It seems like we are getting more lessons about massive cost overruns for transit projects every couple of weeks. Last week, the Federal Transit Administration issued a “scathing report claiming that the Santa Clara Valley Transportation Authority (VTA) was being “overly optimistic” and “misleading” in its estimates of the costs of building a BART subway to San Jose.
Despite objections from critics, VTA decided to bore an 86-foot deep, 48-foot diameter tunnel rather than build two shallower and smaller tunnels using the cut-and-cover method, which would have been less expensive and saved passengers’ time.
The six-mile-long project was originally estimated to cost $5.6 billion (which is itself ridiculous) and be done in 2029, but the FTA now predicts it will cost as much as $9.1 billion and won’t be complete until 2034. This is $1.5 billion a mile for a transit line that is expected to carry so few riders that early estimates predicted it would cost more than $100 for each new transit rider carried. VTA’s response doesn’t refute anything the FTA said, but basically said it is too late to fix the problems so taxpayers would have to live with them (and pay for them).
A couple of weeks before that, the Twin Cities Metro Transit admitted that there would be huge cost overruns for the Southwest light-rail line that it is building to the wealthy suburb of Eden Prairie, and that the line could be delayed by four years. According to media reports, “original cost” for the project “was around $2 billion,” but the media has a short memory. In fact, back in 2011, the projected cost was just $1.25 billion, which means the current estimate of $2.75 billion is, after adjusting for inflation, around a 100 percent cost overrun.
Incidentally, this is the line for which the Twin Cities’ Metropolitan Council introduced the concept of “regional transit equity.” At the same time as it proposed to spend well over a billion dollars to build a light-rail line to a wealthy suburb, it would also spend $3 million building around 200 bus shelters in poor neighborhoods in the region. $15,000 bus shelters for the poor; multi-billion-dollar trains for the rich: That’s social justice!
Two weeks before that, the state of Maryland admitted that its Purple light-rail line would cost $1.4 billion more than expected and open 4-1/2 years late. That $1.4 billion is just the construction cost; the state is signing a contract with a private consortium that will build and operate the train for 30 years at a cost of $9.3 billion, up from $5.6 billion a few years ago.
Then there is the Honolulu rail project, which was originally projected to cost under $3 billion and open in 2020 and now is projected to cost nearly $12.5 billion and not open before 2031. The latest news is that the agency’s board of directors is fighting among themselves about a confidentiality agreement that would impose criminal penalties on any board member who revealed to the public just how badly managed this project is.
All of these issues come down to basic questions of competence, or what I call the transit corollary to the Peter Principle, which is that “successful bus transit agencies rise to their level of incompetence when they build rail lines.” Building a rail line is far more complicated than operating buses over existing infrastructure. The problem is made even worse when the project is being built by an agency such as VTA that hasn’t even been running a successful bus service.
This problem is only going to get worse when agencies start spending the billions of dollars Congress allocated to new transit projects in the recent Infrastructure, Investment, and Jobs Act. Thanks to this bill, the amount of federal money available for new projects has roughly doubled.
Yet the number of people who are truly capable of planning and building a rail transit line is limited, which means most of the new projects will be run by novices and incompetents. The number of workers who are experienced with building such projects is also finite, which means costs are going to rise as transit agencies attempt to outbid one another in order to find enough construction workers to carry out their dreams of building new trains. As a result, the bill won’t produce many new projects; it will just increase the cost per project.
On top of these problems, many of the nation’s largest transit agencies are set to go over a fiscal cliff sometime in the next two years. Congress gave them $69.5 billion in COVID relief funds, and unless ridership recovers before those funds run out, which seems unlikely, then agencies will have huge holes in their budgets. This is not the time to be building more transit lines that the agencies won’t be able to afford to operate.
The really sad part is that all this money will be wasted because running buses on existing infrastructure, rather than building new infrastructure for either buses or trains, will be sufficient to meet post-COVID transit needs in almost every city in the country.
cut-and-cover method, which would have been less expensive and saved passengers’ time. ”
Cut and cover is less expensive, but it’s a huge aesthetic drain, not to mention absurdly logistically problematic….
South Cali is a high tech wonderland, so why not build a high tech wonder? Like Monorail…. Megacities in Japan, Sao Paulo, else where are resorting to monorail, namely because they know digging in cities is a nightmare…. Japan’s shonan Monorail is completely suspended hanging monorail. Was built in the late 60’s, opened by 1971 so it’s construction time was a mere couple of years, NOT DECADES. At a distance of 4 miles; 8 stations and run time 14 minutes at 45 mph. The number of passengers was 11 million a year in 2018 or 30,000 people a day.A tougher, firmer longer monorail running thru 2nd, 3rd and other NYC Avenues would cost LESS than 2nd ave subway put together. Each train could Move tens thousands people a day per line and NO underground construction. 2nd Avenue is 8.5 miles long. So a twin monorail in Opposing directions could move 60-120k people per day; maybe more with longer trains.
The columns and beams can be stylized to any architectural style you want, be it classical, minimalist, art deco, The Tokyo-Haneda Monorail has been operating since 1964. This eight-mile dual-beam system is privately owned and TURNS A PROFIT each year.
The real estate right of way costs are comparatively low if done economically it would be more like a small power line utility easement than a road right of way. Built in Middle of avenues; The aerodynamics, speed and electric propulsion are all applicable…
Derailment is virtually Impossilbe.
Being elevated, accidents with surface traffic and pedestrians are impossible
Quick construction times: Las Vegas monorail was built in 7 months.
Building heavy rail in the city means rerouting cables/lines and pipes, digging up infrastructure. Monorail beamway is installed modularly.
Contractors and rail consultants love heavy rail. It keeps them busy for years; sinks Huge capital costs. You pay for it Mr. Taxpayer. As if that isn’t enough, operational costs of heavy rail are so high that Mr. Taxpayer (you again) have to subsidize it heavily for as long as it operates.
Being electrically driven by a power provided from the rail, monorails don’t require the spider web of above ground power lines like trams and lightrail.
Unlike subways; Monorails “Dont flood” because it’s not tunneled. On any given day, NYC has to pump 13 Million gallons of water a day out of the subways.
“… the state is signing a contract with a private consortium that will build and operate the train for 30 years at a cost of $9.3 billion….”
That’s $850,000/day.
In a sane world, masses of people would be outraged. Heads would roll. In this would, insanity prevails.
If buggy whip manufacturers happy been taxpayer subsidized, Theodore Levitt would not have had reason to write “Marketing Myopia”.
NYC Second Avenue Subway
1.5 miles of tunnel and 3 stations
$4.5 billion
=> https://youtu.be/KLpvKXTGTEI
– low ceilings
– narrow platforms
– outdated design
– cheap materials
Berlin U5 extension
1.5 miles of tunnel and 3 stations
$700 million
=> https://youtu.be/NYa86RbX7Pg
Just another indicator, that the official USD – EUR exchange ratio (incl. PPP) is a joke.
Nazis like you are a joke.
Accusing political opponents of being Nazis is a typical Kremlin tactic. I think we have a Russian troll here.
Tunneling thru Manhattan is No easy feat.
You’re digging thru Berlin, first 45 meters is soft rock, rock salt and Gypsum and clay.
Manhattan is ROCK. Tough rock. Manhattan schist.
A metamorphic rock, that’s harder than concrete and so fu**ing tough, machine bits loose teeth. Bedrock starts as early as 5-6 meters.
https://www.newyorkcitywalk.com/images/nycwSchist/RbtMcGawSchist.JPG
Actually the opposite is true. The Manhattan schist is better for tunneling than the sandy soil of Berlin. And one of the U5 stations is basically under a river. Stockholm has hard rock as well and their beautiful subway was way cheaper as well.
It is incredible that BART is so incompetently run that they would choose this incredibly costly option. It is clear from this station design that there is no cost containment of the design as there was in the original systems such as the London underground. In 1890 the first London electric underground the “City and South London” was built under existing streets without disrupting them and at minimal cost, see: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_and_South_London_Railway “To avoid the need to purchase agreements for running under surface buildings, the tunnels were bored underneath public roads, where construction could be carried out without charge.[4] At the northern end of the railway, the need to pass deep beneath the bed of the River Thames and the medieval street pattern of the City of London constrained the arrangement of the tunnels on the approach to King William Street station. Because of the proximity of the station to the river, steeply inclined tunnels were built to the west of the station. Because of the narrow street under which they ran, they were bored one above the other rather than side by side as elsewhere.[4] The outbound tunnel was the lower and steeper of the two. The tunnels converged immediately before the station, which was in one large tunnel and comprised a single track with a platform on each side.[note 4] The other terminus at Stockwell was also constructed in a single tunnel but with tracks on each side of a central platform.”
Is there a transit agency in the country that has rail transit whose ridership has been harder hit than BARTs?
I ask cuz it’s unlikley much of any of that ridership is coming back.
And it’s not just about working hybrid or remote, it’s about most of the new jobs in tech ain’t in the bay area.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-22/over-40-of-west-coast-tech-job-listings-are-outside-west-coast
Think of it as different version of Boeing or Caterpillar. Their HQ office is in Chicago but 97% of what the company does happens far away. Even if tech startups are in the bay area, as they grow, they’ll mostly grow away from it.
The picture of the tunnel cross section is pretty. This is probably what the platforms will look like if it ever gets done:
BART Officials Appalled by Video of Rampant Drug Use at Civic Center
Speaking of tubes … several sources are reporting (from the same presser I guess) …
The Hyperloop Hyperdream Is Hyperdead
Big tech is always looking for creative [expensive] solutions to problems that have been solved for decades. The hyperloop program, funded by Virgin and millions of dollars in tax incentives from the Nevada government, was created to put people in a super fast shuttle that could only travel at high speed inside of hundreds of miles of vacuum tubes. The news came on Wednesday that Virgin Hyperloop would be laying off 111 employees effective immediately, and transitioning its business plan from transporting people to transporting freight.
https://jalopnik.com/the-hyperloop-hyperdream-is-hyperdead-1848585510
People who usually support transit are opposed to the stupid hyperloop idea.
Specificiations for “Disney’s Monorail” still exist, as does the rail…on file and built by Bombardier transportation
a company still exists.
Honolulu is a nightmare of traffic and highway construction for an island with mountainous terrain that has to import most construction materials….Roads (and gasoline) is really pricy.
Monorail transcends geographic constraints, digging a hole in the ground and inserting a concrete pylon is not rocket science, on a straight level, course and because it uses rubber tires and not steel wheels
Honolulu’s HART rail system is 12.6 billion dollars and 22 miles long, 570 million per mile. Las Vegas’ MGM-Bally’s Monorail cost 25 million per mile in 1995, or 46 todays money. Las Vegas Monorail cost 114 million per mile in todays money, still 5x cheaper than HART.
Course another aspect Oahu could search as transportation… A boardwalk. Ocean City Marylands 2.5 mile boardwalk cost 10 million to replace. A 30 mile section would connect Honolulu, Waikiki, and orbiting coastal perimeter, said “Walk” would connect all major cities, bypass auto traffic with bridges and right of way and be accessable via Walking, Biking and boardwalk shuttles.
A trip to Disneyworld will demonstrate that they are all-in with buses and all-out with monorails.
They will also be doing so at a time of high energy and materials prices, which means that this wave of cost overruns is likely to continue. The inflationary pressures that the Biden Administration claimed would be ‘transitory’ are looking more persistent. It turns out that pouring trillions in government spending into an economy at a time when there is little slack capacity, including low labor force participation, does in fact produce inflation. Who knew?
Why do you presume that those cost differentials are a function of international exchange rates?
The exchange rate should reflect the same economic value in both places. If the prices for the same product (here subway) is so dramatically different, it is an indicator along with other (e.g. trade imbalances) that the official exchange rate is heavily distorted.
”
A trip to Disneyworld will demonstrate that they are all-in with buses and all-out with monorails.
” ~ rovingbroker
hahaha…. so true, so true.
Just the other day had a podcast on. The central Flroida ( aka Orlando ) progressives are so desperate for more rail transit that they can’t shut up about how important serving it with rail is. Totally in the corp’s pocket.
Is there a transit agency in the country that has rail transit whose ridership has been harder hit than BARTs?
I ask cuz it’s unlikley much of any of that ridership is coming back.
And it’s not just about working hybrid or remote, it’s about most of the new jobs in tech ain’t in the bay area.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2022-02-22/over-40-of-west-coast-tech-job-listings-are-outside-west-coast
Think of it as different version of Boeing or Caterpillar. Their HQ office is in Chicago but 97% of what the company does happens far away. Even if tech startups are in the bay area, as they grow, they’ll mostly grow away from it.