Comments on: MTA presents its ‘Top Ten Possible Cost Overruns’ for the Red Line

By: Gerald Neily

Gerald Neily — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 23:48:59 +0000

Yes, risk management is a good thing. I never said it wasn’t. Marin must be your last name, since you keep calling me Neily. Must be some social custom you follow.

By: marin

marin — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 22:33:21 +0000

Well, Neily, as I said, we appreciate your newfound journalistic integrity by citing your source.

But answer the question. Isn’t risk management (identification, avoidance and/or mitigation) and unmistakably good quality of good project management?
Let”s say you wanted to build a house “downy Ocean, hun”. Clearly that’s an expensive proposition, but for a variety of life reasons (maybe its a good retirement investment, or a nice way to relax, etc.), you’ve decided to build the house. Good for you. But wouldn’t you want to know and guard against the risk? Say, the ocean could rise. You have a few options. A) Build the house as you would have, if you didn’t know the ocean might rise, and watch your investment wash away, b) build on stilts, add some vegetation buffer to stop erosion, move the house back a hundred feet, etc…and buoild the house, or c) don’t build the house, its just too damn risky. Most logical people would weigh the risk and decide to build the house with some mitigating measures.

That’s all MTA is doing here. Prudently evaluating the risks and preparing to avoid or mitigate them.

By: Gerald Neily

Gerald Neily — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 19:24:55 +0000

I hope Brew readers are enjoying Marin’s little sideshow. For seemingly the umpteenth time, yes, I am a former bureaucrat. Now if Marin wants to let us know what claim or document I have not referenced, we can go from there. But as it stands, Marin has left more unreferenced than I have, like his/her full name.

By: marin

marin — Fri, 29 Jan 2010 00:52:26 +0000

For once, Neily delivers a document to back up the claims. Thanks. In the end, though, I’m not sure there’s a bombshell here. Would rather we go “eyes wide open” into a project like this rather than ignore what are legitimate questions/concerns. The goal, I assume, is to mitigate or avoid risk, thus avoid overruns. Sounds like smart project management to me.

P.S. Neily, weren’t you one of those ‘expressway bureaucrats’?

By: Steve

Steve — Thu, 28 Jan 2010 02:38:10 +0000

Need to do the logical and not the political thing. Too much money involved. Nice article.

By: John

John — Mon, 25 Jan 2010 19:00:34 +0000

The early years of the central light rail line were plagued with 30-45 minute delays due to the short-sighted “do it now” decision to construct much of the system in a single-track configuration. As a result, the line quickly developed the term ‘late rail.’ Then, it had to be completely shut down for months in many spots when the inevitable double-track construction was done. I would hope MTA policy wonks would not repeat the same mistake on the red line. It may cost more in the beginning yet should pay larger dividends in the end with a more efficient and reliable rail line.