Why Are Canadian Construction Costs So High? (2018) • Hacker News Board

Re: Why Are Canadian Construction Costs So High? (2018)

#91

Post by nkrisc » Mon, Nov 25, 2019, 3:30 PM UTC

quaquaqua1 wrote: post #89

rbavocadotree wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Toronto is a larger city than Chicago, and has more construction. We hold international conferences.

Additionally, who in their right mind wants to go to Chicago for literally any reason? Source: I am an American who has visited Chicago 3 times and hated it more and more each time due to prices, crime, horrible weather, and extreme lack of anything to do

Funny. I grew up in the city and lived there for most of my adult life and never had any issues with any of those things.

Source: someone's who's spent more time in Chicago than someone's who's visited a handful of times.

Re: Why Are Canadian Construction Costs So High? (2018)

#92

Post by jacobush » Mon, Nov 25, 2019, 3:32 PM UTC

KptMarchewa wrote: post #69

chopin wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taking lowest cost bid isn't always optimal. In Germany it is required to take the lowest cost bid which leads to all kinds of failed projects as the winning bid can't hold its bid. As well, life-time of things built this way have become awfully short.

It's not "lowest cost bid" but "lowest cost bid that meets all the requirements". The point is that requirements have to be well specified.

It can be very adversarial very quickly. Whichever way you turn, the public servants need to be very competent, either to direct the project themselves or to specify it very well. There's no free lunch.

Re: Why Are Canadian Construction Costs So High? (2018)

#93

Post by excursionist » Mon, Nov 25, 2019, 3:32 PM UTC

rbavocadotree wrote: post #72

gerbilly wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> lack of experience and expertise. Canada is a relatively young country with very few major infra projects under its belt. Gawd. As if Canadians are too dumb to go to international conferences like everybody else. Maybe they wouldn't let us in because we are wearing toques and speak in funny accents.

Toronto is a larger city than Chicago, and has more construction. We hold international conferences.

It seems like most of the construction in Toronto is condos and road repairs. The subway system is an embarrassment.

Re: Why Are Canadian Construction Costs So High? (2018)

#94

Post by turk73 » Mon, Nov 25, 2019, 3:35 PM UTC

quaquaqua1 wrote: post #89

rbavocadotree wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Toronto is a larger city than Chicago, and has more construction. We hold international conferences.

Additionally, who in their right mind wants to go to Chicago for literally any reason? Source: I am an American who has visited Chicago 3 times and hated it more and more each time due to prices, crime, horrible weather, and extreme lack of anything to do

I took my family to Chicago for the museums and such and we had no real problems, but yes, it's very expensive and troubled and I'm glad we don't live there. We enjoyed the food and my kids had their first big city experiences, mostly good, but lots of "why is that man peeing in the alley, dad?" We ran the gauntlet of window washers and dealt with awful traffic and narrow streets and got stranded on the subway because the cops had to get a body off of the tracks. And we didn't even venture to the sportier areas. All in all, a good trip, but no reason to ever go back, really.

U Chicago is leading the charge in tuition rip-off insanity by setting the price at $100K a year. For $400-500K you can start a business publishing sports almanacs! Think McFly, think! But seriously, I think higher ed has its head so far up its own ass that it can't tell that the rest of us are just turning our backs.

Re: Why Are Canadian Construction Costs So High? (2018)

#95

Post by magduf » Mon, Nov 25, 2019, 3:37 PM UTC

nkrisc wrote: post #91

quaquaqua1 wrote: post #89

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Additionally, who in their right mind wants to go to Chicago for literally any reason? Source: I am an American who has visited Chicago 3 times and hated it more and more each time due to prices, crime, horrible weather, and extreme lack of anything to do

Funny. I grew up in the city and lived there for most of my adult life and never had any issues with any of those things. Source: someone's who's spent more time in Chicago than someone's who's visited a handful of times.

>Funny. I grew up in the city and lived there for most of my adult life and never had any issues with any of those things. >Source: someone's who's spent more time in Chicago than someone's who's visited a handful of times.

Of course you'd like it, you're used to the place. The city is called "the windy city" for a reason, and is certainly not known to have weather resembling southern California. If you like it, that's fine, but not everyone likes cold, windy midwestern weather.

For prices, your experiences are simply invalid. The OP was likely talking about prices he'd see as a visitor, the large part of which would include hotel rooms. Do you spend a lot of time in hotels near your home? Of course not. And if the OP is comparing various international cities, then I can see why he'd complain about Chicago: it's a large American city and would likely have extremely high hotel prices, because hotels in America are generally very expensive unless you want to stay in a roach motel. It's much cheaper, as a single traveler, to stay in most of western Europe (except probably Switzerland).

Re: Why Are Canadian Construction Costs So High? (2018)

#96

Post by jacobush » Mon, Nov 25, 2019, 3:43 PM UTC

cperciva wrote: post #52

jacobush wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm not convinced this is a bad thing, given only the information in your comment.

You're not convinced that it's bad for the government to deliberately overpay for projects in order to funnel money into the pockets of its political donors?

I'm not convinced it's because the unions are lining the coffers of the politicians. It's not like corporations are strangers to lobbying and influencing either. There have been many problems with non-union subcontractors skimping on workers protections, causing death and injury to workers. I don't know about the situation in Canada, but a few soundbites without data is not going to convince me "union bad", "big construction company good".

Re: Why Are Canadian Construction Costs So High? (2018)

#97

Post by giarc » Mon, Nov 25, 2019, 3:44 PM UTC

moltar wrote: post #17

As I can see from living in Canada and travelling the world there can be several reasons: - corruption, especially in QC - over-the-top safety requirements, regardless of project size. E.g. in Toronto every road work sight has a police officer present who’s just standing there bored out of their mind. In Montreal it’d be two persons on each side holding a flag - a job in Europe replaced by a temporary semaphore. - la…

- lack of experience and expertise. Canada is a relatively young country with very few major infra projects under its belt.

Wait? We need to have 14th century church building experience to be considered experienced at building infrastructure?

Re: Why Are Canadian Construction Costs So High? (2018)

#98

Post by jointpdf » Mon, Nov 25, 2019, 3:47 PM UTC

quaquaqua1 wrote: post #89

rbavocadotree wrote: post #72

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Toronto is a larger city than Chicago, and has more construction. We hold international conferences.

Additionally, who in their right mind wants to go to Chicago for literally any reason? Source: I am an American who has visited Chicago 3 times and hated it more and more each time due to prices, crime, horrible weather, and extreme lack of anything to do

Strongly disagree with this. Chicago is one of the greatest cities (to visit or otherwise) not just in the US, but anywhere. I’ve been there over 30+ times since I was a kid and I’m going far out of my way to visit again tomorrow, it is that good.

It’s the original skyscraper city with an absolutely wonderful skyline and architecture. Being in the city during a blizzard is magical, and the weather on a nice summer day. Tons of parks and pristine coastline. One of the best food and shopping scenes anywhere. World class museums. Also, it’s certainly cheaper than SF/LA/NYC. There is a lifetime of things to experience in Chicago.

Re: Why Are Canadian Construction Costs So High? (2018)

#99

Post by dcolkitt » Mon, Nov 25, 2019, 3:48 PM UTC

giarc wrote: post #97

moltar wrote: post #17

As I can see from living in Canada and travelling the world there can be several reasons: - corruption, especially in QC - over-the-top safety requirements, regardless of project size. E.g. in Toronto every road work sight has a police officer present who’s just standing there bored out of their mind. In Montreal it’d be two persons on each side holding a flag - a job in Europe replaced by a temporary semaphore. - la…

- lack of experience and expertise. Canada is a relatively young country with very few major infra projects under its belt. Wait? We need to have 14th century church building experience to be considered experienced at building infrastructure?

Yeah, this doesn't make sense to me either. 60 years ago South Korea was one of the poorest countries on Earth. Today it manages to build world-class infrastructure at very low cost.

In contrast America was the first country in the world to build subways on a mass scale. Yet today it has by far the highest subway construction cost in the world. At least an order of magnitude higher than South Korea.

I'm skeptical that aggregate experience on a national-level at decade-scale makes any major difference.

Re: Why Are Canadian Construction Costs So High? (2018)

#100

Post by tptacek » Mon, Nov 25, 2019, 3:53 PM UTC

magduf wrote: post #95

nkrisc wrote: post #91

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Funny. I grew up in the city and lived there for most of my adult life and never had any issues with any of those things. Source: someone's who's spent more time in Chicago than someone's who's visited a handful of times.

>Funny. I grew up in the city and lived there for most of my adult life and never had any issues with any of those things. >Source: someone's who's spent more time in Chicago than someone's who's visited a handful of times. Of course you'd like it, you're used to the place. The city is called "the windy city" for a reason, and is certainly not known to have weather resembling southern California. If you like it, that…

Just don't visit between November and March.

The "Windy City" thing has little to do with our weather; winds are empirically worse in New York and San Francisco. If you have almost no experience with the city, it's easy to project and extrapolate from its nickname.