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Comment by Joeri | Hacker News Reader

You may be overestimating how easy cut and cover is. I live in the city of Antwerp where they decided to dig up the central crossing that connects the main shopping street with the main traffic hub, to redesign it so cars would go underneath and shoppers can walk across the crossing unimpeded. It was planned for 18 months, and now is projected to be closer to 3 years.

This is what it looks like when you do such a thing:

https://gvacdn.akamaized.net/Assets/Images_Upload/2017/08/18...

The stores in the neighborhood are complaining that they'll probably go out of business before the works are done.

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> You may be overestimating how easy cut and cover is.

You're right. In fact, the Market Street passage of BART/Muni in San Francisco was a cut and cover. The closure of Market Street and delays in construction caused a lot of damage. Not the least of which the collapse of businesses[1]

The Theaters went out of business, became porn cinemas and liquor stores. Much of what Civic is today was a result of that era.

Not to say Cut and Cover was the 100% cause - but it was a major, major contributor.

1: https://hoodline.com/2016/07/in-their-words-the-convergent-h...

FWIW, the Crown Zellerbach Building, completed in 1959, was "controversial due to the decision for the building to face Bush St. instead of Market St., Market St. being in decline during the time it was built."[1][2] 1959 was years before the Market St subway construction began.

Aside: I'm not a student of architecture, and Modernist (and especially International Style) architecture didn't really click for me until someone explained the design of that building. All building services (restrooms, stairwells, elevators, etc) are located in the giant, black, windowless monolith. To my mind that feature is most descriptive of the style and its motivations, particularly regarding the relationship between form and function and the emphasis on the latter. Its shape and materials are, at least superficially, almost entirely dictated by its pure function. Yet it's the defining characteristic of the form of the building and clearly intentionally imposing.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_Bush_Plaza [2] https://noehill.com/sf/landmarks/sf183.asp

EDIT: You can't see the monolith from the Wikipedia or Wikimedia photos. Which is actually sort of strange given how imposing it is in real-life. Here's a better photo, https://www.som.com/FILE/16472/crownzellerbachhq_788x900_gab... , from the SOM website (see https://www.som.com/projects/crown_zellerbach_headquarters).

> FWIW, the Crown Zellerbach Building

I've always loved that building.

Very different neighborhood from Civic though -- even though they're only 20 minutes walk apart.

During and post-war that end of town was much less desirable. That changed significantly when the shipping moved. Also that building marks arrival of modern building techniques suitable for an earthquake zone. That triggered a construction boom in FiDi.

Mid-Market on the other hand was in a post-War retail boom. Civic was a major hub of retail and Theaters -- and was impacted a lot more by the BART construction.

All that said, the arc of San Francisco neighborhoods does baffle me at the best of times.

Vancouver too. The Canada line expansion killed the vast majority of cambie's family owned / small businesses.

Having recently witnessed the boom in construction around the Canada Line stations, I'm not sure I agree. Many businesses on Cambie are doing very well, including some that hung on through the difficult time when the line was being built. Yes, some went out of business and that is sad, but many survived and fortunes seem to be up as a result.

These are the vultures who got fat on the carcasses of those that didn’t survive.

In contrast, it didn't kill the downtown businesses on Granville St. While any long term construction is probably going to negatively impact adjacent businesses that doesn't mean cut and cover is going to be the wrong decision to make in every case.

> Not to say Cut and Cover was the 100% cause - but it was a major, major contributor.

I don't think it's the cut and cover method per se. Here in Minneapolis when they built a surface light rail line from Downtown Minneapolis to Downtown Saint Paul iirc nearly 200 businesses closed along the LRT and cited the construction as the primary reason. Any construction that impedes travel to businesses for a long time is going to be negative for businesses. Here we subsidized about half the affected businesses along the line during the 4 years of construction but it apparently was not enough.

Simultaneously, BART construction had a similar detrimental effect in downtown Oakland. Arguably, it is only now recovering.

I stopped going to theaters because everyone brings their loud kids. Are you sure there isn't a larger draw for porn cinemas and liquor stores?

This is now reminding me of this blog I found on HN yesterday:

http://www.michaelnygard.com/blog/2015/07/the-fear-cycle/

Once you have enough sewer/natural gas/electric/cable/telephone/fiber/water/who knows what else/ lines buried under the streets I can totally understand how nobody would want to touch that with a ten foot pole, just like legacy code :)

> The stores in the neighborhood are complaining that they'll probably go out of business before the works are done.

Even with the tunnel boring they did on the Upper East Side of NYC for the 2nd Ave Subway, half the avenue was dedicated to construction entrances and other above-ground activities. Ultimately, may stores did go out of business. My point is, tunnel boring is also quite disruptive to what happens at the street level.

The tunnels were built with TBMs. The actual stations were cut and cover.

You can't really build stations any other way. New York is way too expensive to buy property alongside the road as an access shaft, and in any case you need to be able to access both tracks from any given entrance. So either you have an island platform directly under the middle of the street or two side platforms on either side, both of which would need a connecting passageway the width of the street, from street to platform.

I concur; just replacing some sewer pipes on Cedar St in Somerville is taking 2+ years of construction, and plans have been underway since 2013 and still aren't done. It's a residential street without too much odd about it.

https://www.somervillema.gov/cedarstreet https://www.somervillema.gov/sites/default/files/cedar-stree...

I'm not sure it's possible to dig a hole in Massachusetts without it taking 10x longer and costing 10x more than planned...

Or touch a bridge for that matter

If the cost savings on the construction are enough you could probably just pay off the local businesses.

In NYC that'd be tough. Those businesses go through a lot of money to survive. A single restaurant near me on the 2nd ave route, back in 2010, was paying $50k/month just in rent. That was just 1 diner. And on taxpayer's expense?

Rents go down too if there is construction.

By what, magic?

Most businesses sign long-term leases, often 10 years. Landlords are under no legal obligation to offer rent breaks while construction is underway.

In fact, landlords would probably prefer the businesses go under so they can sign more lucrative deals post-subway construction -- see the current NYC store vacancy problem: http://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/change-math-keeping-nyc-s...

You're assuming the area will become undesirable during construction and landlords will be forced to offer cheaper rates to lure tenants, but as we see above more likely they'd prefer to wait. Especially if a subway is about to be built there.

Genius

That's how it goes in other countries: if the construction work lasts longer than N days and affects a business, there is a compensation.

In Vancouver, BC, many business did go out of business when a skytrain line was built through a few communities. It can be devastating.

Where are you thinking of? Many skytrain stations are either built away from businesses or now have businesses depending on them.

Canada Line in 2010

> You may be overestimating how easy cut and cover is.

Not only that, it's not always feasible depending on the depth of the tunnel. The 2nd ave tunnel is 80 feet deep, and in a city with heavy underground infrastructure already in place.

You probably also underestimate the amount of infrastructure under the street - not just power, water, sewerage but also network, fibre, etc. It is not remotely a small job to do such a thing.

Not to say that it can't work out (or that some of those services don't have to be moved for tunnels) -- but cut and cover was a lot easier when we had less infrastructure.

These problems are obviously 10x in such a dense city as NYC.

I've read before that in many places, they don't even know exactly what's below the street. These sorts of surprises are the bane of budgets and schedules for massive public works projects.

The problem is that the alternative is not necessarily better. The Second Avenue Subway stub took about a decade to build, and even though New York opted to use less disruptive surface methods, it ended up taking much longer. 3 years is better than 10.

Isn't this temporary? The government should be concerned with the long term benefit to the city overall. The businesses that come in afterwards would likely benefit from subway access.

Sure it is temporary and the businesses established afterwards would benefit greatly. However you're discouraging the establishment of new businesses in general if your policy includes not caring about the short term effects.

What if that subway needs major maintenance in two years because of a mistake during construction? Why would I open a business on that street if the city has already shown it'll put me out of business to work on it?

Nope. The Bart trench appears to have turned Market St into a slum for generations (and this is despite all the municipal money being poured into transbay and other nearby sites).

Well, it IS getting better, slowly. Maybe it will take 75 years to recover. How long-term are you thinking?

> The government should be concerned with the long term benefit to the city overall.

The government should first be concerned by not crushing individuals' rights. That is what Rule of Law is for. Many societies have been utterly destroyed by putting "the general good" as a pretext for policies.

What “rights” do individual property owners have to public streets adjacent to their property?

Contingency.

That's just a standard good governance principle.

Doesn't the government subsidize these businesses while construction goes on? I guess I was under the impression they would be subsidized.

Give subsidies to the businesses that are affected...

@Joerie the 2nd ave/Q lines has literally taken more than a decade.

> in the city of Antwerp

So, Belgium.

> and now is projected to be closer to 3 years.

Right. Belgium. :P

National slights aren't ok on HN, so please don't post them here. (Unless I've misinterpreted this comment and it means something I've missed completely, in which case sorry.)

You're being downvoted for profanity.

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