Why We Can’t Figure Out Why Infrastructure Is So Expensive • Hacker News Board

Re: Why We Can’t Figure Out Why Infrastructure Is So Expensive

#31

Post by jonahhorowitz » Wed, Jul 24, 2019, 7:00 PM UTC

reallydude wrote: post #7

chimeracoder wrote: post #2

Kind of weird to use a picture of the East Side Access project in New York as the lede. New York is a whole different case from the rest of the country. We do know why infrastructure in New York is so absurdly expensive. Outright theft and fraud is a big culprit: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-... > The budget showed that 900 workers were being paid to dig caverns for the platforms as par…

The California High Speed Rail was also corruption. It's all over everywhere, because nobody is accountable for it, except the people over-charging, while simultaneously pointing out that they are taking all the liability when things go wrong (and someone actually tries to prosecute).

From my conversations with people who worked on HSR - a lot of the problem was we outsourced the decisions to expensive consulting agencies, and those agencies saw the project as a place to stash their most useless staff members.

So basically we had a bunch of very expensive idiots running an outsourced project.

If they had kept the whole project in house, we'd have the initial operating segment already.

See also, CEQA is a terrible law that mostly blocks good things and rarely blocks bad things.

Re: Why We Can’t Figure Out Why Infrastructure Is So Expensive

#32

Post by [deleted] » Wed, Jul 24, 2019, 7:01 PM UTC

ambicapter wrote: post #17

> The usual way you produce journalism or policy research on a technical question like this is that you hire someone with expertise in journalism or public policy to produce a report. That person calls up relevant experts and asks them to talk, for free, about their areas of expertise. This is one of the great perks of my job: I call up lawyers and other professionals who ordinarily charge hundreds of dollars an hour…

[deleted]

Re: Why We Can’t Figure Out Why Infrastructure Is So Expensive

#33

Post by goodcanadian » Wed, Jul 24, 2019, 7:01 PM UTC

topkai22 wrote: post #30

lotsofpulp wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

China doesn't have to worry about liability and cover-your-ass costs, which are huge.

Also presumably land acquisition/NIMBYism is easier to deal with.

Labour costs are much lower . . .

Re: Why We Can’t Figure Out Why Infrastructure Is So Expensive

#34

Post by smogcutter » Wed, Jul 24, 2019, 7:02 PM UTC

chimeracoder wrote: post #9

the_duke wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would that be different from everywhere else though? Infrastructure projects are always a prime danger for corruption. (large sums of money with customers that aren't under financial pressures like a company, actual or effective cost-plus contracts, chance for politicians to get "lobbied" and make lasting connections, ...) I think it's the same everywhere in the world, with varying degrees of dubiousness.

> Why would that be different from everywhere else though? Corruption in New York is a whole different animal than any other state. New York has, hands down, the most corrupt state government in the country.[0] As just one example, the governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, openly orchestrated an illegal[1] coup to ensure that Republicans maintained control of the state senate, despite losing control in the…

Re "ski resorts", sure, the money shouldn't have come from the MTA, and it's another example of Albany bleeding the city. But Whiteface is (1) state owned, and (2) absolutely critical to the economy in the north country. Cuomo's a shit, but when you say ski resorts like that it's going to mislead people who don't know the region. We're not talking about Snowbird here.

Re: Why We Can’t Figure Out Why Infrastructure Is So Expensive

#35

Post by sremani » Wed, Jul 24, 2019, 7:02 PM UTC

BurningFrog wrote: post #23

xt00 wrote: post #12

A couple of facts that should at least provide a baseline for costs (like the best case scenario): Shenzhen metro: 198 stations, about 180 miles of track (soon to be more like 250 miles), majority of it built in past 10-12 years. All I can find so far on cost is the phase iii cost which says it will cost about 20 billion. Phase I was quite small. So maybe they have spent about 30 billion to get almost 200 miles of ra…

In China the purpose of infrastructure projects is to get infrastructure. In the US the purpose of infrastructure projects is to enrich everyone associated with the project.

No China infrastructure project is laden with just different kind of political strings. In US the system has to impress up on voters, unions, donors etc. In China the hogs at the trough are just different.

Re: Why We Can’t Figure Out Why Infrastructure Is So Expensive

#36

Post by tomohawk » Wed, Jul 24, 2019, 7:03 PM UTC

A family member in the DOT told me this as but one of many tales of woe.

Several hundred miles of an interstate were going to be rehabbed. There was a proven technique to redo the joints between the concrete slabs, which were in good shape. A contractor was hired to do a small number of miles as a test, but they had a learning curve. The first few joints that they redid were not done well, but they rapidly improved and the approach looked really good.

However, the state selected a different approach which required tearing up the road and redoing it. The excuse was those first few bad joints. There was also the unstated matter that the contractor favored by the state did not know how to do this technique.

The result was billions of wasted money to redo the road with an inferior material. That material failed within a few years, and they now need to redo it again.

And this is not just a cost issue. Its estimated that failure to adhere to known safer pavement designs is resulting in 10,000 - 15,000 unnecessary deaths a year.

Re: Why We Can’t Figure Out Why Infrastructure Is So Expensive

#37

Post by jandrese » Wed, Jul 24, 2019, 7:03 PM UTC

bluedino wrote: post #11

chimeracoder wrote: post #2

Kind of weird to use a picture of the East Side Access project in New York as the lede. New York is a whole different case from the rest of the country. We do know why infrastructure in New York is so absurdly expensive. Outright theft and fraud is a big culprit: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-... > The budget showed that 900 workers were being paid to dig caverns for the platforms as par…

>> “All we knew is they were each being paid about $1,000 every day.” Assuming a 5-day work week, $270,000 a year is a crazy amount, isn’t it?

Multiply by 200 people and that's $5.4 million out the door every year.

Re: Why We Can’t Figure Out Why Infrastructure Is So Expensive

#38

Post by chimeracoder » Wed, Jul 24, 2019, 7:03 PM UTC

smogcutter wrote: post #34

chimeracoder wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Why would that be different from everywhere else though? Corruption in New York is a whole different animal than any other state. New York has, hands down, the most corrupt state government in the country.[0] As just one example, the governor of New York, Andrew Cuomo, a Democrat, openly orchestrated an illegal[1] coup to ensure that Republicans maintained control of the state senate, despite losing control in the…

Re "ski resorts", sure, the money shouldn't have come from the MTA, and it's another example of Albany bleeding the city. But Whiteface is (1) state owned, and (2) absolutely critical to the economy in the north country. Cuomo's a shit, but when you say ski resorts like that it's going to mislead people who don't know the region. We're not talking about Snowbird here.

> But Whiteface is (1) state owned, and (2) absolutely critical to the economy in the north country. Cuomo's a shit, but when you say ski resorts like that it's going to mislead people who don't know the region. We're not talking about Snowbird here.

It is not at all misleading to say that Cuomo made a unilateral decision to siphon funds that had already been earmarked for public transit towards a non-transit project that he had personal interests in.

Re: Why We Can’t Figure Out Why Infrastructure Is So Expensive

#39

Post by xt00 » Wed, Jul 24, 2019, 7:04 PM UTC

xt00 wrote: post #12

A couple of facts that should at least provide a baseline for costs (like the best case scenario): Shenzhen metro: 198 stations, about 180 miles of track (soon to be more like 250 miles), majority of it built in past 10-12 years. All I can find so far on cost is the phase iii cost which says it will cost about 20 billion. Phase I was quite small. So maybe they have spent about 30 billion to get almost 200 miles of ra…

With all the bright minds on hacker news i honestly think we could make this report ourselves.. I wonder if there are good sources for this info?

The trend for more people moving to cities would seem that everything is moving in the direction of making infrastructure projects at least in cities more reasonable for every passing year. So seems like a worthwhile effort.

Re: Why We Can’t Figure Out Why Infrastructure Is So Expensive

#40

Post by mullen » Wed, Jul 24, 2019, 7:05 PM UTC

reallydude wrote: post #7

chimeracoder wrote: post #2

Kind of weird to use a picture of the East Side Access project in New York as the lede. New York is a whole different case from the rest of the country. We do know why infrastructure in New York is so absurdly expensive. Outright theft and fraud is a big culprit: https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-... > The budget showed that 900 workers were being paid to dig caverns for the platforms as par…

The California High Speed Rail was also corruption. It's all over everywhere, because nobody is accountable for it, except the people over-charging, while simultaneously pointing out that they are taking all the liability when things go wrong (and someone actually tries to prosecute).

Do you have any evidence of this? Building HSR is expensive and takes a long time to do. Tracks and other infrastructure for HSR has to be a much higher standard than regular train infrastructure.