Experience Level: Any level of experience

The cost to build and operate transportation infrastructure (including transit) in the United States is consistently higher than it is elsewhere in the world. In the wake of generational investments being made in rail and transit like the IIJA, it’s critical that we bring costs under control to ensure these investments deliver a return. This presentation will dive into the causes of this cost discrepancy, and what to do about it, based on research published by the NYU’s C2SMART Center as well as other sources.

Our research seeks to understand why this cost discrepancy exists through a review of existing cost data from national and international sources, and a comparative case study analysis. Two light rail systems, MAX (in Portland, Oregon) and Metrolink (in Manchester, UK), share many design and operations characteristics, and recently completed two similar capital projects. While MAX’s operations and capital costs are lower than the national average, they remain above comparable costs for Metrolink. This similarity in specifications, combined with a divergence in cost, provides an opportunity to understand why US transit is comparatively expensive and what to do about it. 

Some of our recommendations regarding capital costs include:
1. Reducing abuse and misuse of the environmental review process.
2. Clarifying project governance structures to ensure a confluence between authority and responsibility.
3. Developing comprehensive transit design standards.
4. Avoidance of overdesign.
5. Developing a public database of unit costs for transit projects.
6. Embracing unit price contracting over lump sum contracting, and keeping risk in the public sector.

Beyond this research project, this presentation will dive into research performed by others on the topic of transit costs, and look at where progress has been made to address these long standing challenges.

Learning Outcomes:

1. Understand how the cost to build and operate transit in the US differs from comparable costs in other advanced democracies.

2. Understand which prior efforts to reduce transit costs have/haven’t been successful.

3. Understand what lessons could be learned from international peers to help address this cost discrepancy.

1 PDH

Pricing:

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Non-members: $75.00 (Join NSPE today and save on this purchase.)

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