How NYC’s Second Avenue Subway Became the World’s Most Expensive Line
The Manhattan transit expansion’s multibilllion-dollar price tag reflects the spiraling complexity of US construction practices, a team of NYU researchers says.
The new 96th Street station on the Second Avenue subway line in New York City in 2017.
Photographer: John Taggart/BloombergNew York City’s Second Avenue Subway, which opened in 2017 after a long and troubled genesis, was a transit milestone for the city — the first major subway expansion in 50 years, and a boon for those who lived on Manhattan’s Upper East Side. But behind its wide platforms and mosaic-lined stations is the world’s most expensive subway line — and it’s not even finished.
At $2.5 billion per mile, construction costs for the 1.8-mile Phase 1 of the Second Avenue Subway were 8 to 12 times more expensive than similar subway projects in Italy, Istanbul, Sweden, Paris, Berlin and Spain, according to a report from New York University’s Marron Institute of Urban Management.