111–120 of 164 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
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…
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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 also stand at the far left of political spectrum and in my experience labor unions completely abuse their positions. I think it is way past time to find another way to provide decent wages to workers.
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I must be a bit dense today, what irony?
I assume he's referring to platform lock-in ala Microsoft Office, AWS, Oracle, or Apple's walled garden driving future decisions. So the first software decision is a down payment until your technical debt hole is so big you can't do anything but throw money down it.
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.
Agreed, though I was surprised it didn't point to a cause, which I might identify as American Exceptionalism. No need to be curious about how other countries do things when you're operating under a mythology that your country is the best.
As an outsider it appears to me that this "we're the best in the world!"/"our unique freedoms" propaganda is drummed into people from a young age without anyone ever questioning it. Its no wonder there is this pervasive "what could we ever learn from them? We're the best." mentality.
The other common excuse is size. "Oh no, we can't have trains like that! We just such a big state that won't work here!" Japan is roughly the size of California. EU is roughly 10x the size of California. Both are criss-crossed by high-speed rail.
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I hope the irony of this topic being discussed on a (mostly) software-related forum isn’t lost on anyone.
It is lost on me. What do high construction costs have to do with HN?
It's like having a post about how ecologically unfriendly the fast food industry is on Exxon's website.
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…
The Big Dig in Boston was originally estimated to cost $8 billion. People were upset about this. There were multiple problems along the way. It ultimately ended up costing $22 billion. People were also upset about this. At the end of the day? It was an awesome project. They completely buried a highway that cut through the city, and added a ton of green space downtown (The Greenway). The city is better for it. Taxpaye…
That's not the problem people complained about though -- the project's eventual quality/utility.
The problem people complained about is the cost of the project -- and especially for overpaying for something that could be done for less.
And that (overpaying) is a big problem for several reasons:
1) The money could go to other projects to better the city.
2) The money could be spend on future maintenance of the Big Dig itself.
3) The past history of such costly projects (fat margins and corruption-driven extras) nips the public appeal and political will to build new infrastructure in the bud.
If the Big Dig could be had at 4B, or 8B as promised, or, heck, even 10-15, and ended up costing $22 billion, that's a huge problem -- regardless if it was cool once completed.
Especially if the completed project is only $8B cool, and not $22B cool, and the extra money went not in improving it, but in delays, corruption, and other BS.
Otherwise what you're saying is:
"If a project can be built the same for N, it doesn't matter if we pay 2xN or 3xN due to over-charging/corruption, as long as the project is useful".
As if the extra money don't come with lost project opportunities of their own...
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Transbay was financed via the TJPA by auctioning off the rights to build very tall buildings near it. It wasn’t financed by sales taxes.
The fungibility of money pulls yet another trick. Every single tax dollar can be raised to relieve poor sick children of their ailments.
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The fungibility of money pulls yet another trick. Every single tax dollar can be raised to relieve poor sick children of their ailments.
It's not fungible if people are bidding up that land because they expect it to be worth more thanks to the station you'll be building there . Unless of course you are advocating scamming people by claiming you'll build it while already having privately decided not to do so.
In both situations, the person on the street is stuck with a broken station and paying an extra dollar for coffee everyday.