Hacker News Reader

Comment by yummyfajitas | Hacker News Reader

Yet another clueless articles bemoaning the lack of investment in subways. I'll just link to my previous comments on this topic.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10979537

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=10247109

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11242655

The tl;dr; is that the costs for the MTA are 10-50x more than every other major city outside the US. The solution is to shut down the MTA, fire all the employees and bar them from ever working for any government agency again, and and replace them with Spanish, or Indians, or Hong Kongians, or French workers, all of whom who seem to be able to build subways at very reasonable prices.

View on HN

Benjamin Kabak is almost certainly well aware of the bloated costs of the MTA.

Nobody seriously disagrees that MTA costs are ridiculous, but it's a messy dilemma; most likely even at current costs, things like the Second Avenue Subway and the Utica Avenue Subway are well worth building.

You're also glossing over the point he makes that our prioritization is inane and quite possibly insane – programs like building nicer ferries for LGA or building an AirTrain that's slower than current options do almost nothing to help things, and is much more a matter of local and regional politics than MTA inefficiency per se.

I highly doubt that someone who has been writing extensively about the MTA for almost 10 years is "clueless".

You make a good point that the cost per km is exorbitant and needs to be reined in, but comparing the costs of a 10-15 year old system to one that is 100+ years old is probably not the most accurate comparison.

The Budapest metro is 6 years older than the NYC subway. The Tokyo metro is also 90 years old, as is the Barcelona metro.

High density rich cities like Hong Kong do it cheaper. Sprawling low density cities like Delhi do it cheaper. Ancient systems like London, Paris and Budapest do it cheaper. Shiny modern systems like Singapore do it cheaper. Cold places like Malmo do it cheaper. Hot places like Mexico City do it cheaper.

https://pedestrianobservations.wordpress.com/2011/05/16/us-r... https://pedestrianobservations.wordpress.com/2013/06/03/comp...

The question isn't why one specific city is cheaper than NYC. The question is why every single city outside the US is vastly cheaper than NYC. The only place that even comes remotely close to US prices is one line of the London metro.

You're exactly right that any "bemoaning" article is clueless unless it also acknowledges financial reality.

E.g. here's another one: http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/World-Trade-Center-Tran...

Yes, it's a "hub", but surely they could have rebuilt it for under $3.9 billion.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com