Thats pretty funny for him to say considering the MTA really has no idea how to estimate costs or schedules and relies on contractors and consultants.

The subculture of the MTA is that to be a top dog your ultimate desire is to manage managers. The priorities are NOT lower costs and efficient construction and removing bottlenecks.

The drawings provided to contractors to do the work ? They are literally illustrations and the contractor cannot build directly from them. Contractors have to make their own drawings and submit them for approval, so a 100 page set of contract drawings becomes many multiples of that. That submittal process? Could take months for something like a set of steel or piping or instrumentation drawings as you go back and forth. When the contractor is making these drawings and issues arise, it becomes an RFI. Then maybe a change order. Months and months are going by as these issues are being resolved. Why does a concrete mix need to be approved for (literally) the 100,000 time? Why isnt there a database of previously approved cctv vendors / manufacturers you can look at for purchasing?

Yes definitely an overly large station is going to cost more. But when the culture has largely accepted the slow pace of construction, managerial and consultant overhead add massive costs.