Feds see possible $5.7B SAS completed in 2018

I’ve written here on two other occasions about the pace of work. For the first year the project was a-dalliance. Afterward it seemed to become serious and workman-like. Now, it’s become wreckless. From where I dwell on 2nd Avenue between 91st and 92nd, it appears the wrath of the political and budget gods has fallen on the men and women digging the holes. Workers and pedestrians are shoulder to shoulder. The machines lumber, zip and lurch within inches of the ordinary citizens. The once sleepy construction site is operating at breakneck pace. When before one or two city traffic employees were sitting, watching the construction, there are now half a dozen, sometimes more, actively, frantically guiding traffic and pedestrians. They are very much needed. So are greater pedestrian safeguards. Public safety has deteriorated at the crosswalks. I don’t know how this project is organized or staffed. If I were running this project, I’d have one person whose sole responsibility is pedestrian safety — and give the person some kind of authority to actually make it happen — taking into account pedestrian flow, separation of pedestrians from traffic and construction, etc. In the last few weeks, there is near anarchy at the intersections. Pedestrians, city vehicular traffic and construction workers and machines intermingle, sometimes all are moving through the same intersection when a traffic light changes. A catastrophe in the making.

As for the project itself, I’ve believed for a very long time that the going forward assumptions were wrong to start with. Such as the ability to operate four lanes of traffic simultaneous with rerouting the utilities and building the launch box. The MTA has not been honest with the public, maybe even itself, about what it would take to build this thing. If it got erroneous information from its contractors, it is still responsible for appropriate review and oversight.

It’s probably time to change management of the project — get a modern day Robert Moses to make this thing happen. With the project this far along, it takes someone with vision and guts to take the reins and make difficult and controversial decisions. If I’m right that the fundamental basic assumptions were not accurate — let’s start with budget and timeline, but it goes way beyond that, then the current bunch of people may not be able to admit for political and other reasons that the errors that they made that got the project into this state must be addressed and corrected. It’s also possible that the same crew is not capable of doing any better than it has already.

Any kind of personnel change usually entails some kind of learning curve, and for a period of time the project would not see direct benefits. It’s very difficult to make design and engineering changes in the midst of a project, but it may take just that — since the early assumptions have so quickly proven inadequate.

There are probably very few people in the world with the political and engineering moxie to get this project going in the right way. If such a person does not materialize, for whatever reason, then assembling a professional risk management team to constantly monitor all aspects of the project, which the MTA claims to have done, is an important element. To make it effective, it has to be completely independent of all other aspects of the project — classically the best Quality Assurance departments are completely independent of those they are monitoring. Ideally, on a project as important as the Second Avenue Subway, the head of Risk, or whatever the MTA is calling it, should report to the CEO of the MTA.