[Silfen]

I assume you're speaking figuratively. Here's an extremely literal elaboration for the railfans in the thread. The route length of the NYC subway system is 245 miles. Subway construction costs vary across developed countries, but generally fall between $200-$500 million per mile[0]. So under extremely optimistic assumptions, 40 billion would get us to about 80% of the current subway network.

For those interested in analysis of subway construction costs, I highly recommend Alon Levy's work at Pedestrian Observations: https://pedestrianobservations.com/construction-costs/

[0]https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/01/why-its-so-ex...

[bpicolo]

> but generally fall between $200-$500 million per mile[0]

Does not help that NYC is paying 5-10x that. Given that, the former comment is pretty much in line, even if slightly exaggerated.

[Silfen]

Yeah, I never meant to suggest that it was wrong (except in the most literal sense!). Comparative subway costs do not make MTA look good!