51–60 of 164 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
I hope the irony of this topic being discussed on a (mostly) software-related forum isn’t lost on anyone.
I must be a bit dense today, what irony?
Regarding point 9 about the inability to look outside North America. I always wondered why it seems transit agencies haven't looked to bring in teams of people who have managed/built successful projects in Europe, Asia, or even closer like Mexico City. California HSR for example went to solicit bids from foreign operators and selected Deutsche Bahn/German Railways. But AFAIK the initial design work/RFP/proposals were…
Orders of magnitude smaller in scale but in my observations, even things like urban sidewalk, sewer and road construction seem to be conducted entirely differently in Germany, for example, vs North America.
Is the difference in construction specs? Formal vocational education of trades and apprenticeships vs the US? I don't know, but the final products seem to be much higher quality than public projects in the US and I doubt they're spending multiples more.
Ok, 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.
NYC 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 elsew…
A huge reason the US doesn't have universal healthcare is Labor Unions who preferred that they got good healthcare benefits from their work.
A huge reason we have major infrastructure problems in the US is because of the absurd cost of labor. Nothing gets built in most big cities unless Labor Unions are involved and they rip everyone off. This makes public transit unworkable, cities unlivable and unaffordable, ect.
Regarding point 9 about the inability to look outside North America. I always wondered why it seems transit agencies haven't looked to bring in teams of people who have managed/built successful projects in Europe, Asia, or even closer like Mexico City. California HSR for example went to solicit bids from foreign operators and selected Deutsche Bahn/German Railways. But AFAIK the initial design work/RFP/proposals were…
Replying to myself to add- I wonder if it extends down to the construction itself (not that a project would hire the workers abroad, but maybe mixing up supervisors/foreman/leads or sending them for training). Orders of magnitude smaller in scale but in my observations, even things like urban sidewalk, sewer and road construction seem to be conducted entirely differently in Germany, for example, vs North America. Is…
In many places in the US, these smaller infrastructure projects are done by city crews, not contractors. These crews employ friends and friends of friends hired by political managers, not people who know what they are doing. Where I live for example, the quality of any street paving done by the city vs. done by a private contractor is markedly inferior.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Indeed, the author even wrote another article explicitly refuting the anti-union argument. https://pedestrianobservations.com/2019/01/08/meme-weeding-u...
That post has a few problems: - His line about the DART Orange Line is mixing three different projects (the actual Orange Line, the Trinity River Expressway, and the Dulles (VA) Metro extension) - He is mixing actual project costs with projected costs, as if the comparison is equivalent - The biggest problem, though, is that he is using "Right to Work" to mean "no unions", which is ridiculous. He even doubled down on…
NYC 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 elsew…
I am certainly of the left, but Labor Unions have been a huge contributor to so many problems in the United States. I'm not against people getting a living wage, ect but Labor Unions have always been about getting "theirs". A huge reason the US doesn't have universal healthcare is Labor Unions who preferred that they got good healthcare benefits from their work. A huge reason we have major infrastructure problems in…
The point about the size of the stations is very obvious in Chicago. Most of the stations were built 100 years ago, and are roughly the same size. A handful of stations have been rebuilt--at great cost. At some of the older stations, you can't barely walk 2 people side by side on the platform without feeling like you're about to fall on to the tracks. The new stations by comparison are 4 times as wide and have gigant…
(They should have thrown in another billion to rebuild the Sheridan stop. Now that's a narrow platform.)
> 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?
I had no problem walking into shops at metro station construction sites in Copenhagen or Budapest.
> 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?