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All Aboard the Bureaucracy Train—Asterisk

asteriskmag.com · 4,889 words · saved by 1 readers

The United States has the most expensive transportation infrastructure in the world. That’s because we refuse to learn from experts, other countries, and our own history. Asterisk: The overarching question in your transit policy career has been: Why is America so bad at building transit systems? Earlier this year, your team at NYU released a massive report comparing transit costs in Istanbul, Italy, Sweden and Boston, and then, of course, New York. It culminates in your fantastic case study of the Second Avenue subway line. And that’s where I wanted to start. What went wrong? Alon Levy: Let’s go back to John Hylan. Hylan was a populist mayor between 1918 and 1925. He ran against various corporate interests, which at the time included private streetcar companies. Hylan was hostile to the private operators. This led to bustitution — using buses to undercut the streetcar companies, though even then it was clear that the buses were providing inferior service that cost more to provide.1 And

All Aboard the Bureaucracy Train—Asterisk The United States has the most expensive transportation infrastructure in the world. That’s because we refuse to learn from experts, other countries, and our own history. Asterisk: The overarching question in your transit policy career has been: Why is America so bad at building transit systems? Earlier this year, your team at NYU released a massive report comparing transit costs in Istanbul, Italy, Sweden and Boston, and then, of course, New York. It culminates in your fantastic case study of the Second Avenue subway line. And that’s where I wanted to

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