In 2006, Alon Levy moved to New York to attend graduate school. Levy took the subway to get to class and events around the city, as most New Yorkers do. But unlike most New Yorkers, Levy is the type of person who will instantly become inquisitive about the most seemingly mundane issues. For example, when told there are people waiting at the elevator to get to an event, Levy starts crunching numbers in their head about elevator capacity. So naturally, Levy took an interest in the subway— especially the new Second Avenue subway, when construction began in 2007. Levy heard this first phase of the project with three new stations and 3.5 miles of tunnel would cost $3.8 billion. (It actually ended up costing $4.5 billion in the end.) "OK, really high cost," Levy recalled thinking to themself during a recent panel discussion at New York University on transit construction costs. "But this is how much it costs to build a subway, right?"