The New Republic‘s excellent new blog, The Avenue (which I would read more frequently if they offered full-length RSS feeds), uses the viaduct replacement to talk about whether we can build things anymore, building on the Jacobs-vs-Moses debate I alluded to recently.
As Glaeser notes, the only way large projects get built in the United States now is to grease the stakeholders (funny how a word that once meant neutral custodian of gambling wagers now means interested party) with amenities and other expensive mollifications.
Beyond new parks and playgrounds, this resulted in extensive testing and monitoring of zoo animals as Portland built light rail under its West Hills, and it meant the purchase of air conditioners, soundproofing, and comfier mattresses for residents of Bostons North End during the Big Dig.
On our podcast this week, we wonder how it is that Barcelona can build a new, 29-mile underground subway for 2-3x what it’s going to cost to build a mile or two of tunnel to replace the viaduct. Perhaps they just don’t have to buy as many mattresses and air conditioners.
I thought that post by David Jackson was mighty thin. He implies that it might be harder to build big projects (well, duh!) using the tunnel as an example- an example that is going forward much more smoothly than we might have expected, considering the stakeholders involved.
Who are these stakeholders who have to be “greased”? You know, the ones who need “amenities and other expensive mollifications”? Well, lo and behold, they turn out to be people who will be affected, and as you might imagine, the bigger the project, the more of them there are. So I guess I disagree with the tone of this post, which seems to view stakeholders, with suspicion, as probably being people who drive up the cost of projects by demanding air conditioners or posturepedic mattresses as the price of their consent.
The whole thing, in fact, is bizarre. The AWV replacement had deadlocked with three executives, each representing substantial constituencies, at odds, and then was apparently resolved by an agreement meeting the concerns of all three. Far from awaiting a new iteration, this process has already gone through a new iteration, as the terminally clueless David Jackson fails to see. In fact, it has gone through two new iterations, as McGinn rode the tunnel antipathy to a mayoral candidacy and has subsequently agreed that the tunnel may, in fact, be built.
Nor do I find much reason to think that a 29-mile subway built largely through suburban areas would be a cost guide to building a tunnel directly under downtown Seattle. Call it a hunch.
Perhaps but they’re also not building it large enough to run three or four trains in each direction (I think the lane spacing is 12′+12′ + 8′ breakdown lanes each side, not sure how many train lines that would accomodate given a relatively straight tunnel). I wonder how much of tunneling cost is per lineal foot and how much is per cubic foot?