eric goldwyn
7,967 posts
@nyumarron | [email protected] | transitcosts.com | a lot of damaged soles, I done damaged those | transition lenses | alamo/astor place cube fan account
- This framing is insane. A ***30% increase in ridership*** is a success. Let’s not pretend otherwise. What business would say, hey we increased our customer base by 30%, but we are sad?
- European subway/metro stations often lack overhead canopies/cover. In the US, conversely, even in some of our drier climates you almost always have canopies. Why? Abundance of escalator maintainers in Copenhagen?
- In early 2022, @alon_levy, @elifensari, & I are going to hire someone, who can help us figure out how to build high speed rail along the northeast corridor for less than $100 billion. We want to learn from other countries and apply those lessons to the US. Get in touch!
- Today we published our Phase 1 of the Second Avenue Subway case study. We show oversized stations (specifically back-of-house spaces), extractive negotiations with city agencies, a diminution of in-house capacity and embrace of consultants over everything drive costs and delay.
- A deep dive on our transit costs research by @A_W_Gordon, who moderated our in person event last week. vice.com/en/article/xgy…
- Replying to @ndhappleBaseball does have natural breaks in the game, which are not driven by commercials. BUT, they probably could shorten some of them. Getting average game time down to 2 hours would be amazing.
- This is genuinely amazing. This is what happens when experts focus on a problem, overly large transit stations, and minimize station footprints to reduce costs so they can build more. Looks like metro milan, systra, and aecom led the redesign.
- Below is a map showing grade separations for CA HSR and BNSF, the freight railroad. CA HSR agreed to pay for 6 *parallel* BNSF grade seps in Shafter to resolve a lawsuit. The feds will end up paying the $202 million, but why should rail projects be liable for these things?
- Last week we published our final report re: transit costs. All of this follows from our finding (not unique) that the US pays more for transit projects than other countries in our database.
- People have been beating up on VTA for crazy costs. $12.2 billion for 33,000 daily riders is the most expensive cost per rider I’ve ever calculated (~$370,000). That’s more than 10x SAS phase 1’s cost per rider in inflation adjusted dollars. More here:
- Enjoyed this @palladiummag piece on why we can’t build anymore. This closely aligns with things we have found in our ongoing transit costs work. The major issues re: diminished in-house capacity and nimbyism have slowed schedules and increased costs
- Some preliminary analysis by @elifensari of IBX's job access improvements. You'll never guess which stops have the lowest population density, lowest FARs, highest car ownership rates, lowest transit usage, etc., etc.
- We just released a new report on speeding up HSR project delivery. The basic gist in 5 recommendations: we need to make a commitment to intercity passenger rail. This means authority, funding, and vision. transitcosts.com/wp-content/upl…








