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Why American Construction Costs Are So High

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Re: Why American Construction Costs Are So High

#101

Post by wwweston »

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…

One factor in play is that many people only have experience with household-scale budgets. An intuition about what "millions" (let alone "billions") actually represents in terms of economic power is hazy at best. Business scale budgets sound extravagant; metropolis-scale or state-scale budgets are mind-boggling.

How does such a person know what's "too much"? Absent a reasonable working model of costs involved in infrastructure projects, it's all going to sound like too much.

And past a certain point on a spectrum of temperamental tendency to attribute laziness or wastefulness to other people, the working assumption is going to be it's boondoggles all the way down.

The only way to fix this -- if it can be fixed -- is reinforcing narratives about the value of projects and measured collective values.

Re: Why American Construction Costs Are So High

#102

Post by drpgq »

Interesting about the stations. My Ontario city is close to starting an LRT system and the station costs for just those seem kind of high.

We recently added a new station for the GO regional railway transit system that currently has two trains a day and I think it was something like $50 million Canadian. I can understand needing an elevator for disability, but it could have started as something simple besides that.

Re: Why American Construction Costs Are So High

#103

Post by jessaustin »

rootusrootus wrote: post #92
jessaustin wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Sure. 'jimktrains2 indicated above that he is among that group. I had hoped he would take the opportunity to attempt to justify that political preference.

Re: Why American Construction Costs Are So High

#104

Post by derekdahmer »

danp wrote: post #72
vinay427 wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

As an example, the Los Angeles Metro actually has a "Business Interruption Fund" that they use to help small businesses in areas impacted by street-level construction (like subway station construction sites). https://www.metro.net/projects/business-interruption-fund/

This seems like the best of both worlds. The millions in savings for using more invasive construction methods should offset the $60,000 per business they are paying.

Re: Why American Construction Costs Are So High

#105

Post by chii »

yardie wrote: post #36
turbinerneiter wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Free speech only pertains to citizens when the govt is trying to shut it down.

News outlets calling themselves unbiased is not invoking free speech at all. Anyone can declare themselves anything - it's called lying.

Re: Why American Construction Costs Are So High

#106

Post by vonmoltke »

chii wrote: post #100
nck4222 wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

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

How, other than by buying everything you need up-front, finding a place to store it until you need it, and hoping that it is still usable when you do?

Re: Why American Construction Costs Are So High

#108

Post by derekdahmer »

avinium wrote: post #91
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.

In fact the safest thing you can do for a public area is have small businesses lining it. See Jane Jacobs' "eyes on the street".

Re: Why American Construction Costs Are So High

#109

Post by andymcsherry »

vonmoltke wrote: post #106
chii wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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).

> Why can't the cost of materials be hedged against rising? How, other than by buying everything you need up-front, finding a place to store it until you need it, and hoping that it is still usable when you do?

You can buy futures on basically any commodity to hedge against price fluctuations.

Re: Why American Construction Costs Are So High

#110

Post by knodi123 »

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?

back in college, my favorite chinese joint just two blocks from campus went out of business because their street was torn up, and then permit issues followed by bad weather meant no one could drive or park at the restaurant for something like 6 weeks.

starting a restaurant is risky enough, forgoing a month and a half of profit while staying open is just a disaster. I had a crush on one of the waitresses, and she told me she had gotten close to the family that owned and operated the place and they were heartbroken, furious but powerless.

Progress!

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