What Alon Levy thinks about infrastructure
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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19 dated positions, 2020 to 2026, in their own words. Our reading of what Alon Levy has said — not written or endorsed by them.
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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 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
- 3 weeks 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
- 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 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 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 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 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 readingNew 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 readingBritain 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
- 17 months earlier
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Their wordsOur best explanation is that the UK adopted what we call the globalized system of procurement, privatizing planning functions to consultants and privatizing risk to contractors, which creates more conflict; the UK also has an unusually high soft cost factor.
↗High Costs are not About Precaritypedestrianobservations.com 2nd of 5 in this piece
- 3 years earlier
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Our reading · no longer heldCommon-law legal systems are what make infrastructure construction costs high
Recalls holdingThe theory that common law leads to higher costs, based on high costs across the US, Singapore, the UK, Australia, Canada, India, and Bangladesh. I no longer believe this theory holds up
Saidin the developed world, important edge cases disagree with the theory, including Quebec (expensive) and Israel (about average)