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by otoburb 2977 days ago
>>[...] Paris has 133 miles of rail to support a population of only 2 million.

Just so we're talking about the same scales, the 133 miles of the Paris Métro rapid transit system covers the entire Paris metropolitan area[1], which itself has a population of around 12.4 million residents[2]. NYC's population across the five boroughs covered by the MTA is around 8.5 million residents[3].

The last cost projection for the Paris Métro expansion[4] for 120 extra miles of tracks, stations and lines is roughly $25 billion.

If anything, this clarification only further reinforces your point that, even taking into account a hypothetical 5x cost overrun, Paris would still come out ahead from a $/mile metric.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_M%C3%A9tro

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_metropolitan_area

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_New_York_City

[4] https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2016/03/tying-p...

1 comments

Thanks for clarifying! That’s a lot of new track for one metro area. “Buying in bulk” seems to ring true with many of these expansions.