https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-construction-costs.html
Corruption at it’s finest. $3.5 billion for each new mile of track, 7 times the world average. 200 “diggers” on the job that don’t have any reason to be there, each making $1,000 per day. Construction company deals with Cuomo and other politicians have secured deals requiring 4 times more laborers than the average for the rest of the world as well. I hope New Yorker’s are happy they pay such I high state income tax. 3.5 billion for underground rail seems crazy. I guess I could see it if they were having to buy the land and put surface track in but underground, even with the difficulty and expense there is no way they should be anywhere near that cost. I wonder what percentage went to politician pockets, union bosses, and lined the pockets of donor construction companies.
The estimated cost of the Long Island Rail Road project, known as “East Side Access,” has ballooned to $12 billion, or nearly $3.5 billion for each new mile of track — seven times the average elsewhere in the world.
The budget showed that 900 workers were being paid to dig caverns for the platforms as part of a 3.5-mile tunnel connecting the historic station to the Long Island Rail Road. But the accountant could only identify about 700 jobs that needed to be done, according to three project supervisors. Officials could not find any reason for the other 200 people to be there.
“Nobody knew what those people were doing, if they were doing anything,” said Michael Horodniceanu, who was then the head of construction at the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which runs transit in New York. The workers were laid off, Mr. Horodniceanu said, but no one figured out how long they had been employed. “All we knew is they were each being paid about $1,000 every day.”
Construction companies, which have given millions of dollars in campaign donations in recent years, have increased their projected costs by up to 50 percent when bidding for work from the M.T.A., contractors say.
At least 150 projects have been initiated since 1990, according to a recent study by Yale University researcher David Schleicher.
The approximate average cost of the projects — both in the U.S. and abroad — has been less than $500 million per track mile, the study concluded.
“There was one glaring exception,” Mr. Schleicher said. “New York.”
