The Tax Foundation says that New York collects a higher percentage of residents’ income than any other state. How does the money get spent? The New York Times has an article on a new $4 billion train station for lower Manhattan. If it does not slip further it will have taken 11 years to complete (when it opens in 2015).
What can $4 billion buy in terms of passenger train infrastructure? Wikipedia says that was roughly the cost of the Zhengxi PDL high-speed rail line in China (built starting in 2005 when the exchange rate was different). For a return on their $billions, the Chinese waited five years rather than 11. Instead of 1 train station they got 10 train stations plus a 284-mile-long railroad connecting them. Trains travel along the line at roughly 220 mph. As part of this package, the Chinese also got the longest bridge in the world at the time and an assortment of tunnels, some more than five miles long.
The best government is a benevolent and wise czar. A czar can stick 2 pins in a map and say build me a high-speed rail system between the green pin and the red pin. And do it now. No environmental impact study. No OSHA. No unions. The problem with a czar is good ones are hard to find.
Democracy is inefficient. And since a pulse is the only qualification for voting, over time democracy becomes stultifying and paralyzed with “good ideas” from constituencies with a pulse and not much more. The Empire State Building was built in less than 2 years (1929-1931). One World Trade Center took 4 years to decide what it should look like and 8 years to build.
Having had the displeasure of using one of Calatrava’s “hub stations” multiple times, I can say is that they may be eye-catchy but are totally useless for all practical purposes. “Open to the sky” gorgeous wide open white structures provide zero coverage against the wind and elements. But it sure is beautiful, while the users wait for their train by freezing. The underground galleries are massively oversized, with the huge wide corridor fit for stadium crowds that leads to the carpark being seldom used by more than two people at a time. Also, these things age quickly! Less than a couple of years from build the white steel ornaments were already gathering rust after being exposed to the elements. Their intricate nature makes them more expensive to maintain, repaint, etc. so inevitably they just end up looking aged and ugly. So, fcuk you Calatrava! The NY officials that went along with his bullsh!t should have stopped to think before embarking in such project.
Yeah, but I bet none of the 10 train stations on the Zhengxi PDL high-speed line look as cool as a stegosaurus.
There are good, mixed, and bad reasons for the cost and functional difference.
Good: The Chinese railroads are above ground and in a straight line. The station is underground construction. Also, the station construction could not damage surrounding buildings. In China, any interfering structures were seized and destroyed without much compensation.
The closest underground rail comparison would be the Swiss Gothard tunnel. It’s mostly straight but under the Alps. It cost $10 billion for 35 miles. So $4 billion would be 12 miles and no stations of underground railroad. Underground construction is immensely more expensive.
US hazardous waste law is enforced. Lots of Manhattan has buried toxic waste sites because 19th century disposal was to bury it in the back yard. This site was no exception. Disposal costs were significant. China does not enforce these laws when building railroads, and railroads through countryside are unlikely to cross toxic waste sites.
US construction standards are better enforced. China is already having problems with those trains from corrupt practices (insufficient reinforcing rod, cheap concrete, etc.). These costs show up as maintenance costs for Chinese operations.
Mixed: China has much lower labor costs, for both good and bad reasons. The station was built at union wages and procurement rules. There is a big difference in cost within the US between commercial and government construction costs. There is an even bigger difference between US commercial costs and Chinese construction costs. Some of these reflect fair treatment, safety, and other differences. Some just reflect differences in overall living expenses.
Bad: The station has the typical monumental design. Monuments may look nice and flatter politicians egos, but the cost of monuments is excessive. This station is no exception. It has huge extra costs so that it looks impressive.
State wars. Constant battling between New Jersey and New York politicians drove up the costs of everything.
China is an authoritarian government which doesn’t care about environmental or labor standards at all, where it has an infinite supply of dirt-cheap labor, and built the infrastructure you mention on land that was nowhere near as already-built-up as downtown Manhattan.
Come on, do you really think the comparison is remotely meaningful?
Amazing differences in the cost of getting things done, and the hurdles in world class city construction. What would we do without unions?
Just today in Seattle a popular transit blog here was talking about a potential new ballot measure to raise an additional $15 billion for a few more miles of light rail construction, a few tunnels, and some improved regional bus systems… in the NIMBY culture the costs are almost as exorbitant as the dinosaur station! http://seattletransitblog.com/2014/11/29/informed-speculation-what-15-billion-might-buy/
Ace: I do think the comparison is meaningful. There was already a functional train station at the World Trade Center. So we could have dubbed the “temporary” station “permanent” and invested the $4 billion in something else, e.g., a high-speed rail line in China from which we could get a return on our investment.
Meh. $4B is a bargain compared to the all-in-total price (roads, connecting roads, etc.) of $1B that Calgary spent building a 600m tunnel under an airport runway connecting the airport terminal with the least-populated North East quadrant of the city, rather than simply having traffic drive 0.5 miles around the runway.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/calgary/calgary-airport-tunnel-by-the-numbers-1.2649531
People keep calling this a “train station” as if it were Grand Central which makes it sound almost worth it (not really). In reality, it is nothing more than an ovesized subway stop. The PATH station at Herald Square handles about the same number of passengers and it is completely invisible above ground except for the exits.
BTW, most of the money going into that station was not NY tax dollars, so this has little to do with NY’s high tax rates. It was mostly either Federal $ or money from the NY Port Authority, which collects tolls on the bridges and tunnels entering NY. Since most of NYC (except for the Bronx) is on islands, this provides them with ample opportunity for extortion. Whaddaya gonna do – swim?
Authorities were created as entities that would finance projects with bonds that would be paid off using tolls. After the bonds were paid off, the bridges, etc. would become free or a small toll kept for maintenance. But then politicians figured out that Authorities were giant pots of $ that they could spend without any accountability to voters and the tolls, instead of going away, keep going up and up and the huge amount of $ that they collect gets diverted to this type of wasteful project. The bi-state NY/NJ Port Authority is particularly bad because they are like divorced parents that hate each other. The dynamic is that each huge and wasteful project in NY must be matched $ for $ with another huge and wasteful project in NJ.