Alon Levy
Mathematician turned transport researcher, a fellow at NYU's Marron Institute and a lead of the Transit Costs Project, which compares what it costs to build rail in different countries. Writes Pedestrian Observations.
Alon Levy did not write this page.
We collected these quotes from things they published elsewhere, and every quote links to where it was said. They have no account here and have not endorsed this site. Quotes are word for word; the short line under each one is our own restatement, not their wording. Their own site. Is this you? Claim it or ask us to remove it. Or tell us what is wrong here.
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Our reading
National politics dominates over regional politics in nearly all first-world democracies.
Their wordsPolitics in virtually all first-world democracies is nationalized.
↗The Country is the Natural Unit of Policy Analysispedestrianobservations.com 1st of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsAnd yet, life expectancy about two years more than the national average is rather common in rich regions with selective migration, even in European countries with even access to health care, like France and Spain.
↗The Country is the Natural Unit of Policy Analysispedestrianobservations.com 2nd of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsBut it's not meaningfully possible to understand the world at this scale - macroregions are real but analysis of policy, including transportation but also the usual economic and social topics, has to be down at the level of sovereign states first with no illusion that a province in a large country is comparable to a smaller country.
↗The Country is the Natural Unit of Policy Analysispedestrianobservations.com 3rd of 3 in this piece
- 4 weeks earlier
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Their wordselectrification in Germany is usually bundled with other projects that end up costing that in total
↗Electrification Costs and Confounderspedestrianobservations.com 1st of 2 in this piece
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Their wordsone should never apportion the cost of the RER or Stammstrecke tunnels to the cost of surface electrification
↗Electrification Costs and Confounderspedestrianobservations.com 2nd of 2 in this piece
- 8 days earlier
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Their wordsBut in fact, the scale of buses is rather short, and in a Los Angeles-size city they are hopeless, no matter how much priority they have.
↗The Failure of Bus Grids at the Scale of Los Angelespedestrianobservations.com 1st of 2 in this piece
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Their wordson-street separated lanes don't go at the speed of rapid transit, and the counterexamples you're thinking about right now are either freeways or things that might as well be freeways.
↗The Failure of Bus Grids at the Scale of Los Angelespedestrianobservations.com 2nd of 2 in this piece
- 5 days earlier
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Their wordsIf a subway line or a train station or a similar rail megaproject has an internationally renowned architect in charge, it costs too much and is unlikely to be functional.
↗Conflict About the FRA Study on Penn Stationpedestrianobservations.com
- 10 days earlier
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Their wordsThe reason is simple: TOD doesn't care about corridors but about the underlying transit, which is a subway, not a bus stopping every block.
↗Corridor Zoning is not Transit-Oriented Developmentpedestrianobservations.com 1st of 2 in this piece
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Their wordsthe explicit purpose of corridor zoning is to concentrate both air pollution and the perceived social pollution of apartment dwellers in quarantine zones that single-family homeowners can avoid
↗Corridor Zoning is not Transit-Oriented Developmentpedestrianobservations.com 2nd of 2 in this piece
- 8 days earlier
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Their wordsfurther investment in regional rail in New England - by which I mean RegionalBahn-style service to small towns like Westerly and Manchester, not core commuter rail service in Boston to be turned into an S-Bahn - is a waste of money in the current situation.
↗Prioritizing Rail Expansion in New Englandpedestrianobservations.com 1st of 2 in this piece
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Their wordsit's more important to invest in trains that can get more riders than just the railfans; taking a line from 0% to 5% modal split is less important than taking it from 20% to 40%
↗Prioritizing Rail Expansion in New Englandpedestrianobservations.com 2nd of 2 in this piece
- 7 days earlier
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Their wordsRiders diverted from other lines still benefit from the project, especially in a case like QueensLink, where the diverted riders would enjoy an improvement in trip time to Midtown of about 10-15 minutes each way.
↗Quick Note on Ridership Estimation and the STOPS Modelpedestrianobservations.com 1st of 2 in this piece
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Their wordsSTOPS is designed for quick-and-dirty calculations and is known to choke on New York.
↗Quick Note on Ridership Estimation and the STOPS Modelpedestrianobservations.com 2nd of 2 in this piece
- 1 day earlier
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Their wordsIn truth, rather rapid electrification projects, without decade-by-decade continuity, exist outside the UK and are often quite reasonable in their costs, as in Denmark, Israel, and especially India.
↗IFP’s Transit Abundance Playbookpedestrianobservations.com 1st of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsWell, PRC HSR construction costs relative to the amount of tunneling aren't particularly low. France's are lower; Germany's are inconsistent, depending on whether money is wasted on excessive tunneling or on other things.
↗IFP’s Transit Abundance Playbookpedestrianobservations.com 2nd of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsStandardized systems are important, and there is a systems premium in the US and UK, but it can't be about a regular pipeline because London has that and yet Crossrail engaged in some really dodgy systems decisions that drove costs up.
↗IFP’s Transit Abundance Playbookpedestrianobservations.com 3rd of 3 in this piece
- 4 months earlier
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Their wordsBeyond the scale of a neighborhood or maybe a college town, cars and mass transit are substitutes for each other.
↗Why Building Metros is Necessary for the Green Transition Away from Carspedestrianobservations.com 1st of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsNor does polycentricity solve the problem. Indeed, ridership in polycentric regions is weaker than in monocentric ones.
↗Why Building Metros is Necessary for the Green Transition Away from Carspedestrianobservations.com 2nd of 3 in this piece
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Their wordsThis, in turn, creates serious estimation problems for the diversion rate, which is why environmental benefit-cost analyses underrate the effect of urban rail construction.
↗Why Building Metros is Necessary for the Green Transition Away from Carspedestrianobservations.com 3rd of 3 in this piece
- 15 months earlier
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Their wordsIn truth, the UK shares high costs with more decentralized countries, and Spain shares low ones with more centralized ones.
↗Low Spanish Costs are not About Decentralizationpedestrianobservations.com 1st of 4 in this piece
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Their wordsSo Portland managed to build one very small line for fairly reasonable costs, but they were not cutting edge; this is a common pattern to Western US cities, in that the first line has reasonable costs and then things explode, even while staying self-funded and self-directed.
↗Low Spanish Costs are not About Decentralizationpedestrianobservations.com 2nd of 4 in this piece
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Their wordsThe truth is that there’s nothing that can be learned from American projects within living memory except what not to do.
↗Low Spanish Costs are not About Decentralizationpedestrianobservations.com 3rd of 4 in this piece
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Their wordsA single case study can lead to overlearning from the peculiarities of one place, where the right thing to do is look at a number of successes and look at what is common to all of them.
↗Low Spanish Costs are not About Decentralizationpedestrianobservations.com 4th of 4 in this piece
- 6 months earlier
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Their wordsIn fact, even though growth in average infrastructure costs over time is documented, there is very little cross-national correlation between GDP per capita and per-km subway construction costs.
↗Meme Weeding: High Wages and Baumol's Cost Diseasepedestrianobservations.com 1st of 4 in this piece
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Their wordsIt’s not that the Anglosphere is rich; it’s that it’s the Anglosphere and builds inefficiently.
↗Meme Weeding: High Wages and Baumol's Cost Diseasepedestrianobservations.com 2nd of 4 in this piece
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Our reading
New York's subway cost premium is overstaffing, oversized stations and procurement, not high wages.
Their wordsWell, we’ve divided the New York cost premium into three tranches: labor (mostly overstaffing, not high wages), station and system design, and procurement and soft costs.
↗Meme Weeding: High Wages and Baumol's Cost Diseasepedestrianobservations.com 3rd of 4 in this piece
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Our reading
Britain has a systemic problem building large infrastructure projects, including reservoirs
Their wordsIt’s turned entire countries, like the United Kingdom, incapable of building more than about one line per generation.
↗Meme Weeding: High Wages and Baumol's Cost Diseasepedestrianobservations.com 4th of 4 in this piece
- 11 months earlier
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Our reading
You cannot make America build subways ten times cheaper while only ever talking to Americans.
Their wordsYou can’t change the United States from a country that builds subways for $2 billion/km in New York and $1 billion/km elsewhere to a country that does so for $200 million/km if all you ever do is talk to other Americans.
↗Pete Buttigieg, Bent Flyvbjerg, and My Pessimism About American Costspedestrianobservations.com
- 7 months earlier
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Their wordsIn fact, the worst cost blowouts are for the politically most certain projects; Second Avenue Subway enjoyed unanimous support in New York politics.
↗High Costs are not About Precaritypedestrianobservations.com 1st of 5 in this piece