Why American Construction Costs Are So High • Hacker News Board

Re: Why American Construction Costs Are So High

#91

Post by avinium » Tue, Mar 05, 2019, 9:50 PM UTC

MarkSweep wrote: post #74

The part about mezzanines struck me. BART has huge barren mezzanines. There is not one shop in the entire station. The other subways I've visited in the US (Boston, DC, NYC) also don't have any shops except in some of the largest like Grand Central or Penn station. Compare this with subways and train stations in Japan which often have shops in the mezzanines and sometimes at the platform. There are always at least ve…

> The part about mezzanines struck me. BART has huge barren mezzanines. There is not one shop in the entire station.

I found that odd about BART, too - initially I thought this was due to crime (BART seems pretty sketchy, and opening up a shop there would be an invitation to robbers and thieves), but then I realized "safer" metros don't have them either.

Re: Why American Construction Costs Are So High

#92

Post by rootusrootus » Tue, Mar 05, 2019, 9:51 PM UTC

jessaustin wrote: post #73

jimktrains2 wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"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 boug…

What are they putting in, a slaughterhouse? Maybe a brothel? What horrible business can't be accepted on "the main road"?

It doesn't matter. There is always some group of citizens who will protest any new building project.

Re: Why American Construction Costs Are So High

#93

Post by magissima » Tue, Mar 05, 2019, 9:52 PM UTC

Camillo wrote: post #35

conanbatt wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Well surely she didn't get any higher than that at least, right? /s

Re: Why American Construction Costs Are So High

#94

Post by watwut » Tue, Mar 05, 2019, 9:53 PM UTC

arthur_pryor wrote: post #79

jonawesomegreen wrote: post #11

News 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…

besides the inherent difficulty of estimating the resources required to finish a large project that hasn't been done before... i think what willie brown describes here is also part of the problem providing estimates for the time required to complete software projects: if we gave more honest answers as devs, bosses and people signing contracts would blanche, so instead of standing firm, we go lower, or cut corners, or…

In fixed priced contracts, that strategy makes employer loose money. Some projects truly should be be starter, because their price is indeed too high compared to benefits.

Re: Why American Construction Costs Are So High

#95

Post by arthur_pryor » Tue, Mar 05, 2019, 9:54 PM UTC

watwut wrote: post #94

arthur_pryor wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

besides the inherent difficulty of estimating the resources required to finish a large project that hasn't been done before... i think what willie brown describes here is also part of the problem providing estimates for the time required to complete software projects: if we gave more honest answers as devs, bosses and people signing contracts would blanche, so instead of standing firm, we go lower, or cut corners, or…

In fixed priced contracts, that strategy makes employer loose money. Some projects truly should be be starter, because their price is indeed too high compared to benefits.

yeah, and i'm absolutely not trying to justify this outcome, just trying to think out loud about the unsatisfactory state of things.

Re: Why American Construction Costs Are So High

#96

Post by strangemonad » Tue, Mar 05, 2019, 9:55 PM UTC

“That said, having spent the last nine years looking at topline costs and a few itemized breakdowns does let me reach some initial conclusions, ones that I believe are robust to new data.“

So... a hypothesis?

Re: Why American Construction Costs Are So High

#97

Post by extra88 » Tue, Mar 05, 2019, 10:04 PM UTC

rjkennedy98 wrote: post #54

objektif wrote: post #39

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…

I'm not going to defend all choices made by unions but do you think the U.S. is better off after the great decline in union membership?

Re: Why American Construction Costs Are So High

#98

Post by ghobs91 » Tue, Mar 05, 2019, 10:06 PM UTC

Those who blame it squarely on unions, explain how Europe has strong unions and yet construction there is orders of magnitude cheaper than in the US?

It's because there isn't a proper bidding process. Politicians just give sweetheart bloated contracts to the same contractors every time, and those contractors then "donate to their campaign". If they instead used things like sealed bids and had contractors compete against eachother, it wouldn't cost $1B per mile for NYC's 2nd avenue subway, absurd.

NY Governor Cuomo surprisingly called this out recently, describing it as a "transit industrial complex": https://nypost.com/2019/01/04/mta-officials-are-fuming-over-...

Re: Why American Construction Costs Are So High

#99

Post by ben_jones » Tue, Mar 05, 2019, 10:09 PM UTC

vinay427 wrote: post #33

alwaysdoit wrote: post #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 statio…

I'm actually curious: how do those businesses, particularly smaller ones, survive 18 months of highly impeded traffic?

Van Ness in SF has been torn up for years and multiple businesses have closed as a result while most manage to stay open. I think access to roads is less important in places like SF because parking is impossible anyways - people who were going to shop there are already walking.

Plus there's a minor surplus of business provided by the construction workers who have to stand around in groups of five for 7 hours a day in between lunch breaks...

Re: Why American Construction Costs Are So High

#100

Post by chii » Tue, Mar 05, 2019, 10:09 PM UTC

nck4222 wrote: post #41

jonawesomegreen wrote: post #11

News 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…

While I agree that the attitude shown in the quote is undesirable, I think it's more a symptom of the problem, not the underlying problem itself. He's essentially right. Infrastructure projects are constantly shot down because of cost concerns, yet we have crumbling infrastructure that needs to be replaced. If estimates became higher, approvals would decrease. One other piece I haven't seen mentioned yet: large const…

Why can't the cost of materials be hedged against rising?

Costs above initial estimates should only happen when there's an unknown (e.g, digging discovered a really hard rock layer that nobody knew about). Or weather issues beyond prediction (like tornadoes or hurricanes).