Submitted by michaelmvm t3_123m22f in nyc
michaelmvm OP t1_jdv4nps wrote
> MTA officials attacked the findings and argued the new third track on the Long Island Rail Road’s Main Line in Nassau shows the MTA is delivering projects on time and on budget.
> “You have to be careful with that subculture,” Lieber told The Post editorial board in February, derisively referring to the researchers. “Those people get a lot of their cost information from the Internet.”
this, by the way, refers to the transit costs project, a comprehensive years long study by professional researchers as to why the MTA spends so much money when no other global agency does:
https://transitcosts.com/transit-costs-study-final-report/#case_newyork
oreosfly t1_jdvzwco wrote
> Those people get a lot of their cost information from the Internet.”
Do you know why researchers have to go to the ends of Earth to find cost information about the MTA? Because the MTA refuses to fucking disclose how they spend money, even though that money comes from taxpayers.
https://nyc.streetsblog.org/2022/11/15/why-doesnt-the-mta-actually-tell-us-what-its-paying-for/
> “In New York, there are itemized costs prepared by independent cost estimators to inform the MTA when evaluating fixed-price bids, but … those costs are considered a trade secret of the agency, not to be publicized or else it would interfere with the bidding process,” researchers Eric Goldwyn, Alon Levy, Elif Ensari and Marco Chitti wrote in an upcoming report from the NYU Marron Institute of Urban Management.
I can go on Google for a random road construction project and find its itemized cost. How do I know? Because I just fucking did it - here’s an itemized invoice from Florida DOT for a road repaving and widening project in the middle of god damn nowhere
How much did it cost taxpayers to remove litter on the roadside for this project? $102. How is the MTA spending $120 million dollars for elevators at the Hunter College station? Who the fuck knows
This smug fuck Janno Lieber cautions that researchers do not have any first party sources when it comes to MTA costs yet his agency refuses to make those costs public.
I refuse to support another penny going to the MTA until they are fully transparent on how they spend their money.
forhisglory85 t1_jdwtrh3 wrote
Well said. How this doesn't cause massive wide spread outrage among New Yorkers and elected officials is beyond me.
kapuasuite t1_jdy7tn1 wrote
> This smug fuck Janno Lieber cautions that researchers do not have any first party sources when it comes to MTA costs yet his agency refuses to make those costs public.
Not surprised - he is and always has been an incompetent hack.
Daddy_Macron t1_jdvf5qu wrote
>“You have to be careful with that subculture,” Lieber told The Post editorial board in February, derisively referring to the researchers. “Those people get a lot of their cost information from the Internet.”
I can literally see his greasy face and self-satisfied smirk in my head as he said this.
i_never_listen t1_jdxroa0 wrote
Thats pretty funny for him to say considering the MTA really has no idea how to estimate costs or schedules and relies on contractors and consultants.
The subculture of the MTA is that to be a top dog your ultimate desire is to manage managers. The priorities are NOT lower costs and efficient construction and removing bottlenecks.
The drawings provided to contractors to do the work ? They are literally illustrations and the contractor cannot build directly from them. Contractors have to make their own drawings and submit them for approval, so a 100 page set of contract drawings becomes many multiples of that. That submittal process? Could take months for something like a set of steel or piping or instrumentation drawings as you go back and forth. When the contractor is making these drawings and issues arise, it becomes an RFI. Then maybe a change order. Months and months are going by as these issues are being resolved. Why does a concrete mix need to be approved for (literally) the 100,000 time? Why isnt there a database of previously approved cctv vendors / manufacturers you can look at for purchasing?
Yes definitely an overly large station is going to cost more. But when the culture has largely accepted the slow pace of construction, managerial and consultant overhead add massive costs.
[deleted] t1_jdvwnf4 wrote
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