It's not that we have forgotten. It's the fact that regulation, time to get approval, and other red tape make the timeline longer. Gone are the days when things just get done.
The US has forgotten how to do infrastructure
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Re: The US has forgotten how to do infrastructure
#22It costs extra because CORRUPTION. They're skimming off the top at every level, and that's why they can't let anyone investigate.
Ironically, the pinnacle of corruption was the way Congress swapped district-specific funding ("earmarks") in lieu of outright cash/votes swaps on non-transportation legislation. The "bridge to nowhere" system got burned in 2005 and long-term surface transportation funding has been a wreck ever since. Congress hasn't done much worthwhile since, either.
Otherwise, a lot of the "corruption" is just federal contracting hoops and hurdles--again, in place, theoretically, to limit corruption. More irony: Republicans are, essentially, arguing that old-fashioned cronyism is more efficient and cost-effective. Last laugh: It might be.
Re: The US has forgotten how to do infrastructure
#23I have been wondering lately if we have become so dependent on certain sectors of the US economy (housing, infrastructure, healthcare, education) that risk aversion is suffocating innovation. No one wants to send their kid to an unproven, experimental university. No city wants to beta test a new style of road building. No patient wants to be the first to try a new treatment. We are so dependent on these things that t…
Do you really think France and Japan, two of the countries cited here, are less risk averse?
Re: The US has forgotten how to do infrastructure
#24Do these construction costs inefficiencies also appear in construction projects that are privately funded? Or is it just publicly funded projects?
Re: The US has forgotten how to do infrastructure
#25Bureaucrats, allied with progressives and public sector unions, work vigorously to make government as expensive and inefficient as possible. In the United States, they are succeeding very well.
Party over country... just progressives huh?
I seem to recall it being mainly republicans slashing budgets of various things they don't like (Welfare, the VA, Social Security, the IRS) and then shortly afterwards complaining about how ineffective those things are (failing to mention the budget cuts imposed) and how they should just be eliminated altogether.
Re: The US has forgotten how to do infrastructure
#26It seems to me like the biggest things that have changed are the safety regulations on the construction process itself and the finished product. The golden gate bridge was built in a few years, but with a few worker deaths. Building a new bridge like the golden gate today would likely be illegal, and take ~25 years.
Re: The US has forgotten how to do infrastructure
#27I have been wondering lately if we have become so dependent on certain sectors of the US economy (housing, infrastructure, healthcare, education) that risk aversion is suffocating innovation. No one wants to send their kid to an unproven, experimental university. No city wants to beta test a new style of road building. No patient wants to be the first to try a new treatment. We are so dependent on these things that t…
People are so incredibly willing to try unproven experimental universities and medical treatments that people getting scammed over fake ones is actually a fairly large problem. I'm not sure where you got the idea that no one is going to Trump University or University of Phoenix and that no one is trying alternative medicine or pushing right to try bills across the country.
Re: The US has forgotten how to do infrastructure
#28It's not that we have forgotten. It's the fact that regulation, time to get approval, and other red tape make the timeline longer. Gone are the days when things just get done.
But, from what the article was pointing out we're comparing place like france and japan which have as many if not more regulations.
Re: The US has forgotten how to do infrastructure
#29That suggests that U.S. costs are high due to general inefficiency [...] Americans have simply ponied up more and more cash over the years while ignoring the fact that they were getting less and less for their money. There's a general effect in political systems, that if a law takes $20 from 1,000,000 people and gives $100,000 to 200 people, the people who lose money won't have enough incentive to put up a big fight;…
Milton Friedman: "The beneficiaries are concentrated, and the payers are diffused"
Re: The US has forgotten how to do infrastructure
#30Durability. Its one thing to quickly and cheaply add infrastructure, and I've traveled the world to places where this is accomplished at a dizzying pace. Its another thing altogether to engineer and build projects that can endure over time and in the face of natural and unnatural disaster.
Yes, the US is overdue for infrastructure investment. Yes, its costly and unproductive Federal and State entitlement obligations compete for these dollars. But the expense of building infrastructure in the US is justified by the longevity of its engineering and build quality. This is not the case globally.