- The extension of the 14 Line in Paris, for example, was very similar to the Second Avenue subway project in length, depth, soil type, environmental issues and regulations, but it cost just $450 million per track mile. In Madrid, a project to extend the 2 Line, completed in 2011, cost just $100 million per track mile. American transit construction generally is more expensive than work completed abroad, but recent projects in New York have cost far more than elsewhere in the country. In San Francisco, for example, the 1.7-mile central subway is being built for about $1 billion per track mile. The University Link project in Seattle cost around $500 million per track mile. --- The Times investigation found that the high costs were the result, in part, of generous contracts, excessive staffing and archaic work rules. One member of the M.T.A. board, Charles G. Moerdler, summarized the problems: “Is it rigged? Yes. I don’t think it’s corrupt. But I think people like doing business with people they know, and so a few companies get all the work, and they can charge whatever they want.”

.....

[muertecaza]

Originally Posted by ardecila

Yeah, the Phoenix project is about as dead simple as light rail gets, it was a straight-line extension, at grade, down the middle of a major (some might say oversized) arterial street.

Still, it's very similar to Houston's light rail system and Nashville's planned one, so maybe there's something to be learned. All three are in red states with (one presumes) relatively few environmental laws and NIMBY obstructionism, but Phoenix is the only one to build for under $100M/mile.

That Phoenix extension even according to Phoenix standards was somewhat of an outlier as it didn't really hit any delays, and finished ahead of schedule.

A further 2 mile extension along the same line hasn't fared as well--red states have their own NIMBY obstructionism in the form of tax payer watchdog organizations that often do what they can to block transit projects. The new extension was delayed two years by a lawsuit challenging the funding mechanism for the extension. As a result of that and some additional utility relocation and design changes, the extension last I heard is about ~15% over budget. Of course, even with the cost overruns, this extension is still under the $100m threshhold--it's just increased from about $80m/mile to about $90m/mile.

[BrownTown]

Most of these have been stated already, but I'll keep at it:
1. Incredibly onerous regulations requiring years of studies and expensive unneeded modifications.
2. NIMBYism resulted in years of lawsuits and more expensive unneeded modifications.
3. Union work practices requiring way more workers than are actually needed.
4. General inexperience of workers and engineers since the US builds so little rail.
etc.

Again, it's not just rail that has this problem, it occurs in all sorts of infrastucture in the US. For instance many of the first nuclear plants built in the US were constructed for 2-3 Billion dollars (accounting for inflation), but now we can't seem to build one for less than 20 Billion. We literally built subway and other rail tunnels faster and cheaper 100 years ago than we do now, it's just pathetic.

[emathias]

There are a ton of "reasons," some of which are not going to be easy to remedy, but hopefully some of which will be.

Reasons I think apply:
1) US tends to split projects into smaller pieces that are less economical than building out everything at once would be. This is partly done because of poorly planned or poorly available financial frameworks, and partly done because of the relative lack of political will to do it, partly because the US is not as dense and not as reliant on transit. The aging of the population might have helped increase the understanding of benefit as people lost their drivers licenses, but it appears driverless cars may arrive soon enough to offset that.
2) Lack of Federal, universal standards that supercede local design regulations means a company suitable to bid for a Boston project may not be able to bid for a New York project. A National standards, engineering, and construction corps would help mitigate that, but Constitutionally it's hard for the Feds to mandate that and it may or may not always result in savings, even if it did save money on the hardest projects and overall.
3) No national Union contract for labor costs and work practices means localities each have to reinvent the wheel with each Union. Even though Union have been shown to typically result in cost savings for skilled labor specially projects, transit can become so specialized by local modifications that savings that occur in more common activities like building construction don't have the scale to develop in transit projects.
4) While a net positive overall, higher safety standards and accessibility standards (such as the ADA) can require designs that are visually only slightly bigger but require dramatically higher design and construction costs.
5) Local laws intended to save money by preventing graft can counter-intuitively end up increasing costs by scaring away bidders, actually denying participation by bidders who fail to meet higher standards in bid quality, or simply creating unusual bid requirements that necessitate bidders to pad their bid due to uncertainty.
6) Sometimes decisions to go with a less direct route because it's percieved to be easier and cheaper cause one phase to save money, but future extensions to incur unusual costs.
7) Unrelated to construction costs, but choosing less convenient but initially less expensive routes can result in lower use which forces a line to need to be more heavily subsidized because of lower ridership, forcing agencies to plan smaller phases each of which becomes more expensive because the fixed costs become distributed over fewer miles. This snowballs.

Americans hate the idea of central planning, but this is one area where it would almost certainly result in dramatic savings. If the Feds could plan universal transit standards for every major American city, including TOD requirements, density standards near rail station, rail width standards, and rolling stock standardization, and assumed all actual construction, development costs would almost certainly fall dramatically. As would operating costs, while resulting in higher ridership.

[Rational Plan3]

Looking at the NY TIMES piect it's obvious that endemic corruption , from jobs for consultants made up of ex state employees, cushy union contracts that employee more people than needed, contracts awarded in how many local jobs created, not on how cheaply it's done and how much is given to local contractors.

Then excessive litigation.

Also an anaemic system, where work is to infrequent to sustain strong local knowledge on manageing projects.

Balkanisation of US transit department, where shared projects can not be accepted, so four tracks instead of shared two tracks. Separate stations instead of one tunnel and through running.

No integration in CHicago, Boston, NEW York.New JERSEY etc.


Not just chronic overmanning on construction but also on operation. The amount of guards on US commuter rail roads makes my eyes water. NO wonder you can't afford to run a decent train service.

[BrownTown]

Originally Posted by emathias

1) US tends to split projects into smaller pieces that are less economical than building out everything at once would be.

Oh God does this one ever piss me off. They take a single line and convert it into 2-4 different phases which each add 2-4 stations at a time. They put a TBM in the ground, go 2 stations with it, pull it back up only to put another TBM down a few years later to go another 2 stations and so on. Just build the while freaking line at the same time already, it's got to cost WAY less and all the construction headaches are finally over with instead of doing on for a decade plus.