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[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]And in the USA 16 miles Purple line near Washington DC takes forever ?[/quote]

No NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act of 1969). It's become sclerotic but was originally put in place so the Federally funded projects can't bulldoze through neighborhoods and forcibly relocate 100,000s of people with impunity (see most of what Robert Moses did to NYC as well as things like I-395 in DC). Instead of just protecting against these kinds of actions, states now try to "litigation proof" these NEPA decisions and it ends up taking years upon years to complete. Now, every NIMBY and special interest group can try to come forward and claim some impact which can tie projects up for years in litigation. That and feather bedding by all of consultants involved in advising the state governments on such projects. There's no expertise in the government anymore. Everything is outsourced so state DOTs don't learn the hard lessons from their projects and apply those lessons to the next one. The consultants do though!

By comparison, look at how quickly and cheaply Madrid built its transit system (https://worksinprogress.co/issue/how-madrid-built-its-metro-cheaply/) and compare that to the Second Avenue Subway line in NY. The U.S. should be taking lessons from other democracies in Europe in how to build these things faster and cheaper. [/quote]

This is the other trendy thing that YIMBYs are advocating for now, eliminate environmental reviews and let companies do whatever they want without accountability ugh. Yes, there are some reforms that can be made, but eliminating environmental review is a mistake. I am very concerned that any reform proposed by the YIMBYs will be a complete handout to wealthy special interest groups that want to avoid accountability.  Also, $94 Million per mile is not remotely cheap and that is still very expensive to build a metro line. [/quote]

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