Eric Goldwyn Awarded Two Grants

The Marron Institute’s Research Scholar, Eric Goldwyn, and collaborator, Alon Levy, have been awarded two grants to examine the variation in transit infrastructure construction costs from the Smith Richardson Foundation and TransitCenter. The grants will allow Goldwyn and Levy to identify good and bad practices that drive construction costs on both a larger system-wide scale, and on the more narrow scale of station retrofits for ADA accessibility. The Smith Richardson grant focuses on the ongoing 4.7 mile Green Line Extension in Boston, and the TransitCenter grant is part of a larger initiative by TransitCenter to draw attention to the poor accessibility of subway stations in New York. Both projects rely on the collection of comparative quantitative data from around the world to better contextualize average costs and highlight where these projects diverge from international norms. By putting these costs into a broader context, elected officials and agency heads can better understand how effectively capital dollars are being spent.