The politics of large infrastructure investment decision-making : the case of the second avenue subway case study.

Details

• Creators:
  Nobbe, Patrizia ; Berechman, Joseph
• Corporate Creators:
  The City College of New York, CUNY
• Corporate Contributors:
  United States. Dept. of Transportation. Research and Innovative Technology Administration
• Subject/TRT Terms:
  • Investments
  • Decision making
  • Subways
  • Politics
  • Infrastructure
  • Transportation planning
  • Financing
  • Case studies
  • Megaprojects
• Publication/ Report Number:
  49111-16-23
• Resource Type:
  Tech Report
• Geographical Coverage:
  New York (New York)
• Corporate Publisher:
  University Transportation Research Center
• Abstract:
  Over the past few decades, urbanization and economic growth have intensified the need for more efficient urban and ; regional transportation, including the expansion and reorganization of existing transportation networks. Given such ; huge investments and severe constraints on resources such as financial and land, infrastructure projects require a ; careful prioritization and selection among available alternatives. In reality, project selection appears to be determined as ; much by politics as by transport-economic considerations. This paper traces the politics of megaproject decision-making of the Second Avenue Subway (SAS), a subway project in New York. The project’s first stage is currently being ; built after nearly 100 years of effort. In particular, we examine whether project-related decisions were the results of ; power struggles between the involved actors, and less the results of transportation planning concerns. We argue that ; the re-organization of transportation institutions, specifically the formation of the Metropolitan Transportation Agency ; (MTA), enabled the selection and implementation of SAS. While transportation agencies are bound by the legal and ; bureaucratic rules set by those who create them, they have their own agendas and are crucial for project selection. If ; successful, as in the case of the Second Avenue Subway, they can establish political momentum against political and ; fiscal adversity. Against the background of this project long planning and failure history, we find that besides the ; creation of the MTA, the following factors contributed to project eventual success: 1) the long project history bestowed a ; “legendary” character upon the project; 2) a “window of opportunity” opened up for inner-city projects after September ; 11; 3) a strong set of project champions advanced the project; and 4) the nature of funding arrangements was ; instrumental in this project success.
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• Format:
  PDF
• Download URL:
  https://rosap.ntl.bts.gov/view/dot/27119/dot_27119_DS1.pdf
• File Type:
  [PDF - 832.46 KB]
• Collection(s):
  University Transportation Centers ; US Transportation Collection
• Main Document Checksum:
  urn:sha256:d742b3710e5e634794d33a0db51705ad5c168e79d2bf922e3f62474721a65bca