So tired of this lazy take. The large projects are expensive because they are large, difficult, and require planning between dozens of different companies and contractors. Do you work in the construction industry? Or do you build "apps"? Real building requires literal blood and sweat and affect ecosystems and communities. It's going to be expensive and it should be.
Bottom Line: US infrastructure costs are dramatically higher than Europe - often 10-30 times more expensive for transit projects, with subway construction in NYC costing $3.2 billion per kilometer compared to just $100 million per kilometer in cities like Madrid.
Kinda ironic that Europe is seen as the very definition of bureaucracy and red tape by many Americans, when this sort of data shows it's actually quite efficient
Point 9 is funny (although not funny in reality)... Americans have NIH syndrome basically.
I suppose only once the boomers die out will we have a chance of course correcting incuriosity. I actually remember many years ago some of the justices at the supreme court got real uppity when examples were brought up from other countries (forgive me i forget the case name).
Transit costs are a small fraction of "construction". I agree our transit development costs are insane though this has a lot more to do with America's very strong concept of property rights (and the weaponization of other apparatus to defend property rights) than simply "red tape." I.e. it's more political than bureaucratic.
No it doesn't. Any publicly funded construction is rife with tons of additional regulations designed to limit (but sometimes perpetuating) corrupt contracting, and transit projects in particular have very unique needs around land acquisition.
Even still, the linked website doesn't really seem to say permitting is a major driver. And it certainly doesn't dwarf labor and materials.
