Funny that the article doesn't once mention unions as a factor that drives up cost. It's almost as if attacks on unions for making public works slow and expensive are disingenuous.
[deleted]
Why American Construction Costs Are So High
31–40 of 164 posts
Re: Why American Construction Costs Are So High
#32> In Paris, as well as Athens, Madrid, Mexico City, Caracas, Santiago, Copenhagen, Budapest, and I imagine other cities for which I can’t find this information, metro stations are built cut-and-cover... There is extensive street disruption, for about 18 months in the case of Paris, but the merchants and residents get a subway station at the end of the works.
The cost of using a more expensive method ($750M per station vs $110) of building in order to prevent disruption to car traffic is almost always attributed to the cost of public transportation. But it seems to me like it at least partially should be considered a cost of maintaining car infrastructure.
Re: Why American Construction Costs Are So High
#33> In Paris, as well as Athens, Madrid, Mexico City, Caracas, Santiago, Copenhagen, Budapest, and I imagine other cities for which I can’t find this information, metro stations are built cut-and-cover... There is extensive street disruption, for about 18 months in the case of Paris, but the merchants and residents get a subway station at the end of the works. The cost of using a more expensive method ($750M per statio…
I'm actually curious: how do those businesses, particularly smaller ones, survive 18 months of highly impeded traffic?
Re: Why American Construction Costs Are So High
#34[deleted]
Re: Why American Construction Costs Are So High
#35News that the Transbay Terminal is something like $300 million over budget should not come as a shock to anyone. We always knew the initial estimate was way under the real cost. Just like we never had a real cost for the Central Subway or the Bay Bridge or any other massive construction project. So get off it. In the world of civic projects, the first budget is really just a down payment. If people knew the real cost…
Thats purely corruption. I always explain to my argentinian friends, used to the petty corruption of putting friends and family in public positions, that the us does corruption at a much bigger scale: at the legal one. The transbay terminal is one of the biggest rip-offs ever. It cost the revenue of sales taxes of the city for years. And it doesn't even work, while the "transient" station that must have cost almost n…
> Thats purely corruption. I always explain to my argentinian friends, used to the petty corruption of putting friends and family in public positions, that the us does corruption at a much bigger scale: at the legal one.
Oh, Willie Brown did that too. He appointed his lover to two state commissions (he was the speaker of the California Assembly at the time), then helped her become district attorney in San Francisco.
Re: Why American Construction Costs Are So High
#36Earlier quoted context omitted.
While union can be a factor compared with Asian countries, aren't our costs higher than European countries that have stricter labor laws ?
Granted, I only know Horror-Stories about US-Unions, but it seems that the Europeans are much ... saner. With some hyperbole, I once read this story about how for a simple job someone had to get three different unionized workers, because each one only can do certain work. At our company we are currently building an automated machine to do quality control on a manufacturing line - we had to deliberately design it in a…
They're saner by the fact that their media speech laws only extend so far. The US, you can call yourself unbiased news, lie on-air, and then if confronted on it just declare it free speech. There, inventing or grossly embellishing stories will get you sued and fined.
Re: Why American Construction Costs Are So High
#37Ok, this is worth reading for the section on “Incuriosity” alone. It’s worth quoting in its entirety but too long to paste here, so I’ll just say if you do nothing else, click through to the article and read that section.
That part stood out to me, too. It's a phenomenon I've been noticing for a long time when talking to Americans (even here on HN), but I think this is the first time I've seen an American recognize it.
Re: Why American Construction Costs Are So High
#38One of my first jobs in IT was for a big general contractor. We built schools, hotels, restaurants, you name it. Whenever we had a government project, like a building for the county, a jail, new secretary of state/dmv office...we went way over budget and way over schedule. EVERY. SINGLE. TIME. We'd have a 'groundbreaking ceremony' and then not be able to actually dig at the site for 12 more days because permits got t…
"the government" is more a loose confederation of public agencies. They're not a monolith that has the ability to know everything about everything, especially at the local and county levels. I don't know the specifics of that case, but last minute citizen protests or protests that weren't able to be resolved quickly enough are another issue.
It's also not like this doesn't happen in the private sector. A company bough some land on the main road where I am, razed the building, graded, and then stopped for almost 2 years now because the board won't change the zoning for them. (Which is the right decision imho.)
Re: Why American Construction Costs Are So High
#39NYC MTA is a great example of why. We need to put blame on all parties involved politicians, corporations and labor unions. Anyone who unconditionally defends labor is naive at best. NYT reports:
“Trade unions, which have closely aligned themselves with Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo and other politicians, have secured deals requiring underground construction work to be staffed by as many as four times more laborers than elsewhere in the world, documents show.”
Source: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-...
Re: Why American Construction Costs Are So High
#40> In Paris, as well as Athens, Madrid, Mexico City, Caracas, Santiago, Copenhagen, Budapest, and I imagine other cities for which I can’t find this information, metro stations are built cut-and-cover... There is extensive street disruption, for about 18 months in the case of Paris, but the merchants and residents get a subway station at the end of the works. The cost of using a more expensive method ($750M per statio…
I'm actually curious: how do those businesses, particularly smaller ones, survive 18 months of highly impeded traffic?
If parent poster's numbers are even in the right ballpark, we could just directly subsidize the small businesses that are disrupted and still come out money ahead.