Complex Numbers

Can You Dig It

I just have this to share today:

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

Now, I know that not everyone is interested in infrastructure issues, or what's going on in New York. I'm a civil engineer with relatives there, so I try to keep up.

But the reason I'm sharing this story isn't the mismanagement, or the graft, or the corruption, or even the cost overruns. No, it's some of the excuses given for why subway construction in NYC costs 4-5 times as much as it does in other major cities.

“They’re claiming the age of the city is to blame?” asked Andy Mitchell, the former head of Crossrail, a project to build 13 miles of subway under the center of London, a city built 2,000 years ago. “Really?”

Well, that and a few of the labor union requirements the article details. Side note: I'm not taking a political stand for or against labor unions in general. But what that article describes is as pure New York City as it gets. You know. Empire State Building, Times Square, stock exchanges, Broadway, Brooklyn Bridge, union inefficiency.

But my absolute favorite part is toward the end when they compare it to a similar project in Paris.

Across the Atlantic Ocean, Paris is working on a project that brings the inefficiency of New York into stark relief.

The project, called the Line 14 extension, is similar to the Second Avenue subway. Both projects extend decades-old lines in the hopes of reducing systemwide overcrowding. Both involved digging through moderately hard soil just north of the city center to make a few miles of tunnel and a few stations about 80 feet underground. Both used tunnel-boring machines made by Herrenknecht. Both faced strict regulations, high density and demands from neighbors, which limited some construction to 12 hours per day.

But while the Second Avenue Subway cost $2.5 billion a mile, the Line 14 extension is on track to cost $450 million a mile.

There's an old joke that goes something like this: In Heaven, the French are the chefs, the British are the police, and the Germans are the engineers. In Hell, the British are the chefs, the Germans are the police, and the French are the engineers.

But it's looking more like: in Heaven the French are the engineers, and in Hell, the Americans are.