And so if we want our cities to be successful, we really need to figure out how to move people around without automobiles. Stop Requested.

This is Stop Requested. by ETA. I’m Christian. And I’m Levi. These are real conversations with the innovators, operators, and advocates driving improvements in public transportation.

Today we’re talking with Eric Goldwyn, professor at NYU and director of the Transportation. and Land Use Program, about why it costs so much to build transit in the United

States. Through the Transit Cost Project, Eric and his team have compared nearly a thousand projects around the world to understand why some places build faster and for less, and what U.S. agencies can learn from them. We’ talk about what cities lose when projects become too expensive, the trade-offs that drive costs higher, and why agencies need more internal expertise to manage major capital projects. Here’s a conversation with Eric

Goldwyn. Welcome back to Stop Requested. Today we’re joined by Eric Goldwyn, professor at NYU and director of Transportation and Land Use Program, at NYU Marron. Eric, how are you today? I’m very well, thank you.

This is really a conversation that I’ve had on the schedule for a while. I know I reached out to you earlier in the year, and I’m glad we’re able to make it finally come to fruition. You know, you are a part of some very important work that I feel like is not talked about enough, and I hope we can get into some of the details today. But for some, for the folks who may not be familiar with some of your work or even your projects, could you give a bit of a bio on yourself? Well, of course, that’s very, very kind of you to say. I’m going to guess on the Stop Requested podcast, people will have some familiarity.

But yeah, so I run the Transportation and Land Use Program at NYU Marron, and one of our flagship pieces of research is the Transit Cost Project, where we looked at and continue to look at why it is so expensive to build transit infrastructure in the United States. And what drew you to that specifically?

And, you know, I know just from our brief conversation before we started recording here, you’re a lifelong New Yorker, but what drew you to transportation and public transportation more specifically? Yeah, so I think growing up, I just was always very interested in the bus and the subway because it could get me places independently, right? So I was not, I was never, my parents didn’t drive me to things and I was able to go places, see my friends and do things on my own. And so the city was available to me at a pretty young age and that was really exciting. And so it sort of cultivated a certain amount of independence and sort of interest in exploration and, you know, all that sort of stuff. I don’t want to pretend

I was like, I wasn’t like hanging off the sides of trains and doing things at like four in the morning or anything like that. But I’d like go do stuff basically and see my friends and my family and stuff like that around the city.

And then, you know, I ended up getting, doing my dissertation and getting a doctorate in urban planning. And

I studied sort of informal transit in New York, dollar vans, if anyone’s familiar with those. And during that time in New York, we were undergoing the extension of the seven line, the Hudson Yards and the Second Avenue subway phase one project.

And, you know, those projects were really exciting because it was the first time in a long time that this kind of work was being done and it attracted a lot of attention. And there was this sort of blogger, Alon Levy, writing at Pedestrian Observations, commenting on, oh man, this seems a little expensive relative to what’s going on in Japan or in Paris or other places where they could find the data. And Alon and

I started talking during this time period. And eventually we decided to work together and try to get some research project, off the ground. And, you know, it at first was, it was harder than we thought it would be. And then it became much easier.

You know, we got some funding and a grant to sort of dig into this and build this database. We have a database of just under a thousand projects that includes headline costs from, you know, I think 50 or 60 countries over like 200 cities basically around the world. And it just something that didn’t exist and no one had a real way of talking about, you know, is this four and a half billion dollars for the Second Avenue subway? Is that a lot? Is that a little? Is it in between? Like what’s reasonable? What’s not reasonable?

And so by collecting the data, you could start to put it into context. And I think, you know, that was ultimately what the value of our data was. Like we, Alon and I knew that it was expensive, of course, but we didn’t necessarily understand what the global situation was. And by collecting the data, we were able to see, okay, well, what places are doing it inexpensively, right? So like we knew that, you know, the Spanish had built a subway in Madrid rapidly and inexpensively like that. That was like well known. But, you know, we didn’t know that like in Istanbul, they were building tons of subway and they were doing it inexpensively or that Italy had sort of had very high costs at one point in time and then had bent the cost curve down.

So, you know, by collecting the data, we were able to sort of see trends and patterns and what else was going on in the world. And then once we had the data, we decided to Do these in-depth case studies to understand what was going on, right? So we did an in-depth case study on the Green Line extension up in Boston. We did one on phase one of the

Second Avenue subway. We did one on Stockholm. We did one on Istanbul, and we did one on four cities in Italy. And the goal of that work was just to sort of, okay, we’ve identified that there are differences, but why are there these differences? And what are these– what’s going on on these projects that is making them. go faster, slower? How are they doing it more cheaply, or how are they do- you know, what is making it more expensive?

And so that, that, that’s the whole sort of impetus and origins of, of what we were up to and, and, and what we were doing. A-and how has it evolved since then? I, I imagine scale, you’ve probably been able to add more projects over time. But is there anything else that our listeners should know about the project as, you know, from its origins to now?

Yeah. So when we started, uh, I wanna say Alon had collected data on around a hundred fifty to two hundred projects. Um, and as I mentioned, we’re at about a thousand.

And so once we were able to hire people, we, you know, we got someone who spoke Chinese, we got someone, you know, who spoke, um, Arabic, we– someone who, you know, spoke a number of European languages.

Um, and so all of a sudden, we’re able to just really, you know, expand what’s in our database. Um, and so, you know, getting that funding went from it being sort of like a hobby that, um, you know, we were both interested in but had to do some other– we had to, like, continue doing other things to, okay, we could dedicate our time exclusively to this, and, um, we could also manage some other people and direct them ’cause it’s a thing that we had been looking at. And so we sort of knew how to access things or, like, what sources are more reliable than others or, you know, just what kinds of questions to ask, that kind of thing. And, you know, I think Alon and

I, you know, we built this team with Elif Ansari, Marco Kiti, um, and then a couple other, you know, researchers.

Um, there’s a woman, Yinan, and this fellow, Anan Malouf, who, you know, they helped us get all the data. Um, and then, you know, Marco, Elif, Alon, and myself, we sort of did the in-depth case studies.

Um, and, you know, the, the work, I think, w-was relatively well-received. Um, and so we’ve– we’re trying to expand on that. We’re doing some more case studies right now. Um, we’re hopefully finishing up a, a London case study that Matthew Bornholdt is authoring. Um, but yes, we continue to add data, and, like, we’ve created, um, like, a high-speed rail cost database.

You know, there are far fewer high-speed rail projects, so that one was, was, was less, less onerous. Um, we have a rolling stock database. You know, I, I think one of the things that we think is interesting or valuable,

I should say, is just having a centralized repository for some of this stuff, right? Like, just, you know, the way that we talk about California high-speed rail in the US, like, we just, we have no context when we talk about it. It’s like, it’s so expensive, it’s so this or that, but no one is like, “Well, this is what the universe of high-speed rail projects looks like.

California high-speed rail, how does it fit into that context?” And so I, I, I think one of the things that’s been really valuable about projects is, you know, media or agencies or whoever reaches out to us and says, you know, “We’re procuring a light rail, and, um, the rolling stock is, is this. Like, is that a lot? Is it a little? Like, where does it fall in the sort of the universe of projects or procurements?” Right. And, like, we can, we can answer that, and I think that’s cool. And look, you know, like, things are different for different reasons, and, you know, it’s not, you know, the, the one, uh, criticism that we get is not apples to apples

’cause it’s not really possible to do that. But, but I do think it’s, you know, it’s Granny Smith apples to Red Delicious apples to Jonah Golds to, you know, I think we have… You know, we’re in the apple family, and, uh, you know, so

I, I think, you know, that’s where, you know, we provide a lot of value. Um, and as I always, I always say, if, if someone can do it better, by all means, I w- I will, I will be the first one to, to cheer you on.

Yeah. A-and somebody has to start, uh, uh, Eric. And, and, you know, first of all, I, I wanna applaud, uh, the effort in, you know, creating this resource for the transit industry. Um, uh, people that know me, uh, know that, that I love, uh, benchmarking.

Yeah. A-a-and I love to be able to, uh, do comparisons. You know, one of the things you’re saying is just looking at things holistically and having, uh, that understanding of what exists in the universe of, like, rail services, right? Yep. A-and then be able to make those comparisons because if you cannot benchmark, you cannot establish, uh, or define good, right? Like, uh, you know, back to your proj– uh, the projects you were talking about and in some of those constituents or people saying, “Hey, that seems a little too high,” right?

Mm-hmm. I-is it? Is it high? Is it low? What are the factors that are driving the cost? And, like, how do you determine if this project is outrageously expensive, and could be also-

Right … done in a more cost-effective way? And then the other thing is the best practices when it comes to benchmarking and- Yeah … analyzing and studying everything that is out there. I know when it comes to, like, rail safety, a-and particularly New York, and, you know, this is things that I’ve read, and forgive me, uh, those listeners and folks if I-I’m a little off for the factual story, but I understand that, you know, the, to increase safety-

And at, at the MTA rail, folks from the MTA traveled to Japan because they were very low, uh, you know, accident incidents around platforms and all that stuff. Yep. And then they started seeing what they do, and, and they have all this protocol of pointing and, and, like, naming things to make sure everything is the way it needs to be- Yeah … and is running safety, uh, safely. And then some of those things were brought to the

US. Yeah. So there’s a lot of value in this benchmarking and, and do these comparisons. Uh, but you know, I wanna talk more and, and dive into the cost and some of the factors that are driving the cost and how you do these comparisons. But I– my first question is gonna be around, you know, could you tell us what are cities losing, uh, when, when a project costs too much to build? Sure. So I, I just wanna respond to something that you said ’cause I, I think it’s really important, and I should’ve said it earlier with the universe piece.

So every place– So we talk to people all over the world about their projects. and their systems, and every person we spoke to was like, “Our co- our projects are so expensive.” Right? So, like, we talk to people in Spain, which is very cheap, relatively speaking, and they’re like, “It is so expensive to build subway here.”

And it’s like, yes, it’s always gonna be a big dollar amount, right? It’s gonna be hundreds of millions of dollars, billions of dollars, you know, whatever, you know, that number is, and that’s a big number. It’s always gonna be a big number ’cause it’s like you’re moving a lot of earth, you got a lot of people, you have high-tech machinery and equipment, and so they’re always gonna be expensive. But if you can’t put it into the context of very expensive things, you know, it gets lost as, you know, like- Right … “Oh, actually, we’re doing a pretty good job on this.” Um, so anyhow, uh, let me answer your question though. Um, so what is lost?

So I, I think the big thing that we see domestically is we just build a lot less than we could have. And, you know, so Second Avenue Subway is a great example where, you know, the plan is to build a subway that runs the island of Manhattan from basically 125th Street down to the southern tip of the island. And what we built was phase one of Second Avenue Subway. Now, most people don’t sort of realize that. They think the Second Avenue Subway is sort of built, who are not, like, you know, following this stuff closely. But what we built actually was, um, three new stations and a tie-in to an existing line, the Broadway line, and, you know, it’s like a mile and a half, right? So we built phase one, which was three stations and a mile and a half, and it’s good. It’s better than nothing, but it’s not the whole thing, right? We didn’t build the entire project. And because the costs were so high, right, they had to break it up into smaller chunks, right? So instead of raising all the money to build the full four-phase project, they’re like,

“We can get four and a half billion dollars basically to build phase one.” And then now, that opened in, you know, 2017, basically, January 1st,

2017. We are in 2026. We’ve only just started construction on phase two of the Second Avenue Subway. Oh, wow. Um, and the costs of that are over seven billion dollars, right? So it’s like, again, if we could have gotten the cost lower, maybe there’s a way, a world in which we could build phase one and two simultaneously.

Um, using the Green Line as an e-example, you know, the project that was proposed was extending all the way to the Mystic Valley Parkway, and the project that was built cut that station, right? So they, they couldn’t build the whole thing. It was uneconomical, right? They couldn’t afford to do it.

Um, and so I think when you look at, uh, what’s going on in a city like Seattle where they wanna build the Ballard Link l- um, subway or light rail, excuse me, um, that project was approved by the voters in

2016, and the costs have gotten so out of hand that they’re announcing that they’re probably not gonna start construction until the 2040s or something like that, right? And- Wow … so instead of building the Sound

Transit 3, ST3, their capital program, um, starting in 2016, and they had to do the planning. They had to do a lot of work. It wasn’t, it wasn’t gonna start in 2016. I, you know, I c- I can, I can be honest about that.

But, you know, they still haven’t finished their environmental review, right? They haven’t gone through NEPA. They haven’t finished their NEPA. They don’t have a final environmental document, um, because they’re still debating a bunch of things, but the costs keep going up, up, up, up, up, and up. In the US is, we have a lot of these. Like, it’s gonna… It’s a zombie project, right? Like, it’s just gonna hang around. It’s not gonna die

’cause, like, it’s, it makes sense in a lot of ways, but there’s just no way to fund it, um, at the costs that we’re talking about. And, um, you know,

I think that’s a real problem, right? Like, we are missing out on moving people around our cities, providing access. I mean, you know, driving– The automobile, like, I’m, I’m not a, an automobile hater.

Um, you know, automobile is an amazing invention. It’s great in a million different ways, but it’s, it’s not appropriate in a dense, built-up city, right? Like, it is too space-intensive.

You know, like, it hits people. Um, it- Yeah … spews pollution. Um, like, there are all these things. Um, and you know, as you were saying earlier, in a city like New York, what makes– All the tallest buildings are on top of the busiest subway stations, right? Like, subways are essentially horizontal elevators, and elevators are vertical subways. You know, like, you can think of it that way. And you know, like, that is what allows all the job clustering in Manhattan to exist is the subway. Like, you couldn’t replicate it with automobiles.

You know, like, a, a good subway can move 50,000 people per direction per hour. You know, you would need like a 25-lane highway to do that, basically. So, you know, it’s, it’s just, it’s not feasible if you want to have vibrant, dense downtowns and cities without mass transit. And so I, I think there’s been a movement since like the mid-’90s in this country to sort of come back to cities after they’d been abandoned. And, you know, I think

COVID sort of bungled that a little bit and sort of people thought cities might be, you know, untenable.

But I think, you know, it depends where you go in the country. Not all cities are the same. You know, I think there’s a recognition that, oh, you know, cities are still pretty vibrant and, you know, in terms of like innovation and, and job creation and, you know, just like fun stuff to do. Like, they’re still like the best thing that we have. And so if we want our cities to be successful, we really need to figure out how to move people around without automobiles. This episode is brought to you by

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And, and, and that’s the other piece is, is that, uh, the economic impact that it has, uh, to a community to have a robust transit system, transportation network altogether versus not having one or, or as low in its development when like the population growth and all these sort of things are still happening, right? Yeah. Like that’s not waiting for policy. People just moving and choosing to live somewhere. Uh, and, and a lot of times developers not having as many, um, you know, red tape to go through when it comes to just being able to develop, uh, housing and- Mm-hmm … and all these things are popping up, and then if the city is not able to keep up and put these projects forward to, you know, match the, that mobility demand, then, you know, it’s, it’s to the detriment of everybody that lives in the city and that has to s-spend more time in traffic or, or they have to be, you know, have more options for, for public transportation. I, I wanna go, uh, continue the co- the cost conversation- Mm-hmm … as it relates to comparing, um, you know, different projects in the US with other places around the country.

Uh, you know, h-how do you make good comparisons? I-in, in, you know, sometimes transit agencies when it comes to benchmarking, right, like you’re picking an agency that has a similar service area in population, a similar, uh, number of vehicles, and you’re like, “Okay, this agency is kind of like peer to this agency.” Mm-hmm. “These are, these are similar. Let’s compare how they operate and see where one is better to the, uh, than the other one, and maybe understand why.” Mm-hmm. So, so could you walk us how you compare those projects, right? Mm-hmm. And say, “Hey, this project that is in Italy or is in Spain-

Mm-hmm … you know, it’s kind of similar to this project. This is their cost, how we’re co-comparing.” But it also, I wanna hear about, um, like what are some of the factors that make the cost different? In, in my mind- Hmm … without, you know, having depth, uh, um, you know, knowledge on this or having, um, you know, uh, gone through the data like you have,

I would imagine that maybe there’s techniques for- Mm-hmm … the actual construction of stations- Mm-hmm … that are, that, that, that impact that cost. So could you tell me a little bit of those findings and those comparisons? Yeah. So on the international side, you know, the, the way we set up the research project was we were like, “Let’s look at some expensive places,” and those are the North American examples,

“and sort of understand the process by which we get these outcomes, and then let’s look at some inexpensive places and understand the process by which they get those outcomes.” And so that was sort of like the first cut. And then, you know, there are some explanations that people believe to be true about why it’s expensive in the US, right? So people talk about our labor costs, um, which, you know, they are high, that’s true.

Um, but then so we looked at, you know, um, Sweden. Sweden has very high GDP per capita, um, but they have low costs, right? So clearly they can work with inex- expensive labor and still build inexpensively.

Um, people talk about sort of staffing levels, you know, on that labor side too. So we thought it was important to benchmark, okay, well, there were some numbers about New York’s tunnel boring machine staffing. Let’s get the similar data from what they’re doing in Spain or what they’re doing in Italy or Istanbul or India, you know, or whatever, wherever it was. And so we, we, we tried to, to match and, you know, where we could with a lot of things. Um, Stockholm also has hard rock like New York does, so, you know, we thought that was interesting. You know, we selected Italy specifically because it was a place that had seen its costs go up in the ’70s and ’80s, and then the cost curve started to bend down in the ’90s and in the present day.

And so the idea was, okay, this is a place that had a problem and they were able to solve it. They were able to, you know, address it in some way. And so here’ in the US, we are able to identify, you know, we have a problem with our costs. Maybe there’s a lesson to be learned about how they address it in Italy with, with how we could address it here. And then, you know, Istanbul we selected Because it’s the city outside of China that is building the most transit around the world.

And, um, you know, they started at a very, you know, they, Istanbul did not have a subway, um, pre the beginning of construction in the late ’80s, early ’90s.

And, you know, they’ve been sort of building continuously since. And while a city like New York does have a legacy system and, you know, other places, Chicago, Boston, they do, we are, all of our cities really haven’t built in a long time. Like,

D.C. is maybe a little bit of the outlier. Um, and so, like, we just don’t have a lot of that experience. So how do we sort of build up that expertise again and, you know, start another golden age of, uh, transit construction, right? ‘Cause you do see around a lot of, a lot of places, like, there’s like a 30 to 40-year period at the very outset where it’s like you build a ton. And, like, it makes sense, right? Like, a-af- once you’ve built the lowest, you know, the, the most obvious places, like, what do you do after that? It, it becomes, you know, a little bit more difficult to select, you know, good, good routes.

Um, and so, you know, in the U.S. context, a lot of our, a lot of places we built, you know, pretty intensively in the early 1900s and then sort of stopped, um, and we didn’t really expand much.

And, um, so we thought it was, it was interesting to sort of see what, what they were doing in Istanbul. So

Eric, how do you and, and the folks that are on your team uncover these costs? Uh, uh, it sounds like you’re able to get, you know, experts or at least, uh, folks that speak the, you know, Mandarin or, or Italian or what have you.

Mm. Um, but I, I’m curious how you, you find that cost, especially in a, you know, some places- Yeah … may not share it or be as open and transparent as, like, as the U.S.

is. Mm-hmm. So in terms of the headli- so it’s important to note the costs are headline costs. So the headline costs are just, like, the total costs, and it’s, it’s not broken down into, like, the stations cost this much or the rolling stock costs that much or the systems, you know, it’s not, it doesn’t break it down. And so because these projects are so expensive, there’s usually media reporting around it, there’s usually trade publications around it, and there’s usually some sort of government documentation.

Um, and so that’s sort of the, the universe where we started for everything. Um, and so we were able to s- you know, like, so here in the U.S., like the FTA, the Federal Transit Administration, right, like they publish, you know, their, their funding, um, their grants every year, like what they plan to fund, and there’s cost information in there. But, you know, like in

New York, all the newspapers are writing about MTA projects, so you can, you can get the information relatively easily if you know where to look. And, um, you know, f- but for places where, you know, we don’t speak the language, it was, yeah, it was important to find someone who did, who then could go, you know, look at the equivalent, you know, either media, government, or trade publications to find, find those numbers. I see. And for folks that are visiting the website and, and, you know, also l- maybe reading research and the, and the, the case studies, what do you hope that they take away? You know, I,

I think the, the m- main thing that we’ve, uh, have always been trying to accomplish and are trying to accomplish still is, you know, we can, there are ways to get more infrastructure per dollar spent. You know, that’s fundamental to what we’re doing. Um, but also, like, providing context, right? So

I, I think one of the things that’s sort of interesting in this moment domestically is so yeah, American costs are high, and

I think people can acknowledge that, but they’re getting a lot higher, and I, I don’t think people necessarily understand how much higher they’re getting, right? So it’s like you look at phase two of Second

Avenue Subway, you look at what’s going on in Austin, you look at what’s going on in Seattle, um, you look at what’s, you know, LA Metro just opened up a new line, you look at VTA in the Bay

Area, um, you look at all these places and, you know, the numbers are just so large that it’s hard to be like, “Is that 10% more than it was? Is it 50% more?” Like,

I, I don’t know. But, like, because we have this data, like, you can look and y- we, you know, we apply inflation. Like, we, we do a lot of things to, to, to normalize and standardize our data and clean it. And so you can start to ask some of the questions. You know, a lot of people, for instance, in the transit world right now are saying, “Oh, the tariffs are, you know, blowing out our projects.” And it’s true. Tariffs are adding uncertainty and costs, but you’re talking about nine to 15%. But if the project has grown by 50%, that doesn’t explain all of the difference, and we need to understand all of the difference if we want to be effective. Like, we can’t, I think this is not unique to transit, but you know, when things go sideways, there’s a very quick sort of explanation of what happened and, you know, a lot, you know, during COVID, everyone’s like, “Ah, COVID really, like, messed everything up.” And, you know, I’m sure that it made things harder, but then you look at projects like in

San Diego or Boston’s Green Line, and it’s like, those projects actually, I think it helped them. Uh, you know, they were able to, like, do more work more quickly. They got things done a little bit under schedule, maybe on budget, you know. So in one place, maybe it was a problem, but another place it seemed to be, you know, helpful.

Um, so, like, there has to be more to that answer and, you know, I think, um-

You know, we push on those types of logical explanations effectively, I think. Um, and s- you know, some agencies are really interested in engaging on that level and saying, “Yeah, that’s a good point. Like, let’s, like, dig into this and figure out what’s going on.” ‘Cause, you know, I think, you know, everyone at the agencies, for the most part, like, they wanna build awesome transit projects.

Like, they’re as frustrated as we are, um, as frustrated maybe as you are as well. And, you know, it’s just like the organization of these projects tends to be pretty fragmented. You know, a lot of the work is done by consultants, and so the agencies don’t always sort of like know exactly what’s going on.

And I, I think, you know, one thing that we stress, right, is that you need to have some of that capacity internally to know what you’re doing, know what you want, know ata- know the right questions to ask, um, and have more visibility into your costs, right? Like, there’s not a lot of visibility into the costs.

Um, and I, I think, you know, there’s more– I think more people are oriented in that direction these days, which I think is good.

Um, but you know, it’s not, we haven’t solved all the problems just yet. And have you been surprised by any of the attention that the research has received? Is there maybe a particular group or, uh, y- you know, perhaps it’s media that has gravitated to, to what you’re doing and tried to disseminate that message or e- even counter it? Like, you know, you said earlier there are some detractors. I, I’m curious to dig into that a bit more. Sure. So look, I think if you’re in the media, right, like it’s a story, right? Like, it’s salacious, it’s cost, it’s boondoggle, it’s waste. It’s, you know, it’s billions of dollars, you know? So I think media is like they’re, they’re very interested in the work. But I think a lot of the agencies are very interested. Um, you know, a lot of the agencies are like,

“We, our costs keep going in this direction that we don’t understand. What do we do?” And the thing is, some of the agencies that we talk to, you know, like they wanna like dig into it and get into it, but then it’s like there’s only so much that they can do, and so, you know, they’re, they’re, they’re not able to like keep pushing in certain directions. Um, but you know, I think the r- the response– I, I, I think our research made plain what a lot of people knew in the industry. Um, like it was not a huge surprise to folks that, you know, a billion dollars a mile was really expensive for, um, you know, light rail and subway. Um, and so I, I think, you know, that’s,

I think that, that’s been really useful. I think a lot of agencies recognize that there’s a problem. They’re not publicly gonna be like, “You know, our costs are terrible. Don’t give us any money.” You know, it’s like that, that doesn’t make any sense.

Um, like I think expecting agencies to be self-flagellating is unreasonable. Um, but I think many of them are very curious, and many of them wanna do better, and, um, you know, they’re asking good questions. And, you know, again, it, it takes some time to, to iron all this out. But, you know, I,

I, I, I am encouraged by some of that interest, um, and some of the changes that you see at some of these agencies. And then internationally, there’s been, you know, a lot of interest, um, from, you know, a number of different places just being like, “Yeah, we were having these thoughts. We were like, ‘Why is it so expensive to do this?’ And, you know, like this research sort of helps us sort of think about this differently and, you know, how do we start approaching this stuff?”

And so, you know, I, I, I think the re- the reception has been largely positive. I think, you know, and I understand this, you know, some agencies maybe feel attacked and, um, you know, they already feel the, the heat and the pressure of their high costs, and so some, you know, researchers saying,

“Hey, yeah, your costs are, are out of control,” you know, it’s not really helpful for them as they are navigating certain challenges with like a governor or, you know, the federal government or whatever it is.

Um, you know, they, they, they’re– I mean, I think it’s helpful, of course. I think, you know, transparency is good. But, you know, they’re al- they’re, they’re already struggling with some of that stuff, and so then when another story comes out about it, it’s just sort of like a pile on.

And, you know, uh, my hope is that like we’re, we’re trying to be productive, right? So like, um, in both our Boston case study and our New York case study, which were expensive projects, um, you know, like we point to some of the areas where things are expensive, some of the areas where, you know, the city or the state is being obstructionist and being a problem.

Like I, I really, I view our case studies as being very sympathetic to the agencies. I don’t think the, all the agencies would agree with me about this, but, um, that’s like the place in which they were written from. I, I can tell you as, as the author and one of the authors on, on some of these things.

Um, so, you know, I think ultimately saying our, you know, costs are high is, is, there is value to it, but like we need to be productive. Like we need to then, okay, so then what do we do? And, you know, I g- I think our reports and our recommendations were chock-full of, of, of productive steps. And, you know, again, some of these agencies are, are doing some of that stuff, and so I think that’s great.

And, and, and let me, um, mm, dive a little bit more into that before we kind of move into the next, uh, next section on our conversation. I-in your benchmarking, uh, are there any, um, specific factors that had the most, um, impact on the cost that, that you recognize, any, uh, best practices or techniques in, in, you know- Oh, yeah … because I, I would imagine, yes, uh, one part is saying the cost is higher, a-and I’ll tell you, when it comes to, you know, other technologies and like, for example, electric, uh, buses- Yeah. Sure … right? Battery electric buses. Yeah. You compare only what’s offered in the US, and like- Yeah … the agencies can only choose this one- Yeah … or that one for the most part. Yeah. And maybe there’s a, a, a few other plays coming up, and that’s it. Yeah. But when you look at what other agencies have- Yes … uh, you know, available to select- Yeah … and the, the price they pay- Yeah … for those vehicles, then it’s like, wow, well, you know, that’s part of the reason.

But then- Yes … you know, we have like Buy American- Buy American. Yeah … and other cir-circumstantial things that prevent the agency to access lower costs. Yeah. So I, I wanna know, you know, what are some of those things that you compared and found in other countries to be less expensive and, you know-

Yeah … if you could give like a-an example or two- Yeah … and maybe the reasons why you found those things to be a little bit less expensive. Absolutely.

So we tr- we try to net out rolling stock, for instance, um, when we can just ’cause, and financing, right? ‘Cause like it can be variable, and some things include it, some things don’t, and so it’s not, you know, in, in the effort to, to do our apples to apples comparisons, you know, like we, we try to, try to keep things l- as like for like as we can. But your point is a really good one about Buy America and buses, right? Totally correct. Um, you know, if, if you have a limited number of suppliers, like there’s just not that much competition, and so that, that’s a problem.

But to, to be more concrete in terms of examples, right? So in our New York City case study and in our, in our, our Boston case study, you know, the stations were really expensive, right? And so what was driving that? So in New York, the stations were really, were really, they’re really large. Like, we compare them to stations around the world.

Um, obviously, New York has long subways and high ridership, so it’s gonna be longer than, you know, our stations are gonna be bigger than, than, than a lot of other places. But New York has an inordinate amount of backup house space. So space underground, part of the station complex, not accessible to passengers. That is for the people that operate and maintain the subway, right? So they have work spaces, they have changing rooms, they have eating spaces, they have bathrooms. They, you know, they have a lot of spaces, basically. Um, and building things underground is the most expensive place to build things. Like, does all that stuff need to be underground?

Is, do they build it underground in other places, right? And so what we found is that, you know, back of house space exists in other places. It’s usually somewhere between, you know, two to twenty percent of the length of the platform. You know, it’s not…

You know, so in New York, a platform is six hundred feet. So if you did twenty percent right, that’d be s- the station box should be seven hundred and twenty feet long. But the station boxes on phase one of the Second Avenue subway are a thousand feet, fourteen hundred feet, and sixteen hundred feet, basically. Um, so way beyond that twenty percent marker.

Um, and so, you know, that, that’s a big part of it. And, you know, you mentioned something about technique. You know, in New York, you know, we did mined stations for two of the, the new stations, and mining is an expensive way to do it. You know, other places will do cut and cover for the stations, much more disruptive, but it’s faster, cheaper. And so like there’s a trade-off. And, you know, I think part of what we’re trying to do in our work is lay bare those trade-offs and what they are, ’cause they’re not made explicit, um, to the public, right? So if I told you, “Okay, it’s gonna take me ten years to build this station, but I’m gonna do it through mining, and it’s gonna be a little bit less disruptive,” or, “I can build your station in four years, rip up the sidewalks, be a real pain in your butt, you know, like, but it’s gonna be half as expensive.” You know, like now you can make a decision and a choice.

You know, the, the, one of the primary design objectives for most domestic projects is how do you minimize surface disruption? And once you are locked in on minimizing surface disruption, you put yourself in a class of choices that are all very expensive. And so the thing is like, well, what disruptions can we live with, or how can we mitigate some of them in ways that allow us to move quickly, allow us to build affordably without sort of being hugely disruptive, right? Like we’re building you a subway.

You gotta accept some disruption, right? Like it’s just, that’s the world that we live in. Like when they built phase one of Second Avenue, I promise you, all the people that live by those stations will tell you it was very disruptive, and it was disruptive for ten years. And, you know, if you could’ve been disruptive for four years, I’m sure many of those people would’ve taken that trade.

Um, and you know, in, in Boston, when they were building the Green Line extension, you know, the stations again came up as an issue, and when you look at the renderings and what they were gonna build, these were very sort of like opulent, unique stations with, you know, a lot of plantings and like just a lot of extra stuff. Stuff that is beyond a transit project. Like maybe things that like a city or someone could pay for and say, “Look, yeah, we wanna like have nice plantings and nice this and that, and, uh, these additional things,” but, you know, like maybe someone else should be paying for.

Um, and so what they, you know, that project ended up getting, getting sort of paused and redesigned, and they sort of stripped away a lot of that stuff. And what they left, you know, is open air stations. Like they’re, um, they’re not pretty. I, I, I wouldn’t pretend that they are. Um, they’re basically, you know, what you imagine an open air station to be, but they’re like-

70% less expensive than what was proposed. Um, and you know, like, it-it-it’s, it’s those kinds of things. Like, maybe we could have spent a little bit more money on the stations and had some more stuff. I, you know, I-I-I do think that, like, if people understand or, or, or are given the information and they decide, “I want the more expensive station than the, the less expensive station,” like, that’s okay. Like, you know, it’s a democracy. Like, we can– We don’t have to build the cheapest thing possible. Um, like, it-it’s, it’s okay to have, like, a nice permanent thing.

Um, but like, w- I think a lot of those trade-offs are never made explicit, and so we’re just told it’s a four-and-a-half billion dollar project, and that’s it. And, and I think we can do better than that. Eric, you mentioned earlier that there are a number of people that are involved in these large infrastructure projects other than the transit agency staff. You’ve got consultants and contractors and, you know- Mm-hmm

… other third parties that, uh, you know, probably too many to even name. Yeah. Uh, but what role does someone like, you know, maybe Christian or myself, if we put ourself back in our, our planning roles at an agency-

Yeah … what’s our responsibility? So I would guess at the agency that you worked at, you would hire a consultant to do all the actual work, and you would sort of manage the consultant a little bit. But they would do everything. They would write the reports. They’d ask you some questions. Like, I, I j- I j- I don’t think you would really know that much about the project, and I, I think that’s bad, right? Like, I think you want your agency generating ideas. You want your agency dictating what the project is. You want your consultants executing certain tasks that are beyond your expertise, right? So, like, should a transit agency have a full-time station engineer and architect? Probably not.

Um, but should every capital project have, like, a vice president of stations who really knows all the mechanical systems and knows the construction techniques and the means and methods and, you know, what the world looks like? Absolutely. Right? Like, you need a vice president who can talk to the consultant and say, “I need you to do this. I don’t need you to do that.” ‘Cause your c- what your, your consultant will do, either for, as a desire to cover their own behinds or just to run up the tab, is they’ll be, “Well, let’s study this. Let’s study that. Let’s study this thing. Let’s study, uh… We can study everything,” right? Like, I can give you a million reports.

Um, but those are not really useful unless they’re moving your project forward, and the only way to do that is to have someone in charge of those consultants who understands what the project calls for, what is needed, and can sort of direct and has some staff beneath them who can help them with all that work, right? ‘Cause it’s, it’s not reasonable to expect one human being to understand every single element of, uh, you know, 10 different stations, let’s say, right? You have escalators and elevators. You have track.

You have platform screen doors. You have different subsystems. You have CCTV, SCAT. You know, you have all these different things and, you know, uh, you know, fire safety.

Um, you know, one person is not gonna be expert in all those things. But one person might understand how those things interact and understand trade-offs and under… And, like, that person’s super valuable. And so every project needs to have, you know, and like, you know, needs to have some of that expertise. Right. And in agencies like in New York or, you know, where LA Metro is building a lot of stuff or Sound Transit is building a lot of stuff, you know, like, it’s justified. Like, you c- you, you, you know, Sound Transit has, you know, decades and decades of work ahead of it, um, on system expansion.

So, like, why wouldn’t you invest in, in some of that stuff right now? Um, in New York, you know, we, we, our capital plans are done in five, five, five-year chunks.

But like, you know, we have some vision. We have ambition, and, um, you know, I think they’re building, they’re building out a lot of that expertise in New York right now, and it’s, uh, I think it’s very exciting. Um, you know, you, you look at, like, the big things you need to know about in these projects, right?

Stations, tunneling, safety, rolling stock, um, systems, right? Like, you need people who have deep knowledge, who have some staff, have some resources that they can really dictate to the consultants. You wanna dictate. You want subject matter experts leading these, these processes.

Um, like internationally, lots of con- there are lots of consultants, but agencies in other parts of the world, they have subject matter experts managing those processes and projects. You know, some places in the US we have some of that, but a lot of places, you know, um, you know, they’re, they’re just- Too dependent on the- … getting started. They’re just getting started. They don’t, they don’t have that expertise.

Yeah, and, and they’re too dependent on the consultant, right? It, it’s- Yeah … it’s hard with these massive projects. There’s a lot of moving pieces and, and different, um, you know, professionals from different backgrounds, right? That, that they specialize in the engineering part, you know, and like, uh, i-i-in the rolling stock specifically, right? Like, how do you choose, you know, what you should go with, right?

Right. And then, and then a lot of times the staff in the agency, they just don’t have that specific knowledge. So- Yeah … so, you know, good project team with, you know, good expertise and people that have the know-how, uh, that are part of the agency, not just the consultant side. Yeah. Right. So they’re not just dictating any, everything, and then you at the agency, you’re just, you know, letting the consultant take you wherever they wanna take you because, you know, they’re the experts, and you don’t have any internal knowledge. So there has to be some robust

Knowledge at the agency that is kinda like working alongside with the consultants and almost to your, you know, using your same words, kinda like dictating to the consultant where the project goes next so that they’re focusing in what really matters most and has, um, you know, the most, uh, a ROI, right, for the entire project.

Yeah. Um, Eric, w- this has been a, a phenomenal conversation. We could go, you know, longer and longer, and definitely- Sure … wanna, uh, uh, later on maybe have you back in the show to, uh, discuss specific projects and some, uh, lessons learned because there’s a lot to unpack here. And to our listeners, I’m

100%, uh, recommending to go and, and reach out to you and, and to the work that you’ve completed to learn more about this.

I know we have, um, some, uh, CEOs from transit agencies that have rail projects, that have upcoming rail projects that, uh, they could benefit from, you know, taking a look at this narrative and, and, and learning some, you know, um, important key takeaways.

Mm-hmm. Um, this segment of the show we go into right now, this is- Mm-hmm … a rapid fire segment. I’m gonna ask, uh, somehow, you know, short questions.

Sure. And we’re looking for short answers. Yes. Kinda like first thing that comes to mind. Uh, are you ready for it? I’m ready. Uh, could you tell us what’s your, uh, favorite transit system in the world besides New York City Transit? Uh, in the world? Probably, uh, maybe Shanghai.

Um, just an incredible rail system. Um, you know, really expansive, very easy to navigate. Um,

I, I taught for a semester at NYU Shanghai, and, uh, I was just, I was blown away at how easy it was for me to get anywhere in the city, um, and even beyond. Like, you know, it, it extends into some, some of the more su- suburban parts.

Um, just a really impressive system. Hmm. I’m gonna have to look into that one. Uh, most misunderstood recent transit projects become expensive. I think local permitting, third parties are, that’s like the thing that I’ve been super interested in. And so that just means when you’re building your project and you need to like cut open the street or shut down the gas or move a water main, like you need to get authority and permit, a permit from a city DOT or from an electrical utility or from the department of, of water and gas or whatever it is, and I think no one understands that process. It is invisible to, to most people, and it creates a lot of delay and a lot of cost. Uh, one capability every transit agency needs more of. Just, you know, people who’ve done it, experts. You know, subject matter experts. One transit system Americans should study more closely.

Interesting. Um, I th- you know, I think Seattle is the system that is expanding the most. Um, so I think there’s a lot, a lot to dig into. You know, they made decisions about mode in terms of light rail.

They’ve made decisions about sort of how long everything is or where they’re building and, you know, they have sort of geographic constraints, um, and responsibilities that they have to honor. Um, so I think, I think that’s a very interesting, uh, system that people should study.

And they have a, a really good bus network. King County, you know, they, they have a, a, you know, high bus ridership, really interesting.

All right, I’ve got one more. Favorite apple. Favorite apple. Um, oh, I don’t… Is it a Gala? I- we have apples in my house. I don’t know what they’re called. Um- … I should know. But they’re good. They’re really good. They’re, it’s like that, you know, um, I don’t know. I think it’s a Gala apple. I think that’s the one.

I think it’s- Okay. Is that, is that the good one? Do you know? Does anyone know? Well, I mean, you know, e- each, to each their own. Uh, I prefer a Honeycrisp. A Honeycrisp. I prefer those. Oh, no, Honeycrisp. Yeah. That, that’s the one. That’s like, it’s like- Okay … kind of a new apple, right? That’s like-

Yes. Yes … was recently created. Yeah, Honeycrisp. Yeah. That’s the one. It’s- See? I, I don’t know. I don’t know. It’s fantastic. Yeah, it’s a good apple. Very good apple. All right.

Well, as a, a- another recurring segment that we have here on the podcast, Eric, uh, we have the key takeaways. I wrote down a few while you were speaking, and there’s just, there’s so much to unpack, like Christian said.

L- um, but, uh, the, I have four, and you tell me if I got any wrong or if you’d say them differently. But, uh, one key takeaway from your research is that US transit projects cost are, are high, as we expected, and they’re continuing to rise.

Uh, w- we’re potentially missing out on additional transit infrastructure projects just due to these high costs. We- Yeah … we build a little rather than a lot because they’re so expensive. Yeah.

Uh, a- agencies and their staff need more visibility into those costs, so get those subject matter experts in at your agency. And there, like with anything in life, there are trade-offs. So if you’re trying to facilitate development, make that, you know, speed that up a bit, then there are probably gonna be more disruptions. And if you’re trying to minimize the disruptions, then it’s probably going to increase the amount of time that it’s going to take for the project, uh, to be completed. Yeah. That was succinct, and I, I know I missed things, but you, you tell me if those were good key takeaways or not.

No, those are, those are good key takeaways. I mean, my number one piece of advice to any agency or person, you know, working on these projects is just cut the timeline in half.

How do you, however you can do that, do that. That’s, that’s where you start. Um, ’cause, you know, time is money, and, uh, we need to fig- we d- these things are, are way too slow. Like, we applaud ourselves for being like, “It’s gonna, you know, we’re gonna take 10 years to build, you know, a mile or two,” and it’s like that, it’s just, it, it, it, it’s unreasonable. Like, we, we can do better.

Absolutely. Yeah. Well said. Uh, I think we can leave it there. Uh, for the folks that, you know, want to follow your work, they want to read more about some of these case studies, where can they go and how can they connect with you, Eric?

So transitcosts.com is, is our website. Um, you know, I am the only Eric Goldwyn. in the world, so if you google me, you, you will find me.

Um, and, uh, you know, my email is available, elg229@nyu.edu. Um, happy to chat with people. I’m on LinkedIn, I’m on Twitter, I’m on Blue Sky.

I don’t… Y- y- you, you, you found me. Your, your listeners- Yeah, that’s true … your listeners can find me too. I’m out, I’m out there. That’s true. Yeah. All right. Yeah. P- pick their medium, right? Yeah, exactly. Um, excellent. Catch me on a bus or subway. Right. Yeah.

Go to New York. Yeah. Or NYU Shanghai- Yeah … if you, if you ever go back there. Yeah. Um, well, thank you, Eric, so much for your time. Really appreciate it. This is a, a phenomenal conversation that we had today, and one that I think is extremely important, as I mentioned from the outset.

Uh, we’d love to have you back on and hope that we can make that happen and, as Christian said, you know, talk more specifically about some of the, the projects or even do some deeper dives into s- uh, one or two case studies.

And thank you to our listeners for tuning in to Stop Requested. this week. We’ll be back next Monday with another episode.