101–110 of 221 posts
There is a saying: it’s good to work on your weaknesses, but don’t dwell on them because otherwise you’ll spend all your time doing things you’re bad at. If we’re bad at centrally planned public infrastructure, we should just do less of it, and focus more on the things we’re good at doing.
In 1900 it took four years to lay nine miles of subway in NYC. The second ave tunnel was just a couple miles and under construction for 12 years.
That's just an example. It also took longer to build the new Eastern span of the Bay Bridge than it took to build the whole bridge.
I think we should start by figuring out why these things happen.
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…
China doesn't have to worry about liability and cover-your-ass costs, which are huge.
Everything in a Communist Party in power in any country in the world, at any time, has been about cover-your-ass stuff. At least policies, if not costs.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Don't kid yourself, there are people getting rich on those china projects.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
> 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. That seems unlikely, if this was in a single state, considering only about 35k people die each year on the roads in the entire country.
Is it possible that the 10-15k figure includes a different way of counting? Pedestrians and bikes etc? It would be good to see a source.
Before we make a report on how our costs differ from other G20 countries, how about a report on how our costs differ from ourselves 100 years ago. In 1900 it took four years to lay nine miles of subway in NYC. The second ave tunnel was just a couple miles and under construction for 12 years. That's just an example. It also took longer to build the new Eastern span of the Bay Bridge than it took to build the whole bri…
Compared to boring underground tunnels, you can imagine how much less involved it is to simply dig a hole from above.
I'm not sure why they don't do that anymore, though I can imagine it's some combination of where the new routes are (maybe they aren't following the street grid?) and higher impact of year-long closures of streets.
The NYP has a good article comparing the methods of construction then and now: https://www.nypl.org/blog/2015/05/04/subway-construction-the...
"why is American infrastructure so bad?" has been a topic I am curious about. The above article does not answer the question. I'd prefer not to care about American infrastructure costs. Unfortunately, I occasionally have to leave my house, and the consequences of bad infrastructure stare me in the face: people living in their cars, traffic jams. The best attempt to actually answer the question I've seen has been "Ped…
Let alone cost, one thing that boggles my mind is how slow infrastructure building is in the US. In our area, a multi-billion dollar freeway or subway line will often be constructed with 5 days of a single 8-hour shift. I get that certain work needs to be done at night, but surely the work sites shouldn't sit empty for 16 hours a day! Just think about the cost of equipment being rented, the overhead that is on salary…
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 a…
Here is another way to think about that story: DOT and their proven, reliable contractor had experience with a certain method of rehabbing the joints between concrete slabs. A new technique was tried, and the first few attempts were not done well. The new technique showed promise, but there was a concern that if the new technique failed, there would be consequences to the state for trying a new technique rather than…