The Eno Center for Transportation, a 100-year old nonprofit based in Washington, Thursday published a new study optimistically titled: “Saving time and making cents: A Blueprint for Building Transit Better.” Coming just as the Senate is advancing its bipartisan infrastructure bill, with $39 billion for transit, it’s right on time. But this required reading will likely go unread in New York, where its critical candor is unwelcome.
The Eno experts examined subway and light rail projects in Los Angeles, Seattle, Denver and Minneapolis and overseas in Copenhagen, Madrid, Paris and Toronto. Maybe they were going to include New York, but the astronomically higher costs here are referred to in a footnote: “A separate study of project delivery in New York City is forthcoming.”
Among the cities evaluated, it costs an average of $346 million per mile to build a subway in foreign locales. Here in the States, that figure is $511 million per mile (without New York). But when New York is included, the mean climbs to $1.2 billion a mile.
The larger database, which has 180 cities, has two projects that are literally off the charts: The No. 7 extension to the Far West Side cost $3 billion per mile, and the Second Ave. subway was even more expensive at $3.5 billion a mile.
Gov. Cuomo Thursday tapped the MTA’s head builder, Janno Lieber, as the acting chairman. During his time at the MTA for the last four years, Lieber has tried to save time and money and has had some success. These obscene numbers predate his fixes. Getting costs in line with anywhere else on the planet would be a real achievement.
The perfect illustration of the problem is Amtrak’s Gateway boondoggle. A brand new tunnel, the supposed prerequisite for fixing a waterlogged old tunnel (it’s actually not), is pegged at $4 billion a mile, a price that will definitely climb. And unlike the No. 7 and Second Ave., it provides no new service and builds no new stations. When you’re in a hole, stop digging.
