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The U.S. Gets Less Subway for Its Money Than Its Peers

214 points| jseliger | 8 years ago |citylab.com

167 comments

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[+] twblalock|8 years ago|reply
This ultimately has to come back to voter standards.

Other first-world countries in Europe and Asia manage to create comprehensive public transit systems cheaper and faster than the US does -- yet they also have environmental reviews, safety standards, unions, contractors, etc.

They are able to do it simply because the people running the city fear that they won't be reelected if they fail to provide comprehensive, properly functioning public transit. Voters there believe that providing public transit is one of the basic duties of government. It's amazing how streamlined a public project can become if the politicians fear for their jobs.

In the US, voters don't punish politicians for problems with public transit, even in places like New York where most people use it. So it's no surprise that it sucks.

[+] jorblumesea|8 years ago|reply
Here in the US voters don't punish any elected officials for anything because half don't vote and the other half that do are more concerned about their side "winning" and less concerned about practical day to day considerations like corruption.

People would gladly accept a corrupt Democrat over a Republican and vice versa purely based on political lines.

[+] lend000|8 years ago|reply
It comes down to the size of the country, combined with a political voting system that favors incumbents and naturally organizes into a duopoly: First Past the Post.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First-past-the-post_voting

Approval voting is the future of democracy, if we can manage to get our elected officials to change the law out of their favor. Semi-direct democracy would be a nice addition, too.

[+] narrator|8 years ago|reply
Why does it cost 1 billion dollars a mile to build a subway in San Francisco? Where are all the costs coming from? It's the same with healthcare. Nobody knows why it's so ridiculously expensive. I wish they could hire some smart forensic accountants to figure out what is behind the ridiculous cost and then actually fix the problems by replacing the guys who are price gouging or work with the government to change regulations to make it cheaper.
[+] acchow|8 years ago|reply
It's too bad the US is still dealing with the simplest of issues - gay marriage, abortion, mandatory vaccination, immigration, prohibition of marijuana - and just doesn't have any room left to discuss things like public transit.
[+] ghayes|8 years ago|reply
When you say Asia, are you including China? It's likely that the situation is different in each country, and grouping "Europe and Asia" versus the "US" leads to a pretty sweeping generalization.
[+] saosebastiao|8 years ago|reply
In the US, there is no political party where you can go to prioritize competent government. You can only choose between these two options a) more government, or b) less government.
[+] ams6110|8 years ago|reply
The USA is pretty big and has a lot of sparsely populated area compared to Europe. People living outside major metro areas don't care about public transit, because public transit only works and makes sense in dense urban areas.

So people in Upstate New York don't care about mass transit in NYC, and so the representatives they elect to NY state government don't care about it.

Public transit honestly is not even on my radar of issues I care about, because where I live it makes no sense at all.

[+] Hasz|8 years ago|reply
NYT has a great writeup on the East Side Access tunnel. In short, the costs work out to 3.5bn/mile (!), there's ~200 "ghost" workers, and the usual spot of corruption and favoritism. It's a mess, and the MTA is deferring regular maintenance to pay for it.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-...

[+] bsder|8 years ago|reply

[deleted]

[+] heurist|8 years ago|reply
The US seems to get less of everything for its money than its peers. Geographic spread is a major macro factor, but you'd still think that a supposedly efficient capitalistic market would at least handle local services better.
[+] bkohlmann|8 years ago|reply
For market based goods, the US does deliver pretty phenomenal, innovative and minimally priced outputs. Groceries, energy, technology, etc.

"Local services" are almost always driven by non-market based considerations. Politics, not economics, determines contract awards for public works. It's as far from the market as you can get. And our society receives commensurate "value."

[+] crocal|8 years ago|reply
I have spent more than a decade working with US colleagues in this sector. Overall, three things come at a disadvantage for US that explains overall this puzzling productivity problem.

First, management. I don’t exactly know where it comes from, in the land of Westinghouse, Edison, Tesla, and the likes, but being an engineering project leader is not seen as the career path of a winner. It’s all about business, storytelling, laws and politics, where the power and the money is. Compare that to Germany where the chancellor is a PhD in physics and there you go.

Second. Individualism. No. Team. Spirit. Everybody wants to be with the best at what he/she does and recognized at such. There is no willingness to fill cross functional gaps, people are absurdly specialized, resulting in very inefficient performance at the collective level and surprisingly high level of bureaucracy.

Third. Protectionism. US established market is protected against foreign competition. The net result is that the US consumer is never benchmarking what he gets against real alternatives. His appliances are crap. His social protection is bad. His car is a good laugh compared to most Japanese or European models. As a consequence he as no notion of how good a deal he is getting on such things (and in most cases, he is being ripped off).

The combination of the three explains quasi all of the shortcomings noted here. I believe these problems were not as acute some decades ago. I think these behaviors have been pushed to the extreme through the various US tax reforms that have allowed very few to capture most of the wealth, thereby promoting the above behavior.

It’s not the first time in US history though. I believe it will be fixed eventually because it’s becoming too absurd. :)

[+] ucaetano|8 years ago|reply
The US probably has the best, most efficient private sector of any developed country.

And the worst, most inefficient public sector of any developed country.

It chooses to prioritize the private sector over the public sector. Other countries choose otherwise. Each model has its advantages and disadvantages.

This (efficiency of building public transit) is the outcome of the US model.

[+] ska|8 years ago|reply 

   The US probably has the best, most efficient private sector of any developed country.
All you have to do is look at healthcare to realize this is (at least a) questionable assertion. I mean, it's dogmatic to believe so as an American but it's at least worth a proper look at.
[+] jessriedel|8 years ago|reply
I don't really see why we should expect any tradeoff between the two. Most efficiency innovations would transfer.
[+] seanmcdirmid|8 years ago|reply
> And the worst, most inefficient public sector of any developed country.

I'm pretty sure most who live in their own developed country think their own public sector is the most inefficient. Well, maybe not the Swiss.

[+] cbayram|8 years ago|reply
Few weeks back, while commuting to work the E and M lines weren't running. There were 3-5 MTAs finest per platform exit, hallways instructing riders "The E and the M lines are not running!" I took another route only to find same amount of MTA agents at the other station. You count the number of stations. The overtime paid that day would have gone a long way paying for a decent electronic information boards that rest of the world seems to have. As a taxpayer, this abuse of tax funds infuriates me.
[+] JustAnotherPat|8 years ago|reply
We enter public sector with the expectations of the private one. Every public sector worker 'deserves' to be high middle class, which today is defined as 300k+ income easily, and we strive to have as many public sector workers as possible.
[+] scythe|8 years ago|reply
It seems like European infrastructure construction is more centralized than its American counterpart. In the Bay Area, there are two competing transit providers, each funded by the same taxpayers. Every city seems to run its own show, and CAHSR infamously rejected offers from European companies to do construction. It's just my view from 10000 feet, but the average city council has few civil engineers on board, so maybe a more top-down system could be better. The Boring Company might be a meme but at least there's not a different one in every city.
[+] athenot|8 years ago|reply
In Paris, you have the national train company (SNCF) who competes with the Parisian subway system (RATP). To make matters even more complicated, some suburban rail lines are operated by one over the tracks of the other. This is seamless until one of them goes on strike...

For the geek part: when trains shift from one network to the other (RER B between Châtelet and Gare du Nord), they free-wheel while they transition power from one network to the power of the other one. On the rare occasion that a train has to stop in the middle of that dead zone, it can't move anymore...

[+] bhups|8 years ago|reply
This is half true: European infrastructure construction is almost perfectly decentralized to the point that it's (for the most part) fully centralized at the level of each member state.

The US half tries to fund and administer infrastructure at the federal level, state level, as well as local level, depending on the state.

As an American, I find the EU to have phenomenally good infrastructure, but I think that's because decisions aren't being made in Brussels, they're being made concurrently in Paris, Berlin, Amsterdam, London, etc.

I feel that the US would do well to emulate the EU, and centralize the funding, regulation, and administration of its respective systems in each member state.

[+] sgc|8 years ago|reply
I thought they were dumped by SNCF because they were making a pork barrel project instead of an actual rail system, and SNCF did not want to deal with the headache and reputation hit.
[+] WJW|8 years ago|reply
Alternatively, US subway construction companies get more money for their subway than their peers in other countries.
[+] crocal|8 years ago|reply
This is worth upvoting AND repeating because many could think otherwise. US Subway has no funding issue. It is a pure productivity issue.
[+] 1024core|8 years ago|reply
I read this article, and the NYT one linked herein. But I don't understand why the MTA is involved in the nitty-gritty at all? Why can't there be 1 contract given out to some private entity, and then leave it up to the entity to build it as it sees fit.
[+] fatjokes|8 years ago|reply
"...Rosenthal talked about labor problems: severe overstaffing, with some workers doing jobs that are no longer necessary..."

I learned that in one of the office buildings in NYC, there is one (sometimes two) custodians who press the elevator buttons and call out the next one to arrive. These are modern elevators with indicator lights above them. I learned it was because of a union requirement.

I always liked the idea of unions, having learned about how workers were trampled on "in the old days". After moving to NYC, however, my opinions toward them became a bit more tempered.

[+] dsfyu404ed|8 years ago|reply
TL;DR unions, shady contractors and expensive project requirements in no particular order.

Edit: Was this not an accurate summary of the key issues mentioned?

[+] skate22|8 years ago|reply
I clicked on this expecting an article about sandwiches lol.

Edit: although im being downvoted, lowercase subway would make the title less ambiguous.

[+] stcredzero|8 years ago|reply
The U.S. also pays a lot for highways that don't have warranties. Last time I read something about it, German highways were procured with warranties. Italian highways didn't. Lots of people also grumbled that Italian highway building was plagued with corruption.
[+] dzonga|8 years ago|reply
America rich 3rd world country. I'm Zimbabwean, but the levels of corruption are comparable. Why would a 'top' tier city have shitty public transportation and centuries old signaling systems ?
[+] cbayram|8 years ago|reply
Because you aren't dealing with the competent willing who can pull off such projects. Instead, you are dealing with crooks who take their cut and pass the irresponsibility to the next. Taxpayer money is the true lottery.
[+] purplezooey|8 years ago|reply
Please don't compare activities in the private market to public infrastructure. They serve different purposes and the latter is there for the good of humanity, not to make a profit, be innovative or be disruptive.