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The U.S. Gets Less Subway for Its Money Than Its Peers

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Re: The U.S. Gets Less Subway for Its Money Than Its Peers

#31

Post by bsder »

Hasz wrote: post #6

NYT has a great writeup on the East Side Access tunnel. In short, the costs work out to 3.5bn/mile (!), there's ~200 "ghost" workers, and the usual spot of corruption and favoritism. It's a mess, and the MTA is deferring regular maintenance to pay for it. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-...

Agenda much? Is anybody in this thread doing basic math?

200 ghost workers at $100K per year (probably a bit high, thanks) is $20 million per year.

Um, so much for that causing the cost overrun.

Project management is generally the failure. And, generally, it starts with the asinine "low bid" rules.

Everyone successful at dealing with the government knows that you bid as low as possible to get the contract and then you charge them a fortune on the back end.

Edit: Okay, even if I BELIEVE the $1,000 per day (and I don't) that's $300K per year and is still only $60 million.

Edit2: I have read and searched the original article several times and cannot find that $1,000 number anywhere.

Edit3: Oh, it's in an article linked in the comment. And the linked article says that they laid off those contractors once they found them. Project management and oversight failure--again.

Re: The U.S. Gets Less Subway for Its Money Than Its Peers

#33

Post by nostromo »

bsder wrote: post #31
Hasz wrote: post #6

NYT has a great writeup on the East Side Access tunnel. In short, the costs work out to 3.5bn/mile (!), there's ~200 "ghost" workers, and the usual spot of corruption and favoritism. It's a mess, and the MTA is deferring regular maintenance to pay for it. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-...

Agenda much? Is anybody in this thread doing basic math? 200 ghost workers at $100K per year (probably a bit high, thanks) is $20 million per year. Um, so much for that causing the cost overrun. Project management is generally the failure. And, generally, it starts with the asinine "low bid" rules. Everyone successful at dealing with the government knows that you bid as low as possible to get the contract and then yo…

$100k isn’t a high estimate at all. The article says they were costing $1k a day.

> All we knew is they were each being paid about $1,000 every day.

Re: The U.S. Gets Less Subway for Its Money Than Its Peers

#34

Post by jonknee »

bsder wrote: post #31
Hasz wrote: post #6

NYT has a great writeup on the East Side Access tunnel. In short, the costs work out to 3.5bn/mile (!), there's ~200 "ghost" workers, and the usual spot of corruption and favoritism. It's a mess, and the MTA is deferring regular maintenance to pay for it. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-...

Agenda much? Is anybody in this thread doing basic math? 200 ghost workers at $100K per year (probably a bit high, thanks) is $20 million per year. Um, so much for that causing the cost overrun. Project management is generally the failure. And, generally, it starts with the asinine "low bid" rules. Everyone successful at dealing with the government knows that you bid as low as possible to get the contract and then yo…

> Agenda much? Is anybody in this thread doing basic math? 200 ghost workers at $100K per year (probably a bit high, thanks) is $20 million per year.

Did you bother to read the article? Right at the start it says these 200 workers "were each being paid about $1,000 every day".

Re: The U.S. Gets Less Subway for Its Money Than Its Peers

#35

Post by bsder »

dsfyu404ed wrote: post #2

TL;DR unions, shady contractors and expensive project requirements in no particular order. Edit: Was this not an accurate summary of the key issues mentioned?

Um, the article in no way supports the first two as the primary problem.

And, I would also like to point out that the cost per mile drops dramatically as the NUMBER OF MILES goes up.

Note that most of the foreign projects mentioned are 3+ miles. And note that even the US projects which are longer magically cost less.

So, perhaps the issues are:

1) a mayfly has an attention span longer than the average US voter and so getting projects approved and committed to for long durations borders on impossible

2) most contractors understand that their funding could be pulled at any time due to the vicissitudes of said mayflys, so they book as much revenue as possible and do as little work as they can until the pressure becomes overwhelming and the voting public is actually COMMITTED to funding and completing the project

Re: The U.S. Gets Less Subway for Its Money Than Its Peers

#36

Post by rebuilder »

wahern wrote: post #26
rebuilder wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm reading these articles and wondering: why do these unions have rules for e.g. the number of workers that must be posted to a specific task? Safety? It seems like a tremendously inflexible way to go about it. I'm genuinely curious btw. I wouldn't be surprised to hear it's a counterreaction to historically irresponsible employers, for example, but I do wonder about the rationale behind U.S. union rules as reported.

I can't find it ATM, but recently there was a good article that linked this phenomenon to the disappearance of unions. As unions disappear in the private sector they become increasingly dependent on the public sector to employ their laborers. Because union members vote and because unions so visiblly represent the working-class, in many cities the best way to be pro labor is to support union labor. In areas were union…

Thank you. This was exactly the kind of I-never-would-have-looked-at-it-that-way answer I was looking for.

Re: The U.S. Gets Less Subway for Its Money Than Its Peers

#37

Post by jessedhillon »

heurist wrote: post #4

The US seems to get less of everything for its money than its peers. Geographic spread is a major macro factor, but you'd still think that a supposedly efficient capitalistic market would at least handle local services better.

I'm not buying or selling here, but you need to draw the distinction between a system designed to optimize extremes, and one that optimizes the median. If you don't, then you're basically comparing minimum wage to average housing prices, i.e. incomparables. It's up to you to argue which is the better one to optimize, but if you just assume that everyone is on board with median maximization, you're going to be talking past a lot of people.

Re: The U.S. Gets Less Subway for Its Money Than Its Peers

#38

Post by rco8786 »

jonknee wrote: post #34
bsder wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agenda much? Is anybody in this thread doing basic math? 200 ghost workers at $100K per year (probably a bit high, thanks) is $20 million per year. Um, so much for that causing the cost overrun. Project management is generally the failure. And, generally, it starts with the asinine "low bid" rules. Everyone successful at dealing with the government knows that you bid as low as possible to get the contract and then yo…

> Agenda much? Is anybody in this thread doing basic math? 200 ghost workers at $100K per year (probably a bit high, thanks) is $20 million per year. Did you bother to read the article? Right at the start it says these 200 workers "were each being paid about $1,000 every day".

That's still only $73mil/year. A small fraction of the billions.

Re: The U.S. Gets Less Subway for Its Money Than Its Peers

#39

Post by ucaetano »

The US probably has the best, most efficient private sector of any developed country.

And the worst, most inefficient public sector of any developed country.

It chooses to prioritize the private sector over the public sector. Other countries choose otherwise. Each model has its advantages and disadvantages.

This (efficiency of building public transit) is the outcome of the US model.

Re: The U.S. Gets Less Subway for Its Money Than Its Peers

#40

Post by rco8786 »

purplezooey wrote: post #32

Please don't compare activities in the private market to public infrastructure. They serve different purposes and the latter is there for the good of humanity, not to make a profit, be innovative or be disruptive.

There's plenty of things that public infra does that are innovate and disruptive.

Would switching to single payer not be disruptive to the entire insurance industry?

How much innovation has come out of military research?

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