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Why U.S. Infrastructure Costs So Much

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Re: Why U.S. Infrastructure Costs So Much

#161

Post by Shadonototra »

rowathay wrote: post #158
Shadonototra wrote: post #124

because we are animals stuck on a little dying planet and we believe money is what gonna save us we'll transcend humankind the day we stop trying to profit from each other or worry about "how much it'll cost" capitalism and its market don't want your street to look nice if it's not gonna make them generate profit, even if it makes you happy the market doesn't want it!

Clearly you’ve rejected Capitalism because you don’t properly capitalize anything.

oh i do, don't worry about that, i don't even need to work anymore

because of that i get to realize how wrong it is

Re: Why U.S. Infrastructure Costs So Much

#162

Post by 1cvmask »

DennisP wrote: post #85
InTheArena wrote: post #35

This misses a fundamental point - the goal of this is not to fund infrastructure - it's to fund people who vote for people who vote for infrastructure. There is zero incentive to run on time and on-budget, and every incentive to milk more government cash, so that people in power can get election contributions, that stay in power. If you also deny money to people who didn't vote for you, then all the better as well. S…

From the article, Istanbul gets things built a lot cheaper, partly because: > Whereas Boston might only build one new transit line every few decades, Istanbul builds dozens. Seems like building dozens of times as much would even more effectively "fund people who vote for people who vote for infrastructure." So why aren't we like Istanbul?

From the article:

Contrast all of these issues with a city like Istanbul, where the M5, an 18-mile subway line, was built in seven years and for just $630 million.

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That is roughly $35 million per mile. And it is one of the deepest subways in the world. Almost as deep as Moscow's. Meanwhile the 2nd Avenue Subway cost $2.5 billion per mile. That is a difference of 71x.

The big bogeyman that is ignored is the incredible corruption involved with the politicians, contractors and "consultants" who rig these absurd outcomes.

And let's not forget the incredible corruption in Boston and the Big Dig that became a smaller dig with massive cost overruns and delays:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Dig

One other thing is that in countries like Turkey they build a lot of infrastructure with private funds who run it like a concession for a certain period of time (say 2 decades) and then it reverts back to the government. The private contractors have an incentive to build build inexpensively and quicker as their IRR is ticking.

Examples of such Public Private Partnership projects are:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Istanbul_Airport

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%87anakkale_1915_Bridge

The concept of PPT:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public%E2%80%93private_partner...

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By the way the awesome website of the quoted and mentioned Alon Levy which I discovered years ago when we had a discussion on the disparity of subway costs per mile between the US and places like Prague:

https://pedestrianobservations.com/construction-costs/

Re: Why U.S. Infrastructure Costs So Much

#163

Post by joe_the_user »

R0b0t1 wrote: post #133
joe_the_user wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is one of the key points. The US isn't just spread-out but oriented to solving it's problem by spreading out more. And this paradigm has effectively become unsustainable. However, that's not the only factor at play here. Part of thing that makes spreading out the population look like a reasonable strategy is the mess involved in building in existing cities. A lot here is "soft" corruption - local government trea…

A lot of things appear unsustainable because the income of builders is inflated with fed money. I don't think much will improve until a normal person can afford to build a house again.

I could can buy a kit for a 3 bedroom house for say, $35K or less. But PG&E charges $20K+ to connect your electricity, the fire department charges $20k+ assessments and etc, bringing construction costs to $200K in a rural area and more in an urban area.

A lot of this is prop 13 bs - cities can't tax so they finance themselves with new home assessments. But prop 13 itself is all about protecting those who built yesterday from the costs of maintenance today.

The thing is, those costs are real. The "a normal person can afford to build a house" isn't coming back. The single family home system has diseconomies of scale (roads and electricity get harder as the scale of suburbia increases, think about it). A modern society can't afford to do things that way and it's continuing by because those doing it are pushing the costs onto other people.

Re: Why U.S. Infrastructure Costs So Much

#164

Post by Nasrudith »

One "obvious" solution for the issue of building projects while still respecting citizen rights would be to have them all given public approval votes. If approved that mandate could shield it from disruptions that could turn it entirely into a waste or make lawyers the biggest expense. I believe that the grounds for lawsuits against passed ballot initiatives are limited mostly to constitutionality. Even if it just resulted in civil engineers drawing up every possibility to try to solve the issue that would at least support the proper expertise.

Re: Why U.S. Infrastructure Costs So Much

#165

Post by adventured »

earthscienceman wrote: post #62
ska wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's a mistake to think of european unions and american unions as "the same thing". Relationships with unions in the US seem much more adversarial than there, on average. As you say, there are politics, labor relations, etc. in europe too - I wonder if they are just better at cooperating on this sort of project for some reason?

What? This could only be so naively said by someone who has never lived in a heavily prop labor socialist country like France. Les grèves are terribly adversarial and a near constant aspect of labor negotiations. The only way they could be considered better, in the way you imply, is that the unions are considered something to negotiate with instead of something to destroy.

Defeat, not destroy. Unions aren't destroyed in the US today and they're not sought out to be destroyed, no large government agencies or corporation is hunting them. In the Jimmy Hoffa days certainly there were some powerful people inside and outside of government that wanted the Teamsters destroyed.

The corporations aim to defeat them in the sense of keeping them voted down / out of the operations. John Deere for example recently came back with a rather lame offer for wage increases, the union went on strike, Deere capitulated and gave them a more fair wage hike, the union accepted; Deere didn't attempt to destroy the union.

Kellogs and their union haven't been able to agree to terms. Kellogs didn't attempt to destroy the union, they didn't send assassins or thugs to kill or rough up the union leadership. They replaced the union members with temporary labor and resumed limited operations. And that's entirely fair, the union can strike and refuse to work, the company can replace them.

Amazon didn't destroy the union in Alabama, that battle will continue; Amazon - at least temporarily - defeated them.

Re: Why U.S. Infrastructure Costs So Much

#166

Post by DrJokepu »

ducttapecrown wrote: post #81
vdance wrote: post #61

Strange question, maybe? I'm an expat living in Romania and I always appreciate and marvel at the efficiency of Romania to have/enable providers to sell an unlimited 4G mobile service plan, that (for me) also works in the middle of nowhere here in RO for 5 euros per month. Thoughts? BTW, it makes buying a service plan in KS, USA that barely works in various areas feel a bit like a scam...

A service plan in the US probably does cover a larger amount of total area than on in Romania, though.

A Romanian service plan covers the entire European Union.

Re: Why U.S. Infrastructure Costs So Much

#167

Post by Nasrudith »

wolverine876 wrote: post #87
InTheArena wrote: post #35

This misses a fundamental point - the goal of this is not to fund infrastructure - it's to fund people who vote for people who vote for infrastructure. There is zero incentive to run on time and on-budget, and every incentive to milk more government cash, so that people in power can get election contributions, that stay in power. If you also deny money to people who didn't vote for you, then all the better as well. S…

I've seen these cynical rants many times, but can you back any of the claims up with anything substantive? For example, that there is no difference between parties? It's important, because it disarms us; if we don't differentiate between the more and less corrupt, we can't improve the situation. There is greed and corruption in the world, but that's not all there is. There are plenty of people who want to do a good j…

One slightly supporting evidence is a higher correlation for budget percentage being road infastructure as opposed to other areas. Not causing it but likely because it is easier to slip corruption and kick backs in those budgets than say education budgets, so it winds up inflated for worse results.

Re: Why U.S. Infrastructure Costs So Much

#168

Post by drak0n1c »

chrisseaton wrote: post #152
candyman wrote: post #37

Thirty years ago when you needed to install new computers in an office I remember it took us weeks to get the cable (Ethernet) installed because one contractor had to pull the cable and cut it at each workstation, another contractor had to come and put the connector on the cable and yet another had to come and plug the cable into the machine. Believe me we were tempted to sneak in one weekend and do the whole thing o…

> another contractor had to come and put the connector on the cable ... severely warned about the consequences This kind of job moating and threats is a union thing isn't it?

Yes, my partner was a conference planner and whenever they had one in NYC in the Time offices their team wasn't allowed to adjust tables by themselves, everything had to be done by formal work order tickets and only union hands could touch anything, even equipment they owned and brought in themselves.

Coincidentally, this new infrastructure bill has union requirements for any EV work.

Re: Why U.S. Infrastructure Costs So Much

#169

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

Nasrudith wrote: post #167
wolverine876 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've seen these cynical rants many times, but can you back any of the claims up with anything substantive? For example, that there is no difference between parties? It's important, because it disarms us; if we don't differentiate between the more and less corrupt, we can't improve the situation. There is greed and corruption in the world, but that's not all there is. There are plenty of people who want to do a good j…

One slightly supporting evidence is a higher correlation for budget percentage being road infastructure as opposed to other areas. Not causing it but likely because it is easier to slip corruption and kick backs in those budgets than say education budgets, so it winds up inflated for worse results.

Why should it be easier to have corruption in road work vs anything else?

Re: Why U.S. Infrastructure Costs So Much

#170

Post by dr_dshiv »

DennisP wrote: post #155
munk-a wrote: post #99

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The more regular an activity is the more likely you're going to have people specialized in it - you'll have much more accurate estimates around costs and time to deliver since people will have more recent experience getting it done and you'll have infrastructure around building infrastructure. When these projects are rarer it becomes infeasible for a company to dedicate itself to the labour so you end up with residen…

Yes, that's why doing so many projects helps Istanbul do them cheaper. But my point to GP is that doing so many projects would fund the politically-powerful infrastructure contractors even more effectively. Yet we aren't doing it, which seems to imply that maybe GP's explanation doesn't actually explain our situation.

I want to point out that The Netherlands has a similar dynamic. They build a lot of infrastructure all the time. Very little corruption. I suspect there is a healthier relationship between the private sector and government. (The US is weirdly anti capitalistic when it comes to government. In the Netherlands, so many public services are delivered by private companies, by concession. Like, the equivalent of Amtrak is a private company. Also, private companies selling coffee/beer/ice cream in parks, which for whatever reason rarely happens in the states)

I’m an expat, but maybe a local could explain how/why the Netherlands has the best infrastructure in Europe?

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