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Ah, the first rumble between MTA Executive Director Elliot Sander and the city! Sander has threatened to stop the 7 line extension if the city won't pay for cost overruns. Because Assemblyman Richard Brodsky asked about the project's budget, Sander wrote a letter to him (which he made public), stating, "It is M.T.A.’s position that we are under no legal obligation to absorb any additional costs or overruns." Ha! As we all know, MTA projects attract additional costs and overruns like honey does bees, and budgeting only $100 million for overruns (the city's current commitment is $2.1 billion) sounds low.
Last year, the city agreed to fund the 7 line extension, because Mayor Bloomberg has been dreaming of West Side development. The city is saying, "A deal is a deal," and claims the MTA will get more tax revenue, but Sander says that the MTA will need to spend $150 million for more subway cars to run on the extended line. And if the MTA winds up paying for the overruns, it might jeopardize other projects, like the Second Avenue Subway. Wow, it'll be like the MTA/City version of Sophie's Choice.
Photograph of the 7 train yard in Queens by stanton and orchard on Flickr
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refue!
refue to loe!
I refue to endorse your copy editing...
billions to go from times square to 34th street. egads, the mta/city hemorhages[sic] money. but i guess a small number of people like it that way
I can't wait until they spend like 2 billion dollars on this project and have it still not done.
Amazing how with zero technology in the early 1900s, all this stuff could get done but now, in the early 2000s, nothing gets done.
Wonder what the difference is.
the difference was that the IRT, BMT and the city's IND were competing companies, thus they NEEDED to build and do it right in orde to stay in business. The state could care less. They need to break this fucking bloated beauracratic mess back up into several small PRIVATE companies so new lines will be built and competition will bring a better product.
I think the two big differences that account for the ballooning cost these days are the cost of workers and complexity of construction.
1. Back in 1900 you could hire thousands of workers to do the job for cheap because they weren't unionized. Also, life was cheap too so if some construction accident happened, you didn't care so much because you could hire replacements easily. You didn't have investigations into working conditions and lawyers ready to pounce with a lawsuit.
2. Wasn't there simply less infrastructure under the streets in 1900? Today the MTA has to worry about not damaging a tangle of water pipes, gas pipes, electrical cable, cable TV lines, and probably some other stuff I don't know about. They can't simply rip out a pit in the street like the construction for the original subway tunnels. So the planning for construction is a lot more complicated than it was in the last century.
That's my guess anyway.
Oh, I sure hope nothing delays the 2nd Ave construction. That's been chugging along at such a feverish pace this past century that it'd be a real shame to suffer a setback now. Seriously, though, why does the MTA continue to pursue so many multi-billion-dollar projects at the same time? Are they still trying to extend the LIRR to Grand Central as well? They may as well also try to bring back Rudy's plan to extend the N line to LaGuardia, just to make sure they have as much opposition on as many fronts as possible.
Bees are not attracted to honey, they are attracted to flowers for the pollen. Bees make honey as a by product. Yes, I am no fun at a party either.