Stop Paying More for Less Transit

This piece is part of IFP’s Transit Abundance Playbook, a collection of proposals for reducing American transit construction costs.

The United States once led the world in transit construction. In the 19th century, publicly subsidized railroads catalyzed steel production, agriculture, and even financial markets. In the early 20th century, America built the largest network of streetcar tracks in the world, igniting the first suburban boom and making homeownership and jobs available to millions. Subway systems enabled industrial growth and the development of knowledge-economy hubs that fueled American prosperity. Transit’s ability to move large numbers efficiently remains unmatched: Every day, the New York City subway serves more passengers than all American airports combined. Even in car-friendly Houston, more than half of suburban commuters to downtown take the bus.¹ 

But America has lost its edge. Today, we lead the world in transit construction costs, and build less as a result. America’s first subway line opened in 1897: a 1.5-mile tunnel in Boston built in just four years at a cost of roughly $5 million (about $200 million today). Had we kept costs steady since, we would be nearly on par with other developed countries. Instead, in 2022, New York City’s East Side Access project finally opened after 24 years of construction and $11.2 billion in expenditures — giving it the dubious distinction of being, per mile, the most expensive transit project ever built.

At least that project opened. Californians may never see the San Francisco-Los Angeles high-speed rail line they approved in 2008 and have already spent $15 billion on; the project’s expected cost has ballooned from $33 billion to more than $126 billion, with no plan to close the funding gap. Over the same period that California was failing to build a route from Bakersfield to Merced — just 150 miles apart — China connected every one of its major cities with 30,000 miles of high-speed rail.

We spend billions on transit projects but deliver far less per dollar than our global peers. The invisible costs are even higher: dysfunctional processes kill light rail routes that would unlock suburban growth, subway extensions that would connect working-class neighborhoods to job centers, and bus rapid transit corridors that would slash commute times for tens of thousands. Headlines about spiraling costs and decades-long timelines foster the belief that America cannot do big things anymore, a belief reaffirmed every time a major construction project becomes a cautionary tale.

Sky-high costs are an unfortunate case of American exceptionalism, but not an inevitability. The wealthiest country in the world should not fail where Southern Europe succeeds. We know what drives high US transit construction costs: overdesign and excessive customization, poor planning and procurement, too many veto points, burdensome permitting, and anemic state capacity. These problems compound, leaving only one option: pay more for less.

Just as there is no single cause for America’s high transit costs, there is no single solution. This playbook brings together leading transit practitioners, researchers, and advocates to translate research into policy solutions – each addressing a core driver of high US transit costs.

There is renewed attention to the red tape plaguing America’s ability to build. Consensus is growing that we need to remove barriers that constrict growth and stifle government delivery, but implementation is too often underexamined. Federal funding plays a central role in major transit projects. Accordingly, congressional and executive branch action are powerful levers to address the high costs of transit nationwide. While federal policy is at the core of this playbook, solutions also target states, local governments, and private actors.

Cost-effectiveness need not be polarizing. Transit advocates should champion spending less, because every wasted dollar is another project never built. Fiscal conservatives have much to gain from faster delivery, because every delay begets more spending. Environmentalists can celebrate the construction of megaprojects that reduce pollution. Cities thrive when the public sector can build, and rural counties deserve buses that aren’t twice as expensive as in peer countries. And more transit ridership means less traffic for drivers.

Feats of infrastructure and governance once showed us what was possible, but our policy choices have throttled our ambitions. While American workers, scientists, and technologists race ahead to the next challenge, they ride to work on infrastructure largely built by past generations.

The proposals in this playbook offer concrete solutions to build the transit the public deserves, at costs the public can afford, on timelines that allow people to actually benefit. Let’s close the gap between where we are and where we need to be.

Special thanks to all playbook authors, and to Eric Goldwyn, Jarrett Stoltzfuss, and Stephanie Pollack for their contributions advising the project. The Transit Abundance Playbook was created with the help of Rita Sokolova, Reed Schwartz, Beez Africa, Aidan Mackenzie, and Ben Schifman.