Why is this little construction crane illegal in New York City? (2016) • Hacker News Board

Re: Why is this little construction crane illegal in New York City? (2016)

#51

Post by turc1656 » Mon, Mar 27, 2017, 8:53 PM UTC

milesrout wrote: post #29

jakelarkin wrote: post #7

This is sort of like how when the waterless urinal was first commercialized, the plumbers union blocked it from getting approved in the general building code. Eventually a compromised was reached that involves requiring a plumber to draw an water line (unutilized) to every water-less install. Unions for skilled, high-pay jobs in highly regulated industries really extract a lot of questionable value from society.

That's an absurd generalisation. One thing like this happens every 20 years and people talk about it forever. But companies do shit like this constantly .

How is this an absurd generalization? This type of crap happens all the time. And people should absolutely talk about this stuff constantly because this kind of stuff shows the true colors of the union(s) and what they really stand for. And people need to be constantly reminded of that.

All of these unions that center around apprenticeship programs or requiring special training that is near-impossible to get without being part of the union is all just protectionist garbage. Its sole purpose is to control the supply of available labor for certain types of work.

Re: Why is this little construction crane illegal in New York City? (2016)

#52

Post by jessaustin » Mon, Mar 27, 2017, 8:53 PM UTC

RangerScience wrote: post #36

dmix wrote: post #32

Too bad they weren't as popular, well known, or well funded as Uber/Lyft to deal with this type of anti-progress nonsense. I've been meaning for a long time to start a site to track these events of businesses getting sidelined over regulatory hurdles - similar to those sites who track police shootings. Collecting data is the best way to bring light to prevalent but maligned issues like these. I get the impression the…

This sounds amazing! What's blocking you?

Oppressive regulations?

Re: Why is this little construction crane illegal in New York City? (2016)

#53

Post by Spooky23 » Mon, Mar 27, 2017, 8:54 PM UTC

jakelarkin wrote: post #7

This is sort of like how when the waterless urinal was first commercialized, the plumbers union blocked it from getting approved in the general building code. Eventually a compromised was reached that involves requiring a plumber to draw an water line (unutilized) to every water-less install. Unions for skilled, high-pay jobs in highly regulated industries really extract a lot of questionable value from society.

That's a great example of the positive impact of unions on society.

Those waterless urinals are a bullshit green thing used to suck up grant money -- sort of like the "big smelly" trash cans that appeared with Obamas stimulus program. Most often, if not usually, they are removed from service because they get disgusting unless you train your janitorial staff and keep good track of when maintenance is performed.

The pipes are there so when you decide to flush the waterless urinal, you can do so without engaging in some massive project.

Re: Why is this little construction crane illegal in New York City? (2016)

#54

Post by karlkatzke » Mon, Mar 27, 2017, 8:55 PM UTC

Question: Why didn't the guy just pack up the crane and take it elsewhere? The issues that make tower cranes unsafe and expensive aren't unique to New York City, and if Austin, TX was any indication, there has been a shortage of cranes due to construction activity worldwide.

Is there something about the economics or the licensing that makes this crane only work in New York City?

Re: Why is this little construction crane illegal in New York City? (2016)

#55

Post by Houshalter » Mon, Mar 27, 2017, 8:58 PM UTC

gnud wrote: post #47

Houshalter wrote: post #38

The first subway in New York City cost about $100 million per kilometer in 1900 (adjusted for inflation of course). The new subway line being opened this year cost $2.2 billion per kilometer. This is despite over a century of improvements in technology. Here's an interesting HN post, "Forty Percent of the Buildings in Manhattan Could Not Be Built Today" https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=11736696 In that article is…

And the answer, much as it was in ancient times: By exploiting workers - and often letting them die.

Europe and Korea still manage to build subways 10-20x cheaper than New York. As far as I know they don't have tons more worker deaths.

With all our modern technology, we should be able to achieve what our ancestors did. Even with our higher standards for safety.

Re: Why is this little construction crane illegal in New York City? (2016)

#56

Post by Spooky23 » Mon, Mar 27, 2017, 9:01 PM UTC

derefr wrote: post #28

tyingq wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We're often guilty of the same sort of thing in IT. I've seen IT leaders go on witch-hunts for areas of a business solving their own small issues with Ms Access, FileMaker, etc. Or developers complaining about simple crud apps and their support being outsourced overseas.

The Access/Filemaker thing is frequently an "actual" problem at the enterprise level, because in large-enough companies, the concern isn't just "does it get the job done" but also: • Is the data being backed up? Is that backup process actually correct (i.e. if the backing data-store is a file on a SAN, and we perform filesystem-level snapshots of that SAN, can all the data actually be restored from such a snapshot, o…

I've been in enterprise IT for a long time. These issues only exist because the governance/funding model is broken, and IT is incapable of delivering scaled down solutions at a reasonable price.

Then when the access app gets "important", IT uses it as a hostage for more funding, using the absurdly expensive cost model that they build.

Re: Why is this little construction crane illegal in New York City? (2016)

#57

Post by frgtpsswrdlame » Mon, Mar 27, 2017, 9:02 PM UTC

turc1656 wrote: post #51

milesrout wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's an absurd generalisation. One thing like this happens every 20 years and people talk about it forever. But companies do shit like this constantly .

How is this an absurd generalization? This type of crap happens all the time. And people should absolutely talk about this stuff constantly because this kind of stuff shows the true colors of the union(s) and what they really stand for. And people need to be constantly reminded of that. All of these unions that center around apprenticeship programs or requiring special training that is near-impossible to get without…

Of course! Unions are a way to balance the scales against corporations. Controlling the supply of labor is very important if you want the wages to be at all decent.

But the parent is right that anything questionable done by unions is labored over and repeated again and again and again and again while corporations (for the most part) don't face the same scrutiny.

Re: Why is this little construction crane illegal in New York City? (2016)

#58

Post by jameshart » Mon, Mar 27, 2017, 9:04 PM UTC

fr0sty wrote: post #50

I wonder whether the inventor would have better luck shipping his cranes to another state where the regulatory barriers would not be so steep. Lots of mid/high-rise buildings going up in places that are not NYC...

Seriously - the NYC-centricity of this article is astonishing. People need a basic lesson in logic - just because "if you can make it there you can make it anywhere," doesn't imply the reverse - if you can't make it in NYC you can always try somewhere else.

Re: Why is this little construction crane illegal in New York City? (2016)

#59

Post by distances » Mon, Mar 27, 2017, 9:09 PM UTC

Houshalter wrote: post #55

gnud wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the answer, much as it was in ancient times: By exploiting workers - and often letting them die.

Europe and Korea still manage to build subways 10-20x cheaper than New York. As far as I know they don't have tons more worker deaths. With all our modern technology, we should be able to achieve what our ancestors did. Even with our higher standards for safety.

Helsinki is currently building a metro expansion for $103 million per kilometer, at least if I got the numbers right. Of course the setting is very different in New York vs. outskirts of Helsinki, but yes, it's cheaper.

Re: Why is this little construction crane illegal in New York City? (2016)

#60

Post by cylinder » Mon, Mar 27, 2017, 9:11 PM UTC

fr0sty wrote: post #50

I wonder whether the inventor would have better luck shipping his cranes to another state where the regulatory barriers would not be so steep. Lots of mid/high-rise buildings going up in places that are not NYC...

I think the main advantage of this crane is that it is bolted to the building, therefore falls under the general insurance policy of the development, whereas tower cranes require a separate policy, which as the article states, are basically impossible to secure right now in NYC. It's interesting to see this article now, as I was just reading about the litigation following the crane collapse at One57 which involved a dispute with the insurer over whether it should be covered by the general insurance policy.

If your crane can be deemed a part of the structure itself, you save millions in insurance costs.

Insurance costs for tower cranes are insane in NYC due to the risks - there were big payouts after a few collapses which killed people. As there are not that many tower cranes in NYC to begin with, this risk pool is not very large.