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The Wikipedia article has explanations for much of the high cost - hard rock, soft soil, fault zones, the need to avoid existing tunnels, keeping buildings safe, avoiding underground piping, wiring, and other factors https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Avenue_Subway
I occasionally read this blog of this transit planner with international experience. He writes the following about this =>
"Mined station construction is in practically all cases not necessary. New Yorkers talk about the city’s high built-up density as a reason why costs are high. But in terms of actual stuff in the way of a tunnel, there’s less in New York than in Rome or Istanbul, which has even lower construction costs.
In fact, there is a line in Rome that is rather similar in urban geography to Second Avenue Subway: the Line B1 branch. It runs under a 27 meter wide street flanked by modern buildings that are about 9 stories tall above ground but also have underground parking, Italy having such a car culture that the middle class expects to own cars even in Rome. The cost: €527 million for 3.9 km, in 2010-15.
Moreover, the hard rock in New York should make it easier to build stations while maintaining building safety. Manhattan’s schist is brittle and therefore requires concrete lining, unlike the more uniform gneiss of Stockholm, famously forming natural arches that are pretty to look at from within the tunnels. However, it is still better soil for construction than the sand of Berlin’s U5 extension, to be opened next month, or the alluvial soil of Amsterdam.
[...]
In Berlin, the city-center U5 extension, including U55, is in today’s money around €240 million/km. The stations look like cut-and-cover to me, and if they’re not then it comes from severe NIMBYism since the line goes under the very wide Unter den Linden, but one of the stations is basically under the river and another is under U6 and involves moving the U6 station, and the sandy soil is genuinely bad to tunnel through.
[...]
Almost certainly! Second Avenue is not an old or narrow street by Italian standards. Nor are any of the other streets slated for subway construction in New York, such as Nostrand, Utica, and even 125th. Importing construction techniques from Italy and Germany should be feasible. There may be problems with local politics – New Yorkers absolutely hate admitting that another city may be better than theirs in any way, and this makes learning harder. But it is not impossible, and so far there do not seem to be any physical or economic obstacles to doing so." Pedestrian Observations: More on Station Costs
Although his numbers are slightly different than mine.
Are the federal and state rail-safety people in this area sleeping on the job?
They've probably been defunded. This is the type of infrastructure renewal project Biden's budget it intended to fix. Railroads and bridges have been neglected for generations.
Are the federal and state rail-safety people in this area sleeping on the job?
A couple things:
The maintaining of those tracks is not the responsibility of the federal or state governments but that of the railroad, ND&W in one example. Inspections are also the responsibility of the railroad, not the government (more on that in a bit).
Derailments are caused by more than bad trackage, although that's the most common reason, but also equipment failure (wheels can literally explode without warning or any signs it's imminent).
The FRA (Federal Railroad Administration) gets involved after an incident, not before, and can impose both penalties and corrective actions on the railroad. It's a regulatory agency more than an operations entity.
For those bad track examples the FRA would have inspected the company's inspection and maintenance records.
As a side note, for each of those incidents shown the entire train crew, as well as dispatchers, would have had to to undergo drug and alcohol screens within four hours afterwards.
Bridges are literally collapsing. Hopefully the injured do fully recover soon.
You beat me too it. To mock America vs Europe. Will not get me posting transit train wrecks in Europe. I have no agenda need.
Maybe next Americas power grid inferiority? Already touched above-ground grids. Still our suburbs do good at putting lines underground.
Hopefully, both North America and Europe can get thru our war alert era we are in and a Nation threatening fuel shutdown to some Nations. Glad no Nation can do this to the US to that level as tried in the 1970s.
You beat me too it. To mock America vs Europe. Will not get me posting transit train wrecks in Europe. I have no agenda need.
Maybe next Americas power grid inferiority? Already touched above-ground grids. Still our suburbs do good at putting lines underground.
Hopefully, both North America and Europe can get thru our war alert era we are in and a Nation threatening fuel shutdown to some Nations. Glad no Nation can do this to the US to that level as tried in the 1970s.
Not mocking you, just showing you the consequences of oversized and overstretched infrastructure. You claimed bridges are not collapsing. They are, this wasn't the first and last one, sadly. Maybe you should be concerned about the health of your fellow Americans suffering from car-dependent infrastructure planning.
Bridges are literally collapsing. Hopefully the injured do fully recover soon.
There was a certain irony in this bridge over a ravine in Pittsburgh collapsing on the day President Biden was to visit the city to make a speech on infrastructure.
But Pittsburgh is an extreme case (or perhaps a distillate) of our infrastructure challenges.
One of the hilly city's nicknames is "the city of bridges" — reportedly, there are more of them in the 'Burgh than in any other city in the United States.
And from what I hear, a high percentage of them are structurally unsound. Someone I'm acquainted with on Facebook who posted about the failure remarked that the bridge's completely fractured support beams had been reported to PennDOT (or the city) some four years ago, but no repairs had been made.
And the city and PennDOT District 11 have a slew of these bridges on their rosters.
Thankfully, no one died, not even the driver and passengers on the Port Authority bus that was crossing the bridge when it fell.
I can think of another example from this city: A high arch bridge that crossed a stream. The Penn Lincoln Parkway East was run next to the stream a few decades after the bridge was built.
This bridge began to rain bolts and pieces of metal sometime in the (1980s? 1990s?). Instead of fixing it, PennDOT built another bridge beneath it spanning the freeway to prevent debris from falling onto the road.
I think this bridge actually got rebuilt two or three years ago. I hope the protective bridge has been removed since.
There was a certain irony in this bridge over a ravine in Pittsburgh collapsing on the day President Biden was to visit the city to make a speech on infrastructure.
But Pittsburgh is an extreme case (or perhaps a distillate) of our infrastructure challenges.
One of the hilly city's nicknames is "the city of bridges" — reportedly, there are more of them in the 'Burgh than in any other city in the United States.
And from what I hear, a high percentage of them are structurally unsound. Someone I'm acquainted with on Facebook who posted about the failure remarked that the bridge's completely fractured support beams had been reported to PennDOT (or the city) some four years ago, but no repairs had been made.
And the city and PennDOT District 11 have a slew of these bridges on their rosters.
Thankfully, no one died, not even the driver and passengers on the Port Authority bus that was crossing the bridge when it fell.
I can think of another example from this city: A high arch bridge that crossed a stream. The Penn Lincoln Parkway East was run next to the stream a few decades after the bridge was built.
This bridge began to rain bolts and pieces of metal sometime in the (1980s? 1990s?). Instead of fixing it, PennDOT built another bridge beneath it spanning the freeway to prevent debris from falling onto the road.
I think this bridge actually got rebuilt two or three years ago. I hope the protective bridge has been removed since.
Fern Hollow Bridge in Pittsburgh is rated in poor condition, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation's 2021 national inventory.
Inspectors began listing the bridge in poor condition as far back as 2011, and as recently as last September.
In 2017, inspectors recommended it be overhauled “because of general structure deterioration and inadequate strength,” and recommended a restoration project estimated at $1.5 million. That project was never funded.
Despite its continuing poor ratings, the bridge, which sees about 14,000 cars each day, is only one of 123 bridges in Allegheny County rated in poor condition. Sen. Jay Costa said funds have been limited, and that other bridges were considered to be in more dire condition.
“It’s surprising that (with) the number of bridges in Pittsburgh and Allegheny County, this is not really one of them that was on the list,” Costa said.
But we need to have this a bad America and superior Europe thread. So guess some got excited to find this earlier. Still Germany is not rebuilding America. America will make its own choices and such a HUGE Nation will do what is necessary. Unless drug into a war. To protect whom? Europe perhaps again.
Fern Hollow Bridge in Pittsburgh is rated in poor condition, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation's 2021 national inventory.
Inspectors began listing the bridge in poor condition as far back as 2011, and as recently as last September.
In 2017, inspectors recommended it be overhauled “because of general structure deterioration and inadequate strength,” and recommended a restoration project estimated at $1.5 million. That project was never funded.
Despite its continuing poor ratings, the bridge, which sees about 14,000 cars each day, is only one of 123 bridges in Allegheny County rated in poor condition. Sen. Jay Costa said funds have been limited, and that other bridges were considered to be in more dire condition.
“It’s surprising that (with) the number of bridges in Pittsburgh and Allegheny County, this is not really one of them that was on the list,” Costa said.
But we need to have this a bad America and superior Europe thread. So guess some got excited to find this earlier. Still Germany is not rebuilding America. America will make its own choices and such a HUGE Nation will do what is necessary. Unless drug into a war. To protect whom? Europe perhaps again.
I am not mocking you, people almost died, because infrastructure is in bad shape in your country. And why it is in bad shape? Because it is too expensive to properly maintain and renew, when everything is so overbuild and overstretched to serve sprawl and car-oriented built environments. I don't see Germany as superior. Germany has its downsides as well, I could give you a list of it, but infrastructure wise, urban planning wise and engineering wise it's difficult to beat us (except the Dutch, Swiss and Japanese maybe), just like no other country beats the US when it comes to science, medicine, space exploration, entertainment industry etc. I take pride in the things my country is good in and feel ashamed for things that aren't good here, but I don't lie to myself or others to make us look better than we really are. And I don't feel offended if someone would name these facts, but you seem to be offended by me telling you the truth about your infrastructure and bad urban designs. Instead of wasting your energy on being offended by FACTS you should rather invest that energy to help improve the situation and make events like this a thing of the past.
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