I can imagine digging a tunnel being quite expensive. Not only that, but you have to build platforms, escalators, stairs, evelators, and run lighting

And after all that you still don't have a track, cars, and maintenance equipment.

>>317345
Not all areas have suitable geological attributes for a subway.

>>317345
Lol, Munich. But boreing tunnels is buttclenchingly expensive and geological difficulties can lead to a monetary blackhole of a project (see Amsterdam)

Tunnels that meet contemporary safety requirements are stupidly expensive even if the boring itself is cheap.

Your argument applies for surface level rail transport, however. 200 000 is enough, and it will work for millions.

>>317345
Light rail, which is what most cities are building now, can be constructed for as little as $20 per mile. Subway construction starts at about $200 per mile and goes up from there. Do the math.

>>317419
>$20 per mile

sure is SimCity in here

>>317347
constantly building more freeways
consumers having to fork out for cars, fuel, tyres, insurance
the pollution
all cost much more
>>317349
Japan has them, it is Earthquake prone
St Petersberg has them, the city is on a swamp
>>317419
the problem with lightrail is they try to make it a train
its not
its just a streetcar with low floors and articulated bodies
if you treat it like that, on the road and etc, it works fine
if you try to push it beyond that, as Americans, either it doesn't work or the demand is too great

commuter trains first op
surface railway from city centre to and through suburbia
as things become dense and populated in the city then you begin looking at metro - subway or elevated or mix

>>317430
Your gross generalization of geological characteristics is an insult.

I don't think cities like New Orleans could ever have one given how shallow the water table is.

>>317438
Not samefag, but possible...
No chance of it happening though, due to NOLA being broke and metro building under the water table is fucking expensive... (see the fail Amsterdam project)

Think of places like Florida. It could never sustain a subway because it is too close to water level and it basically sand. Just tunneling is expensive and can be done shitty so repairs cost even more. Think of the Big Dig in Boston. That cost so much and that was just for making an underground tunnel for cars and doesn't include what a subway, the tracks, maintenance, etc, would cost.

>>317438
>>317444
new orleans would have a metro that is elevated not subway
it says a lot you need this explained and you cant figure it out yourself
>>317450
>water
elevated
>sand
Perth is all sand, they been expanding their commuter network in recent years which has included a tunnel under the city
As for the Big Dig, that was lack of oversight and greedy contractors
The Gotthard Base Tunnel in Switzerland is the worlds longest railway tunnel & it is through a mountain.
Its cost only 10 billion, half the Big Dig, and taking 20 years, a decade less than the Big Dig
inb4unions
You honestly think the Swiss and German and Italian and French mining and construction workers on it aren't in Unions? Are paid less than Americans? Receive fewer benefits than Americans? Please.

>>317438
>>317444
>>317450
>>317457
and aside from a metro that is elevated
they would have surface commuter railway to & through suburbia
as well as streetcars - New Orleans has preserved some of their original network for tourism along with restored PCC Streetcars, expand that and get new modern rolling stock

tunneling under a big city is stupid expensive, the 7 extension in NYC cost about $163,600 per foot of new tunnel.

>cant build on sand

pshhh, sand aint shit

>>317459
building a never ending series of freeways to try to keep pace with congestion is stupid

>>317457
Tunneling through a mountain is easier than tunneling under a massive city.

Cincinnati has subway tunnels built under its downtown, but the project was abandoned during the depression. They still maintain the tunnels in pristine condition, because one of the lines sits under one of the busiest streets in the city, and without yearly maintenance it would swallow one of the densest parts of downtown.

>>317467

>>317485
open it
expand it
use it

>>317485
dont let them open it only to put lightrail on it
you would have the same problems with capacity and demand they have with the Blue line in LA and the Dockland Light Rail in London
Put trains in it
Lightrail are basically streetcars and should be treated as such

>>317485
I've read about that. What a waste.

I dont like subways.

I like going up on the actual platform so I could see the view of everything.

Most of our stops are elevated besides the ones downtown named the "loop"

>>317512
oh hey look the L. i went on a trip to chicago last summer and ended up getting off in chinatown. i've never seen a walgreens like that before

>>317516
>>317516

Haha I know which Walgreens your talkin about. There's also a Greek one.

>>317516
>>317518
never been to the greek one but its whatever I dont even live in illinois anymore

anyways you n boys get back to your business

>>317345
>What is the major cost of building a subway system?
>>317457
>new orleans would have a metro that is elevated not subway
it says a lot you need this explained and you cant figure it out yourself

HURR DURR Did you even read the thread?

>>317512
elevated are cheaper
but they're an eyesore
good luck dealing the NIMBY brigade
>>317523
a subway is a metro
that is what op should have said
a metro is a railway operating with a high rate of frequency inside a city entirely grade seperated, via subway or elevated or a mix
Somewhere like New Orleans would be surface/elevated

God damn I hate America. Why did we decide it was better to have 500 millions cars than a workable commuter and metro system? Fucking country.

>taking two tons of steel with you 5 miles to get a gallon of milk

Country and world are doomed. Now China and India are following along. Shit ain't looking good.

>Others have pointed to the project being a rare example of a city avoiding the sunk cost fallacy.[5]
How do they figure that?
What is the cost to the city/state of maintaining it and not using it
What is the cost to the city/state of an endless series of freeways to try to cope with congestion?
What is the cost to the tax payer of those freeways?
What is the cost to the consumer for cars, gas, insurance, tyres, maintenance, etc?
What is the cost to society for the pollution and contribution to the depletion of a finite resource?
All these things are less than using something that would reduce them? Hmm

>>317526
Alfred P. Sloan
>the business of business is business
and the business of GM is selling cars
and its competition was the streetcar and inter-urban
so, he eliminated it

>People say use elevated track when the OP was clearly about SUBWAYS as in UNDERGROUND

>>317532
subway is one technical means of achieving a metro

>>317533
But the OP wasn't about metro. It was about SUBWAYS as in UNDERGROUND

>>317534
and a subway is a metro

>>317535
But we are not talking about metros. We're talking about SUBWAYS as in UNDERGROUND.

Cut and cover projects would be impossible in most cities due to road traffic and consumer economy effects,so TBM is only real option buts very expensive.

So just drive a car.

>>317540
dig wells
fill with steel reinforced concrete pylons
excavate around them
build ceiling from bottom up
thats how they did Parliament Station in Melbourne - deepest subway station in the Southern Hemisphere and smack bang in the city centre
also the recent Nunawading Station/Springvale Road grade separation followed a similar plan as they excavated the trench for the railway and converted the road to a bridge over it

or, cut and cover under the roads

>>317526
that's because you have lots of space and you have built modern citites from scratch
whereas we in europe live in 2000 years old settlements

so you can build freeways wherever you need
and say "ok the next city blocks will be here and there"

but we europeans cant do that : less space, old towns already in place, less money to play with also

>>317499
There's absolutely nothing wrong in sprawling a light rail network to all suburbs while digging it underground to achieve additional capacity near urban centers.

Seattle is doing it, though I'm not entirely convinced they need *that* long a tunnel without first building rails above it.

>>317459
>the 7 extension in NYC cost about $163,600 per foot of new tunnel
of course........ they probably coulda saved a lot of money by not using union laborers ;>)

-----

it is true that you cannot simply tunnel around any direction you want in a modern city. there are lots of existing underground utility and communications lines--plus there the basements....

with modern skyscrapers, about 10% of the building is always below-ground, since--to be stable--the weight of the dirt they dug out of the hole for the building has to roughly equal the weight of the finished building + contents. this is to keep the building from sinking (if the basement was too shallow, the building would sink and push the dirt immediately around it upward) or from heaving upward (if the basement was too deep, the dirt would slowly flow under it, lifting the building upward unevenly).

so, a 50-floor building is going to have a basement around 5 stories deep. a 100-floor building has a basement around 10 floors deep.

:O