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The New York City subway system has hit a tipping point. As ridership and delays increase, the MTA does not currently have a long-term plan in place to fix the deep-rooted issues that plague service across the city's 22 subway lines.
Earlier this week, Governor Cuomo and the MTA Board released an updated version of the authority's five-year capital plan. The plan allocates $14.5 billion toward the subways, which includes ample funding for expansion projects—like a cool $1.735 billion towards the full-length extension of the Second Avenue Subway.
But, as the New York Times points out, there is no major increase in funding for a remedy to one of the key problems that's afflicting the subway: the outdated, archaic signaling system. The updated plan directly reflects a focus by Cuomo on building shiny, new pieces of infrastructure that attracts headlines rather than necessary-but-ugly work that could drastically improve service for the five million–plus people who rely on the subway system every day.
What's more, the MTA is incredibly bad at constructing these kinds of buzzworthy transit infrastructure projects in a cost-efficient manner. Look at nearly any other city with a sprawling rapid transit system and you'll find that Gotham spends way, way more on expanding its subway.
Blogger Alon Levy did God's work in 2011 when he documented to cost-per-kilometer of nearly 20 massive transit infrastructure projects from cities across the world. He used the three latest major project in New York City as baselines—the East Side Access tunnel for the Long Island Rail Road, the 7 train extension and, of course, the first phase of the Second Avenue Subway. Per kilometer of new tunnel, those projects costed roughly $4 billion, $1.3 billion and $1.7 billion, respectively.
Compare those figures to London's in-the-works Crossrail, which expects to cost around $1 billion per kilometer, or the North-South Line in Amsterdam, which cost $450 million per kilometer. Berlin completed a tunnel in 2009 for $250 million per kilometer, and the sprawling L9/10 in Barcelona clocked in at $170 million per kilometer.
Heck, look at Los Angeles, which is currently undergoing the most rapid subway expansion in the entire country. The cost per mile of new Metro tunnels there aren't entirely clear, but at least the city is publishing reports of best practices as to how they can be more cost and time-efficient.
All of this begs the question: Why does subway infrastructure in New York City cost so damn much, and what can the powers that be do to fix it?
The answer could come in the form of strong unions, political gridlock or any other number of New York idiosyncrasies. New Yorkers could have found some form of an answer through a congressional inquiry into why transit construction costs are so high across the country, but it was quietly nixed earlier this year.
New Yorkers may not be getting an updated signaling system in the subway any time soon—that could take up to 50 years and cost $20 billion. If you're wondering where that money is going, look no further than projects like the Second Avenue Subway.