Cost Differences in Railway Infrastructure Projects Globally with Alon Levy

Our guest today is Alon Levy, a fellow with the NYU Marron Institute. Their research focuses on public transportation and how to apply best practices from cities around the world. Our conversation is about the influence of politics and culture on the cost of building rail-based infrastructure projects across the globe and Alon sketches out many different scenarios, highlighting examples of good or bad construction. Poor building practices often mean cost overrun and surplus extraction and Alon attributes them to cultural elitism, isomorphic mimicry, the ‘design-build plague’, and the hollowing out of the public sector, depending on what country he is speaking about. In the case of the US, part of the reason for the bloated cost premium is a refusal to accept and adopt better building practices from outside its borders and the continued use of outdated models. For some lower-income countries discussed, we see a tendency to adopt practices used by countries perceived to be superior, even though their practices are inherently bad or might not be relevant in a new context. Our conversation also covers recommendations for how a lower-income country like Lagos might approach subway building and the best examples they should follow. For a conversation packed with examples of how political conditions, cultural tendencies, and legal practices influence railway infrastructure building in different countries and the effects this has on cost, be sure to tune in today.   Key Points From This Episode:  •  How Alon got interested in infrastructure while riding NYC trains. •  Definitions of different rail-based transport types to be found in cities. •  Cost differences of constructing different rail-based transport across the globe. •  Cultural elitism and why there is a cost premium on American rapid transit. •  The high cost of rail transport construction in countries whose planning logistics happen in English and are inherited from America. •  A det