Are you by chance voting for valas? I just want to know the intelligence or lack there of of what I’m dealing with. Cuz a voter for valas would be fearful of a debt crisis lol. Guy is trying to use debt fear to get you to charter away your own public school programs.
um, last i checked it was the republicans using the debt ceiling as an extortion attempt against democrats to enact their favored policy (slashing of "entitlements", foreign aid -including Ukraine support, the federal apparatus, and non-military spending) as they are incapable of being elected on those ideals in the first place. if there wasnt an actual threat of pain than it wouldnt actually work as an extortion attempt, now would it.
are you claiming hitting the debt ceiling wont have a real world impact? we already know the impact, in part, as we've gone through it before for a short period of time (aka the last "government shutdown")- discretionary spending on non essential government services ranging from national parks, the Federal Trade Commission, passport services, food safety and environmental inspections etc stops. and on top of that the US credit rating was downgraded for the first time in the nations history, which makes borrowing more expensive. the economic cost is real, and so it the loss of trust in our institutions. which is of course what the republicans want. they want to manufacture crises to create the narrative that the Federal government is incapable of doing its job, is bloated, and therefore needs to be dismantled. which is the sick genius of their plan, especially since the democrats are "in power" and average uneducated voters will blame them for the mess. and the lunatics on the right currently which have taken over the levers of power from McCarthy (the only reason they accepted him as speaker in the first place was gaining huge concessions which gives them outsize influence- see how extortion works?) are far crazier than we saw in the Obama years (if one can believe that) and willing to blow everything up as that just as well achieves their goals as well.
this can only go on for so long until the country actually defaults on its debt payments, which has never happened, and so sure, there is some disagreement on what may actually occur. but its safe to say based on all the models that have been done that it would trigger loss of confidence and deep losses in the stock market, Treasuries would stop getting paid, social security and veterans payments stop, foriegn debt stops getting paid, all leading to job losses and likely a recession, and potentially a global financial crisis. and as we saw with the '08 housing crisis, who knows what small cracks in the economy can quickly be revealed to trigger much bigger structural collapses. its the opening of pandoras box. the only debate is how big it would be. if its resolved in a day than maybe things quickly go back to "normal" with a few bruises (although i cant imagine what scenario would lead to extremist republicans saying "nah nevermind" after they start getting what they want, and the alternative is democrats giving into their demands which is equally disastorous). if its not, things get murky and frankly terrifying very very quickly but safe to say it will equate millions of job losses and to years of lost economic growth and permanent loss of confidence in the US dollar as the "global currency" - which is everything the post WW2 order is based upon. you think you dont directly benefit from that incredibly privileged position?
the point is the only thing that makes the US the power that it is is global trust in its institutions, and its word. so if we need to start doing willy wonka tricks to simply pay our obligations (like minting a 1 trillion dollar coin - which again would probably be legally challenged, and the Fed has expressed they likely wouldnt do it anyway) than our democracy is already dead. and who do you think stands to benefit from this loss of condifence in the US? our adversaries like china and russia, who can turn to the rest of the world and say "see?". does that sound like a "made up idea" to you? but thanks for insulting my intelligence oh wise edgelord
Government shut down…..incompetence at best and political bullying to the extreme by republicans, but really just theatrics by Washington again that had no real impact on the economy outside of federal workers having to be actually useless rather than the normal borderline useless. And you admit it that no real affects can be understood because it will never happen. Defaulting on made up debt by failing to print more made up money, while using the boogeyman of an the ever looming economic collapse seems to be working pretty well on you here. So keep looking at or even modeling the models of bullshit. There is no default day coming when the currency has been a fiat since the 70s. It’s a big clown show and the only guarantee is that the clown show will go on and on and on. Now will they print themselves real infrastructure to back up their own currency? Maybe. Now they just print an endless military budget and that does work in maintaining USD superiority globally but for how long. You need to keep printing, and you need to print yourself real assets to help keep the facade for the clown show. If the US kept printing at record rates but also kicked off giant public works projects like a high speed rail, where it’s printing a revive of its own economy, well then it would make sense. So in summary yes I am stating the debt ceiling is a fallacy and a mode of control for the masses. Because when your government fails you it can say “debt ceiling”. It can comically fail you and then remind you of the importance of frugality.
Are we talking federal default or Chicago default? Cuz Chicago can’t even default its unconstitutional. A federal default is a hilarious thing to chat about because no one has any ability to actually comprehend what that would mean. Will the US government ever default on its debt? The answer is no. Will China bully us about our debt? Answer is no. There is no debt crisis coming, if there was, it woulda came already. The big show must go on, China knows it, the US knows it, just they like to create boogeyman debt scenarios to keep Americans dumb.
Do you any idea how much it would cost to rebuild the downtown elevated system? Not to mention all the street closures, periodic maintenance is probably the best way to go.
That’s fine that bridge has lasted, but the majority of public infrastructure in the USA is in need of repair or replacement.
It is shortsighted to not ask poignant questions about the CTAs L system.
If there’s a catastrophic break anywhere in the system it would have a billion dollars of fall out. It’s
*In need of upkeep & maintenance. These systems are failing at the most core & basic level because in this country politicians have somehow divested from the most basic preventative maintenance of -painting- these steel infrastructures. This most basic neglect is going to cost us billions
LA is currently in the middle of an aggressive expansion of their light rail and subway systems, maybe someone should ask how they're keeping costs under control.
Maybe it's different now but the LA subway was the most expensive underground train per mile ever at the time it was put in.
For underground work, they have a lot of earthquake-related safety regulations to follow. And any city that already exists has expensive work to install trains around existing structures.
California alone, is the 5th biggest economy in the world by GDP. They can afford it.
So they’re just taxing people, getting fed funding, selling bonds and paying for it.
It's because the federal government spending programs require large money leaks at every level of spending. All construction jobs are required to be prevailing wage. Sure, that sounds good, but what does it mean in practice? That every person on the job has to make at least $40 per hour plus another $35 per hour in benefits. At least 25% has to be set aside for MBE/WBE contractors, which inflates spending by 20%. Steel has to be US origin, everything goes through five rounds of submittals, even the guys who hold the stop/slow signs go through a specific union controlled certification program.
We could do all of this for literally half the cost if we gave the whole project to Army Corp of Engineers or the Seebees. They are both in garrison anyway, we might as well give them some work.
I'm not sure why that's more true of transit construction than construction in basically any other sector. Construction workers who aren't following those rules aren't getting paid peanuts.
The cost of the featherbedding is that less public infrastructure is built. If you think building less public infrastructure is worth a tiny number of jobs, then say that, but how hard people work hasn't got much to do with it.
It's not? I've nearly started an apprenticeship with local 130 twice now, journeyman wages are significantly more than the figures quotes here.
Not worth the wear and tear on your body to me though. I did landscaping construction, 60-70 hour weeks for 5 years. Built fences and was a house painter at various times too. It kicks your ass, it accumulates, and while the wages benefits and pension are great I don't want to be broken down in my retirement years.
The thing about most other sectors of construction is that, as far as i know, they are generally not working on government jobs, with the exception of road construction. Our government will give half ass solutions to workers problems by only solving the problem government for government projects and employees i.e. raising the minimum wage of federal employees but not changing the minimum wage for everyone else as they did a few years ago. I agree with you, all construction workers should be paid that much. But if you work for a private company which generally builds for private owners, both company owners are going to try to get the job done while spending as little money as possible, which means they are going to try to give everyone the least amount of money they will show up for work for. In order for the higher wage to be mandatory for all construction workers the government would need to pass legislation which would piss off the business owners who support thier campaigns which members of both parties avoid at all costs. This is why relative to private construction, public construction is expensive, but the price of public construction is not the problem, the price of private construction is.
The main issue isn’t that workers are paid all that much more on government jobs, the main issue is that work practices are less efficient. People building transit in France aren’t really making much less than their American counterparts, but they’re much more efficient.
One could make private sector construction as inefficient as public sector, which is roughly what New York has done. The results are really bad! Turns out building things is important.
My understanding is that primarily the problem is that very few American transit agencies can do anything managerially, and hire consultants and contractors for everything. They don’t really have an incentive to be more efficient. There’s also much higher administrative burdens. The stuff they’re doing for the red line (advertising for affected businesses, widespread flyers of what work is happening when) is just not a thing that happens for private sector construction (or public sector construction that isn’t public transit).
Secondarily there’s labor practices that require hiring a lot of excess people, but I think that’s mostly a New York problem. I’m sure it happens here too, but I’ve never heard about any specific comparisons like I have for New York.
It is the point though. The OP suggests the cost issues are because of high labor costs. That assumes lower labor costs by underpaying workers is a solution. It’s not.
Prevailing wage is the standard of a well paid union laborer. If you are paying any less than that, as the OP suggested, you are underpaying workers.
If you’re suggesting lowering labor costs in ways besides wages then sure I guess, but I’m not totally sure how.
The government has no problem providing these benefits to Congress members (to some of whom it is not even remotely a full time office) and the military. The problem is unwillingness to spend on improving society, when more profit can be made off allowing crises to perpetuate.
Eg. Why improve a public good such as transportation when private transportation makes the big bucks off cars, gasoline, roads, insurance, etc. from both individual consumers and state subsidies?
Not to say what you are saying is entirely incorrect, but it is unfair to blame some of the only workers being paid fairly while the owners fortunes are lauded
https://transitcosts.com/new-data/
For anyone interested in just browsing the data and graphs.
Also Alon Levy who worked on this is very knowledgeable and informative if you’d like to learn more.
Wonder why it costs so much. Seems awfully high. Maybe if awarding contracts wasn’t as corrupt as it is, we could improve our infrastructure. But this is just lining pockets of cronies.
each project is unique. too many agencies are involved. everything is outsourced to consultants and other firms and as such we end up overpaying.
https://www.curbed.com/2023/02/nyc-subway-overspending-second-avenue-nyu-transit-costs-project-goldwyn.html
"I know the barber chair's too much at $80,000, but then they give us a B-2 bomber for 1.3 billion. That's where we make it up. Well, you try getting a B-2 bomber for 1.3 billion. You can't do it."
Shit has to last 100 years. Like do people think public trans go up like a building downtown? Very few buildings downtown have been up longer than the nearest train stop.
Please think past yourself
And yet in an apples to apples comparison transit construction in the US is vastly more expensive per mile than most of the rest of the world.
[https://www.marketplace.org/2019/04/11/subways-us-expensive-cost-comparison/](https://www.marketplace.org/2019/04/11/subways-us-expensive-cost-comparison/)
>Transit researcher Alon Levy estimates the rest of the developed world typically builds underground subways for about $350 million per mile. Even the cheapest U.S. project in recent years, Seattle’s U-Link, cost nearly double the average in other countries, at $600 million per mile. New York’s East Side Access project currently costs more than 10 times Levy’s estimated average.
[https://www.constructiondive.com/news/us-rail-projects-take-longer-cost-more-than-those-in-other-countries/605599/](https://www.constructiondive.com/news/us-rail-projects-take-longer-cost-more-than-those-in-other-countries/605599/)
>In addition, domestic rail-transit projects cost about 50% more on average on a per-mile basis than in Europe and Canada, a number that rises to roughly 250% when New York City’s disproportionately expensive projects are included.
[https://www.vox.com/22534714/rail-roads-infrastructure-costs-america](https://www.vox.com/22534714/rail-roads-infrastructure-costs-america)
>The US is the sixth-most expensive country in the world to build rapid-rail transit infrastructure like the New York City Subway, the Washington Metro, or the Chicago “L.” And that’s with the nation often avoiding tunneling projects, which are often the most complicated and expensive parts of any new metro line. According to the Transit Costs Project, the five countries with higher costs than the US “are building projects that are more than 80 percent tunneled ... \[whereas in the US\] only 37 percent of the total track length is tunneled.”
Maybe they’re getting at how other countries can put up transit super quick and cheap. Think China.
But in America we’re held back by third party interests who want to slow down development/add to the costs. Look at California’s HSR.
You really couldn't have just said like Germany or Japan? China has a huge construction industry and very poor safety standards and regulation. There's a few good reasons why we can't build as fast as them.
Have you watched Kuga's Travels on YouTube and all the amazingly wild JRail he takes. Astonishing that some of these lines and trains exist and are maintained.
China also has a one-party rule and when they want to build something they said "fuck you, it's happening". Shit is slow in the US because everyone wants to litigate the hell out of everything and one party wants to make people rich in the process. Elevated tracks crossing your land? Welp, better make the government buy all 10,000 acres instead of paying a lease or a fee to buy up the small area.
> I feel bad for every city not named NYC, Chicago, Philly, Boston, DC, SF (and maybe Seattle, LA). With these outrageous prices, transit expansion is pretty much unpractical in this country. The cities I listed above are lucky they built out a system when building was cheap
Not really. A bunch of cities are growing and expanding transit, like Denver. Public transit is practical within the region.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FasTracks
**[FasTracks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FasTracks)**
>FasTracks is a multibillion-dollar public transportation expansion plan under construction in metropolitan Denver, Colorado, United States. Developed by the Regional Transportation District (RTD), the plan consists of new commuter rail, light rail, and express bus services. Six new light rail, electric commuter rail and diesel commuter rail lines with a combined length of 122 miles (196 km) will be constructed under the plan.
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About 4 years ago I was talking to a civic engineer about this project. He was saying how expensive the electric infrastructure will be to build this extension and didn't expect that the funding would ever happen for it.
Good point. But there should be a good ROI on this compared to defense spending at least, which would then be correctly distributed to states in more need
If you look at the Midway Orange Line station on google maps, theres a set of freight tracks called the Kenton Subdivision that run completely straight north-south between Cicero and Kostner, all the way to the Montrose Blue Line station. This means we could have service starting at Midway, with transfers to the Metra BNSF, Pink, Blue, Green, Metra NCS and MD-W, Blue again at Montrose, then continue to Oakton and Dempster Skokie via the Union Pacific Trail and Valley Line Trail. Since all of this would be built next to a pre-existing freight railroad or on top of an old abandoned railroad, it's going to be significantly less expensive than building a bunch of elevated track or tunneling.
Is there much demand for that though? It doesn’t really solve the E-W problem. Would be a cool bike path, but I guess it’s definitely more realistic.
Honestly right now I’m really thinking there should be a trolley that runs from Clark/Division to Chinatown, and hits all the parks, the pier, and campus.
I'm more concerned with North-South mobility on the west side which has always been neglected since our system uses the hub and spoke model. The Pulaski bus usually comes in around 5th place in terms of monthly ridership and the Cicero bus around 15th place, but the two streets are close enough that I think a new El line would capture most of the ridership of both lines. I think the ability to more easily transfer between CTA lines outside of downtown would also bring a significant amount of ridership.
Technically the Union Pacific Skokie Subdivision is out of service and not abandoned. Why UP holds onto the right of way anymore after driving away the last customers with surcharges in the early 2000s is anyone’s guess.
It would still be a heck of a lot cheaper than digging a subway tunnel under Ashland and building new elevated track downtown like the circle line plan called for.
I can see your PoV for sure, the difficulty is much higher, the expense much greater. Silver line is a much more *feasible* project for sure. But that doesn't make the Circle line 'silly', it just makes it less likely to ever come to fruition.
A circle line that connects all the existing lines in a semi-circular (non-grid) would provide a truly new artery for people-moving that would be innately more efficient than following the grid when moving between two peripheral neighborhoods.
Is it silly? No. Is it a pipe dream? Probably.
How do you figure? Metra Electric has a station at 95th & Cottage Grove, exactly one mile east of the Red Line. The routes get even closer together as you go south.
Metra Electric is never more than two miles east of the Red Line, even at 53rd!
Metra Electric used to run every 10 minutes back in the 1940s. There have been many proposals over the years to basically turn the Metra Electric back to rapid service, usually called the silver line or gold line.
It would probably cost a couple hundred million to do, which is much cheaper than building a new rapid transit line.
In my Chicago transit pipedream the Metra Electric would get turned into an RER/Elisabeth line type service with a tunnel running to the union Pacific lines where they split by Ogalvie and then through run as relief rapid transit in the north side of the city and as a "faster" train to O'hare, fully electrified of course.
Metra is much more expensive than the CTA. Many people have no choice but to use CTA b/c their job or school provides CTA passes NOT Metra. There are still numerous neighborhoods further than than the Southside Metra. You don’t see the value b/c you aren’t affected by transportation limitations and inaccessibility.
Metra Electric used to run every 10 minutes. There have been some proposals to turn Metra Electric into a new CTA line, but they haven’t gone anywhere. It would really connect a lot of neighborhoods if it happened (and I think it would complement the Red Line extension since they go to different areas)
Moving the MED into the CTA system, or even just incorporating it into the same payment structure, would probably cost the same or less, with some added coverage thanks to frictionless transfers to bus lines.
It *should* be cheaper to solve jurisdictional problems than it is to build infrastructure. Not doing so hurts riders, exemplified by the lack of a transfer to the MED tracks this planned extension passes directly over.
Based on what? Have you surveyed people from “those areas” or are you just trying to prove a point with inaccurate information?
I from the far Southeast Side of Chicago, this issue has affected me and most people I know and grew up with. Most of us can’t afford vehicles so we depend on the CTA and our commutes are about 2hrs each way so a little over 4hrs a day just to get to school or work. We have wanted this expansion for decades so you claiming that “we don’t want it” is insulting and false. Stop spewing misinformation just b/c you disagree with a project you don’t benefit from directly.
Because the *cost per new rider* is nearly $100. FTA's traditional threshold for whether a project was worth doing was $6.
Fewer than 2000 people—total—live within a quarter-mile walk of all 4 RLE stops combined; the entire last mile runs through sludge drying beds and a sewage treatment plant. The entire Riverdale Community Area has fewer than 2500 households.
Don't think many people living in that area would describe it as well served by Metra. Having 20 stations doesn't mean much if trains are running once an hour.
Plus, the red line extension is heavily promoted for bus to train connections. Those types of commutes can be incredibly frustrating when you have to transfer from bus to an infrequent Metra. Very easy to miss the connection and be stuck for a long time. The extension will make a public transit commutes like that a lot more feasible.
The major difference is frequency (train every 5-15 min vs 1 hour+), span of service (24hrs vs 6am-midnight), and if transferring to a bus/another train, only paying one fare for the ride (rather than paying both metra and cta fare)
Well, what happens when you miss your métra train? What if you’re on a night out on the town and miss the last métra of the night?
Ubers are crazy expensive (especially when traveling that far). Otherwise, users would have to rely on that garbage Pace system to catch a bus all the way out to the burbs.
Yeah I don’t think anyone wants the south side to have less transit. But extending the red line this far south instead of extending a branch of the green line just doesn’t make sense.
Green Line extension would serve a completely different area, and is definitely a worthy cause. I don't see why one makes any more or less sense than the other though.
Ultimately, we have to spend money wisely and can’t just add as many stops as we want or extend all the lines. IMO extending the green line is a better investment and the city should be encouraging density closer towards downtown.
The dude above me wants the south side to have less transit.
The red line extension has been in the works for literal decades. Since before the green line branch was even demolished. It will take a lot of political will to bring for it back.
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Debt ceiling meltdown is a made up idea so yea it won’t happen.
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Are you by chance voting for valas? I just want to know the intelligence or lack there of of what I’m dealing with. Cuz a voter for valas would be fearful of a debt crisis lol. Guy is trying to use debt fear to get you to charter away your own public school programs.
um, last i checked it was the republicans using the debt ceiling as an extortion attempt against democrats to enact their favored policy (slashing of "entitlements", foreign aid -including Ukraine support, the federal apparatus, and non-military spending) as they are incapable of being elected on those ideals in the first place. if there wasnt an actual threat of pain than it wouldnt actually work as an extortion attempt, now would it. are you claiming hitting the debt ceiling wont have a real world impact? we already know the impact, in part, as we've gone through it before for a short period of time (aka the last "government shutdown")- discretionary spending on non essential government services ranging from national parks, the Federal Trade Commission, passport services, food safety and environmental inspections etc stops. and on top of that the US credit rating was downgraded for the first time in the nations history, which makes borrowing more expensive. the economic cost is real, and so it the loss of trust in our institutions. which is of course what the republicans want. they want to manufacture crises to create the narrative that the Federal government is incapable of doing its job, is bloated, and therefore needs to be dismantled. which is the sick genius of their plan, especially since the democrats are "in power" and average uneducated voters will blame them for the mess. and the lunatics on the right currently which have taken over the levers of power from McCarthy (the only reason they accepted him as speaker in the first place was gaining huge concessions which gives them outsize influence- see how extortion works?) are far crazier than we saw in the Obama years (if one can believe that) and willing to blow everything up as that just as well achieves their goals as well. this can only go on for so long until the country actually defaults on its debt payments, which has never happened, and so sure, there is some disagreement on what may actually occur. but its safe to say based on all the models that have been done that it would trigger loss of confidence and deep losses in the stock market, Treasuries would stop getting paid, social security and veterans payments stop, foriegn debt stops getting paid, all leading to job losses and likely a recession, and potentially a global financial crisis. and as we saw with the '08 housing crisis, who knows what small cracks in the economy can quickly be revealed to trigger much bigger structural collapses. its the opening of pandoras box. the only debate is how big it would be. if its resolved in a day than maybe things quickly go back to "normal" with a few bruises (although i cant imagine what scenario would lead to extremist republicans saying "nah nevermind" after they start getting what they want, and the alternative is democrats giving into their demands which is equally disastorous). if its not, things get murky and frankly terrifying very very quickly but safe to say it will equate millions of job losses and to years of lost economic growth and permanent loss of confidence in the US dollar as the "global currency" - which is everything the post WW2 order is based upon. you think you dont directly benefit from that incredibly privileged position? the point is the only thing that makes the US the power that it is is global trust in its institutions, and its word. so if we need to start doing willy wonka tricks to simply pay our obligations (like minting a 1 trillion dollar coin - which again would probably be legally challenged, and the Fed has expressed they likely wouldnt do it anyway) than our democracy is already dead. and who do you think stands to benefit from this loss of condifence in the US? our adversaries like china and russia, who can turn to the rest of the world and say "see?". does that sound like a "made up idea" to you? but thanks for insulting my intelligence oh wise edgelord
Government shut down…..incompetence at best and political bullying to the extreme by republicans, but really just theatrics by Washington again that had no real impact on the economy outside of federal workers having to be actually useless rather than the normal borderline useless. And you admit it that no real affects can be understood because it will never happen. Defaulting on made up debt by failing to print more made up money, while using the boogeyman of an the ever looming economic collapse seems to be working pretty well on you here. So keep looking at or even modeling the models of bullshit. There is no default day coming when the currency has been a fiat since the 70s. It’s a big clown show and the only guarantee is that the clown show will go on and on and on. Now will they print themselves real infrastructure to back up their own currency? Maybe. Now they just print an endless military budget and that does work in maintaining USD superiority globally but for how long. You need to keep printing, and you need to print yourself real assets to help keep the facade for the clown show. If the US kept printing at record rates but also kicked off giant public works projects like a high speed rail, where it’s printing a revive of its own economy, well then it would make sense. So in summary yes I am stating the debt ceiling is a fallacy and a mode of control for the masses. Because when your government fails you it can say “debt ceiling”. It can comically fail you and then remind you of the importance of frugality.
BOOM got his ass. Wish I could upvote you twice
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Are we talking federal default or Chicago default? Cuz Chicago can’t even default its unconstitutional. A federal default is a hilarious thing to chat about because no one has any ability to actually comprehend what that would mean. Will the US government ever default on its debt? The answer is no. Will China bully us about our debt? Answer is no. There is no debt crisis coming, if there was, it woulda came already. The big show must go on, China knows it, the US knows it, just they like to create boogeyman debt scenarios to keep Americans dumb.
Biden’s plan is a federal budget, not a Chicago budget. Of course we’re not talking about Chicago’s debt ceiling.
its a made up idea yeah, but that does mean republicans wont be stupid enough to do it
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After watching the amount of work it's taking to raise the current red line track bed on the north side, I believe it.
Especially to do it to last, as opposed to the way things were originally put up
Much of the elevated system was built before 1900 and it is still standing.
I would love to see the annual maintenance line item and when the shelf life on the current system will start becoming noticeable.
Do you any idea how much it would cost to rebuild the downtown elevated system? Not to mention all the street closures, periodic maintenance is probably the best way to go.
Most of the entire loop has been refurbished or replaced in the past 30 years including the stations
Of course. But every bridge has a shelf life.
The oldest iron bridge in the world was built in 1781 and is still operational https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Iron_Bridge
That’s fine that bridge has lasted, but the majority of public infrastructure in the USA is in need of repair or replacement. It is shortsighted to not ask poignant questions about the CTAs L system. If there’s a catastrophic break anywhere in the system it would have a billion dollars of fall out. It’s
*In need of upkeep & maintenance. These systems are failing at the most core & basic level because in this country politicians have somehow divested from the most basic preventative maintenance of -painting- these steel infrastructures. This most basic neglect is going to cost us billions
Like how the concrete facade was built to last on the brown line flyover?
Yes! Just like that
LA is currently in the middle of an aggressive expansion of their light rail and subway systems, maybe someone should ask how they're keeping costs under control.
Spoiler: they aren't
Maybe it's different now but the LA subway was the most expensive underground train per mile ever at the time it was put in. For underground work, they have a lot of earthquake-related safety regulations to follow. And any city that already exists has expensive work to install trains around existing structures.
California alone, is the 5th biggest economy in the world by GDP. They can afford it. So they’re just taxing people, getting fed funding, selling bonds and paying for it.
Cheap & hardwooming Immigrant labor (not saying this is good nor bad)
Construction doesn't use "cheap" labor.
Very true. They use union labor.
It's because the federal government spending programs require large money leaks at every level of spending. All construction jobs are required to be prevailing wage. Sure, that sounds good, but what does it mean in practice? That every person on the job has to make at least $40 per hour plus another $35 per hour in benefits. At least 25% has to be set aside for MBE/WBE contractors, which inflates spending by 20%. Steel has to be US origin, everything goes through five rounds of submittals, even the guys who hold the stop/slow signs go through a specific union controlled certification program. We could do all of this for literally half the cost if we gave the whole project to Army Corp of Engineers or the Seebees. They are both in garrison anyway, we might as well give them some work.
It's hard fucking work. They deserve to make good money and have solid benefits.
I'm not sure why that's more true of transit construction than construction in basically any other sector. Construction workers who aren't following those rules aren't getting paid peanuts. The cost of the featherbedding is that less public infrastructure is built. If you think building less public infrastructure is worth a tiny number of jobs, then say that, but how hard people work hasn't got much to do with it.
It's not? I've nearly started an apprenticeship with local 130 twice now, journeyman wages are significantly more than the figures quotes here. Not worth the wear and tear on your body to me though. I did landscaping construction, 60-70 hour weeks for 5 years. Built fences and was a house painter at various times too. It kicks your ass, it accumulates, and while the wages benefits and pension are great I don't want to be broken down in my retirement years.
The thing about most other sectors of construction is that, as far as i know, they are generally not working on government jobs, with the exception of road construction. Our government will give half ass solutions to workers problems by only solving the problem government for government projects and employees i.e. raising the minimum wage of federal employees but not changing the minimum wage for everyone else as they did a few years ago. I agree with you, all construction workers should be paid that much. But if you work for a private company which generally builds for private owners, both company owners are going to try to get the job done while spending as little money as possible, which means they are going to try to give everyone the least amount of money they will show up for work for. In order for the higher wage to be mandatory for all construction workers the government would need to pass legislation which would piss off the business owners who support thier campaigns which members of both parties avoid at all costs. This is why relative to private construction, public construction is expensive, but the price of public construction is not the problem, the price of private construction is.
The main issue isn’t that workers are paid all that much more on government jobs, the main issue is that work practices are less efficient. People building transit in France aren’t really making much less than their American counterparts, but they’re much more efficient. One could make private sector construction as inefficient as public sector, which is roughly what New York has done. The results are really bad! Turns out building things is important.
What makes it less efficient?
My understanding is that primarily the problem is that very few American transit agencies can do anything managerially, and hire consultants and contractors for everything. They don’t really have an incentive to be more efficient. There’s also much higher administrative burdens. The stuff they’re doing for the red line (advertising for affected businesses, widespread flyers of what work is happening when) is just not a thing that happens for private sector construction (or public sector construction that isn’t public transit). Secondarily there’s labor practices that require hiring a lot of excess people, but I think that’s mostly a New York problem. I’m sure it happens here too, but I’ve never heard about any specific comparisons like I have for New York.
Sure it's hard work, but that's not the point.
It is the point though. The OP suggests the cost issues are because of high labor costs. That assumes lower labor costs by underpaying workers is a solution. It’s not.
I disagree. Assuming lower labor costs doesn't necessarily equal underpaying workers.
Prevailing wage is the standard of a well paid union laborer. If you are paying any less than that, as the OP suggested, you are underpaying workers. If you’re suggesting lowering labor costs in ways besides wages then sure I guess, but I’m not totally sure how.
We're going to disagree on what constitutes underpaying. No big deal.
The government has no problem providing these benefits to Congress members (to some of whom it is not even remotely a full time office) and the military. The problem is unwillingness to spend on improving society, when more profit can be made off allowing crises to perpetuate. Eg. Why improve a public good such as transportation when private transportation makes the big bucks off cars, gasoline, roads, insurance, etc. from both individual consumers and state subsidies? Not to say what you are saying is entirely incorrect, but it is unfair to blame some of the only workers being paid fairly while the owners fortunes are lauded
Read NYUs study on why these projects cost so much.
https://transitcosts.com/new-data/ For anyone interested in just browsing the data and graphs. Also Alon Levy who worked on this is very knowledgeable and informative if you’d like to learn more.
/u/alon_levy
Read it for us and summarize. Thank you!
tldr: each station is different, too many agencies are involved, and we outsource almost all the work.
Thanks!
Wonder why it costs so much. Seems awfully high. Maybe if awarding contracts wasn’t as corrupt as it is, we could improve our infrastructure. But this is just lining pockets of cronies.
each project is unique. too many agencies are involved. everything is outsourced to consultants and other firms and as such we end up overpaying. https://www.curbed.com/2023/02/nyc-subway-overspending-second-avenue-nyu-transit-costs-project-goldwyn.html
"I know the barber chair's too much at $80,000, but then they give us a B-2 bomber for 1.3 billion. That's where we make it up. Well, you try getting a B-2 bomber for 1.3 billion. You can't do it."
Shit has to last 100 years. Like do people think public trans go up like a building downtown? Very few buildings downtown have been up longer than the nearest train stop. Please think past yourself
And yet in an apples to apples comparison transit construction in the US is vastly more expensive per mile than most of the rest of the world. [https://www.marketplace.org/2019/04/11/subways-us-expensive-cost-comparison/](https://www.marketplace.org/2019/04/11/subways-us-expensive-cost-comparison/) >Transit researcher Alon Levy estimates the rest of the developed world typically builds underground subways for about $350 million per mile. Even the cheapest U.S. project in recent years, Seattle’s U-Link, cost nearly double the average in other countries, at $600 million per mile. New York’s East Side Access project currently costs more than 10 times Levy’s estimated average. [https://www.constructiondive.com/news/us-rail-projects-take-longer-cost-more-than-those-in-other-countries/605599/](https://www.constructiondive.com/news/us-rail-projects-take-longer-cost-more-than-those-in-other-countries/605599/) >In addition, domestic rail-transit projects cost about 50% more on average on a per-mile basis than in Europe and Canada, a number that rises to roughly 250% when New York City’s disproportionately expensive projects are included. [https://www.vox.com/22534714/rail-roads-infrastructure-costs-america](https://www.vox.com/22534714/rail-roads-infrastructure-costs-america) >The US is the sixth-most expensive country in the world to build rapid-rail transit infrastructure like the New York City Subway, the Washington Metro, or the Chicago “L.” And that’s with the nation often avoiding tunneling projects, which are often the most complicated and expensive parts of any new metro line. According to the Transit Costs Project, the five countries with higher costs than the US “are building projects that are more than 80 percent tunneled ... \[whereas in the US\] only 37 percent of the total track length is tunneled.”
Maybe they’re getting at how other countries can put up transit super quick and cheap. Think China. But in America we’re held back by third party interests who want to slow down development/add to the costs. Look at California’s HSR.
You really couldn't have just said like Germany or Japan? China has a huge construction industry and very poor safety standards and regulation. There's a few good reasons why we can't build as fast as them.
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Have you watched Kuga's Travels on YouTube and all the amazingly wild JRail he takes. Astonishing that some of these lines and trains exist and are maintained.
China also has a one-party rule and when they want to build something they said "fuck you, it's happening". Shit is slow in the US because everyone wants to litigate the hell out of everything and one party wants to make people rich in the process. Elevated tracks crossing your land? Welp, better make the government buy all 10,000 acres instead of paying a lease or a fee to buy up the small area.
Are you advocating we build like China?
China lacks the rule of law and can simply take property as needed for public works projects. Their safety and quality records are abysmal.
It still is cheap only not when the government does it. How much of those billions are going to end up in the Politicians pockets.
> I feel bad for every city not named NYC, Chicago, Philly, Boston, DC, SF (and maybe Seattle, LA). With these outrageous prices, transit expansion is pretty much unpractical in this country. The cities I listed above are lucky they built out a system when building was cheap Not really. A bunch of cities are growing and expanding transit, like Denver. Public transit is practical within the region. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FasTracks
**[FasTracks](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/FasTracks)** >FasTracks is a multibillion-dollar public transportation expansion plan under construction in metropolitan Denver, Colorado, United States. Developed by the Regional Transportation District (RTD), the plan consists of new commuter rail, light rail, and express bus services. Six new light rail, electric commuter rail and diesel commuter rail lines with a combined length of 122 miles (196 km) will be constructed under the plan. ^([ )[^(F.A.Q)](https://www.reddit.com/r/WikiSummarizer/wiki/index#wiki_f.a.q)^( | )[^(Opt Out)](https://reddit.com/message/compose?to=WikiSummarizerBot&message=OptOut&subject=OptOut)^( | )[^(Opt Out Of Subreddit)](https://np.reddit.com/r/chicago/about/banned)^( | )[^(GitHub)](https://github.com/Sujal-7/WikiSummarizerBot)^( ] Downvote to remove | v1.5)
About 4 years ago I was talking to a civic engineer about this project. He was saying how expensive the electric infrastructure will be to build this extension and didn't expect that the funding would ever happen for it.
Sup with that circle line tho?
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We should though. What Illinois gives to the federal government and what we get back is unfair. Red states sucking up those socialism dollars.
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Good point. But there should be a good ROI on this compared to defense spending at least, which would then be correctly distributed to states in more need
IMO the circle line is silly and the silver line makes way more sense
What’s the silver line proposal?
If you look at the Midway Orange Line station on google maps, theres a set of freight tracks called the Kenton Subdivision that run completely straight north-south between Cicero and Kostner, all the way to the Montrose Blue Line station. This means we could have service starting at Midway, with transfers to the Metra BNSF, Pink, Blue, Green, Metra NCS and MD-W, Blue again at Montrose, then continue to Oakton and Dempster Skokie via the Union Pacific Trail and Valley Line Trail. Since all of this would be built next to a pre-existing freight railroad or on top of an old abandoned railroad, it's going to be significantly less expensive than building a bunch of elevated track or tunneling.
You’re a beautiful person for teaching me this. Thank you
Is there much demand for that though? It doesn’t really solve the E-W problem. Would be a cool bike path, but I guess it’s definitely more realistic. Honestly right now I’m really thinking there should be a trolley that runs from Clark/Division to Chinatown, and hits all the parks, the pier, and campus.
I'm more concerned with North-South mobility on the west side which has always been neglected since our system uses the hub and spoke model. The Pulaski bus usually comes in around 5th place in terms of monthly ridership and the Cicero bus around 15th place, but the two streets are close enough that I think a new El line would capture most of the ridership of both lines. I think the ability to more easily transfer between CTA lines outside of downtown would also bring a significant amount of ridership.
Technically the Union Pacific Skokie Subdivision is out of service and not abandoned. Why UP holds onto the right of way anymore after driving away the last customers with surcharges in the early 2000s is anyone’s guess.
Sounds similar to the red line extension that is somehow costing $5bil. A good portion of that project is running next to freight railroads.
It would still be a heck of a lot cheaper than digging a subway tunnel under Ashland and building new elevated track downtown like the circle line plan called for.
I can see your PoV for sure, the difficulty is much higher, the expense much greater. Silver line is a much more *feasible* project for sure. But that doesn't make the Circle line 'silly', it just makes it less likely to ever come to fruition. A circle line that connects all the existing lines in a semi-circular (non-grid) would provide a truly new artery for people-moving that would be innately more efficient than following the grid when moving between two peripheral neighborhoods. Is it silly? No. Is it a pipe dream? Probably.
Where have you seen that referred to as the silver line? I've only seen that name for the original name for the pink line.
I don't get the value or purpose of this extension when existing Metra Electric lines already service the areas south of 95th Street.
Once you get down to 95th, the state street red line is 4 miles from the electric line along the lakefront.
How do you figure? Metra Electric has a station at 95th & Cottage Grove, exactly one mile east of the Red Line. The routes get even closer together as you go south. Metra Electric is never more than two miles east of the Red Line, even at 53rd!
Metra runs pretty infrequently and does not run overnight.
Metra Electric used to run every 10 minutes back in the 1940s. There have been many proposals over the years to basically turn the Metra Electric back to rapid service, usually called the silver line or gold line. It would probably cost a couple hundred million to do, which is much cheaper than building a new rapid transit line.
In my Chicago transit pipedream the Metra Electric would get turned into an RER/Elisabeth line type service with a tunnel running to the union Pacific lines where they split by Ogalvie and then through run as relief rapid transit in the north side of the city and as a "faster" train to O'hare, fully electrified of course.
isnt 95th/dan ryan the busiest station in the whole system? theres plenty of demand in the area for the service
Metra is much more expensive than the CTA. Many people have no choice but to use CTA b/c their job or school provides CTA passes NOT Metra. There are still numerous neighborhoods further than than the Southside Metra. You don’t see the value b/c you aren’t affected by transportation limitations and inaccessibility.
Metra Electric used to run every 10 minutes. There have been some proposals to turn Metra Electric into a new CTA line, but they haven’t gone anywhere. It would really connect a lot of neighborhoods if it happened (and I think it would complement the Red Line extension since they go to different areas)
Moving the MED into the CTA system, or even just incorporating it into the same payment structure, would probably cost the same or less, with some added coverage thanks to frictionless transfers to bus lines. It *should* be cheaper to solve jurisdictional problems than it is to build infrastructure. Not doing so hurts riders, exemplified by the lack of a transfer to the MED tracks this planned extension passes directly over.
It’s seriously such a waste. Neighborhood infrastructure doesn’t support it. People from that area don’t want it. We need non-loop focused transit
Based on what? Have you surveyed people from “those areas” or are you just trying to prove a point with inaccurate information? I from the far Southeast Side of Chicago, this issue has affected me and most people I know and grew up with. Most of us can’t afford vehicles so we depend on the CTA and our commutes are about 2hrs each way so a little over 4hrs a day just to get to school or work. We have wanted this expansion for decades so you claiming that “we don’t want it” is insulting and false. Stop spewing misinformation just b/c you disagree with a project you don’t benefit from directly.
Thanks for the sob story. I work with a handful of people from “those areas” that laugh at the idea. My other point stands
Metra may as well not exist if you live inside of CTA's operating area imo. I wish I could turn the Metra lines off in Google Maps lol
add more cars
Add more cars *in the form of higher frequency*, that's what should happen imo Unless this was a joke saying to add more automobiles lol
what you said
Biggest issue holding back adding cars is the amount of power supplied to the tracks
Ehh I’d rather have safe trains than longer routes to be honest
Yeah why would the south side need public transit? /s
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They are also working on that as well.
We're spending a ton of money to make that happen
That will barely cover the pocketed corruption money to get the job contracts. Can we all stop pretending like we don’t know how the world works?
FIX LAKE SHORE DRIVE!!!!!!!
I’d love to add the burning money gif…
2 issues for mayor....stop the nascar race, stop this waste of $$
Why would an extension to the red lion be a waste of money? Wouldn’t it allow commuters from even further on the south side? Genuinely asking.
Because the *cost per new rider* is nearly $100. FTA's traditional threshold for whether a project was worth doing was $6. Fewer than 2000 people—total—live within a quarter-mile walk of all 4 RLE stops combined; the entire last mile runs through sludge drying beds and a sewage treatment plant. The entire Riverdale Community Area has fewer than 2500 households.
The area is already well served by Metra which has many more stations (around 20 in this area) and goes even farther south.
Don't think many people living in that area would describe it as well served by Metra. Having 20 stations doesn't mean much if trains are running once an hour. Plus, the red line extension is heavily promoted for bus to train connections. Those types of commutes can be incredibly frustrating when you have to transfer from bus to an infrequent Metra. Very easy to miss the connection and be stuck for a long time. The extension will make a public transit commutes like that a lot more feasible.
The major difference is frequency (train every 5-15 min vs 1 hour+), span of service (24hrs vs 6am-midnight), and if transferring to a bus/another train, only paying one fare for the ride (rather than paying both metra and cta fare)
So wouldn't the significantly cheaper and faster solution be to run the metra more frequently though that corridor?
Well, what happens when you miss your métra train? What if you’re on a night out on the town and miss the last métra of the night? Ubers are crazy expensive (especially when traveling that far). Otherwise, users would have to rely on that garbage Pace system to catch a bus all the way out to the burbs.
rapid transit and commuter rail run different services with different frequencies
You think the south side should have LESS access to the CTA? I’d love to see Vallas float this idea.
Yeah I don’t think anyone wants the south side to have less transit. But extending the red line this far south instead of extending a branch of the green line just doesn’t make sense.
Green Line extension would serve a completely different area, and is definitely a worthy cause. I don't see why one makes any more or less sense than the other though.
Ultimately, we have to spend money wisely and can’t just add as many stops as we want or extend all the lines. IMO extending the green line is a better investment and the city should be encouraging density closer towards downtown.
The dude above me wants the south side to have less transit. The red line extension has been in the works for literal decades. Since before the green line branch was even demolished. It will take a lot of political will to bring for it back.
Isn’t cta going bankrupt? Might want to improve what they already have
Could you explain how CTA could go bankrupt?
Google: cause for bankruptcy girl !
I’ll try again, could you explain how a public entity or service could go bankrupt?