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Comment by Wowfunhappy | Hacker News Reader

I would be very interested to see an analysis of exactly why laying track in NYC is more expensive than in other cities/countries. "Politics" is a very nebulous reason—if that is indeed the cause—I'd love to see more detail on where in our political system, and why, etc.

I'm sure part of the problem is that subway workers in NYC are well-paid, but that's probably not all of it.

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This has been covered in the NY Times [1] and I've read more detailed breakdowns of other projects in more transit/government focused publications. The short version is that the government doesn't do a very good job with planning despite spending a ton on it and the combination of union labor and the hiring structure leads to workers getting paid several hundred dollars an hour during overtime (which happens due to the planning) and more workers performing a task than similar transit efforts elsewhere in the developed world.

[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-...

Fraud, waste, and the worlds worst purchasing work.

NYCT workers are well paid, but that is only an explanation for high operating expense, not obscene capital expenses.

Operating expense is really fairly well managed, albeit with unusually high wages. It is a small, small part of the subway’s problems.

The unusually high wages can also be attributed to a city with an incredibly high cost of living, and large number of overtime hours.

Train conductor base pay is $23-30 an hour - the six-figure salaries that you read about are for people doing >40h/week, including night shift/holiday/on-call work.

I generally think that it's reasonable that people who do more work get paid more then people who do less work... Or that people doing the same work during hardship hours get paid more then people doing their 9-5.

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