Comments on: What the MTA doesn’t know about construction

By: Walder vows to end cost overruns, but at what price? :: Second Ave. Sagas | A New York City Subway Blog

Tue, 27 Oct 2009 16:00:05 +0000

[...] For the last few weeks, Jay Walder has been preaching responsible investment and an increased attention toward improving surface transit. He knows that the agency he heads has long been plagued by an inability to manage its capital projects, and a CBC report issued last week confirmed a history of cost overruns and missed deadlines. [...]

By: Alon Levy

Alon Levy — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 03:43:08 +0000

Those five projects include the two most expensive subways in the world, of which the cheaper one is twice as expensive as the most expensive subway outside New York.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 01:06:18 +0000

The vast majority of capital projects undertaken by the MTA's agencies are not under Horodniceanu's purview. Horodniceanu is responsible for a grand total of five projects.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Fri, 23 Oct 2009 01:01:42 +0000

Oh, I notice that you say that “Michael Horodniceanu is the head of New York City Transit.” I assume that’s a typo – Horodniceanu is the head of MTA Capital Construction, not NYCT.

By: AlexB

AlexB — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 10:00:29 +0000

Thanks. Perhaps we can get Horodniceanu to implement the CBC recommendations on his own.

By: Andrew

Andrew — Thu, 22 Oct 2009 01:17:48 +0000

To clarify, MTACC isn’t in charge of all capital projects for the MTA – only a select few “mega-projects”: South Ferry Terminal, Second Avenue Subway, East Side Access, 7 Line Extension, Fulton Street Transit Center, and maybe one or two others that don’t come to mind. Most capital projects (by far) are managed by the agencies themselves. Your standard run-of-the-mill subway station rehab or signal modernization, for instance, is managed by NYCT’s Capital Program Management department.

By: Walder and the end of new big projects :: Second Ave. Sagas | A New York City Subway Blog

Wed, 21 Oct 2009 20:23:49 +0000

[...] MTA’s big projects. With the CBC criticizing the MTA’s capital construction efforts for constant delays and cost overruns, Walder believes the MTA must focus on its current projects and not add new [...]

By: Benjamin Kabak

Benjamin Kabak — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 16:12:13 +0000

MTA Capital Construction is its own department with its own president. Much like Howard Roberts is the present of New York City Transit, Michael Horodniceanu is the head of Capital Construction. All of the capital projects though were proposed, budgeted and planned when Mysore Nagaraja was in that position. He left a few years ago For what it’s worth, Horodniceanu has been far more willing to take responsibility for these projects than Nagaraja ever appeared to.

By: AlexB

AlexB — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 16:08:00 +0000

Is there some sort of department for managing capital construction? Is there a person somewhere appointed by the MTA board who is in charge of all these projects? We always talk about the MTA’s failures at doing this or that, but the MTA is a huge organization. Why is there not a go-to person or department that can implement these changes relatively quickly; some sort of capital construction “czar”

By: Boris

Boris — Wed, 21 Oct 2009 14:24:43 +0000

Two points. First, there is only one person who can even theoretically get in trouble for this and has something to lose. None of the MTA union or management workers would suffer just because their company didn’t meet a deadline or went over budget. It’s the nature of being a government agency.

Second, the MTA is very transparent and probably very fiscally prudent compared to whoever does our NYS DOT downstate highway projects- for which we have no figures at all, because they are neither detailed in the state budget nor audited.