Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Why U.S. Infrastructure Costs So Much

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

221–230 of 272 posts

Re: Why U.S. Infrastructure Costs So Much

#221

Post by poopypoopington »

bshipp wrote: post #199
dr_dshiv wrote: post #173

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Unions get a bad rap. They don’t have to be bad. Everyone should have an incentive for efficiency.

Its an interesting question. I'm not a union guy and spent my youth working in construction so I've encountered my share of plodding union tradesmen who took remarkably long to do small things that could be finished in a few minutes if you rushed. When I was young and foolish I'd often shake my head at the snails-pace they worked at. I'm older now, and arguably a smidgen wiser. I've reacted with shock at hearing abou…

Say you're laying rail track. It will be used for 50+ years. Better to lay it once, relatively slowly, and well than to do a shoddy quick job and have to repair it every 5 years.

Perhaps another argument for the plodding, methodical 55 year-old union guy's way of working?

Re: Why U.S. Infrastructure Costs So Much

#222

Post by criddell »

munk-a wrote: post #103
criddell wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> We need to spend more money creating better metropolitan areas that people want to live in, rather than using tax payer money to support fewer and fewer people. I suspect the current trend is in the opposite direction. If self-driving cars ever become a real thing, it's all over for team urbanization. If there was unlimited money, how would you even start to fix cities? A big part of the attraction to living in the…

> If self-driving cars ever become a real thing, it's all over for team urbanization. Urbanization is more than just hatred of vehicles - Europe has managed to development walkable cities where cars are significantly less convenient than other modes of transport - even if the cars are automated they're going to continue to be suboptimal compared to well planned and zoned cities. At the heart of the issue is whether a…

> even if the cars are automated they're going to continue to be suboptimal

That’s kind of irrelevant. The only thing that matters is what you can convince taxpayers to fund. If self-driving cars become a thing, people will move further and further out of the city. Who cares if they have a 90 minute commute to work if they can eat or sleep or work or play games during that time. Taxpayers will continue to fund big road projects and car storage is going to be more important in the future.

Or maybe remote work spreads more to even more jobs and being in a city matters less. People may drive less often and live in a place where they can have (and afford) more space to build exactly the home they want to live in. Lots of us enjoy having room for hobbies like gardening, woodworking, outdoor cooking, etc…

Re: Why U.S. Infrastructure Costs So Much

#223

Post by hunglee2 »

there a vicious circle here - the more it costs, the less you do, the less experience you have of doing it, the more it is going to cost when you do do it.

It is the equivalent of getting first time software engineers to build an enterprise wide system via Waterfall - of course it will screw up, take years, likely won't work as specified, which will then increase risk aversion for a future effort.

Re: Why U.S. Infrastructure Costs So Much

#224

Post by foepys »

trylfthsk wrote: post #56
bearjaws wrote: post #45

I am of the opinion that continuing to build out all these long 'runs' of infrastructure to serve a even more spread out populace is a dead end. Where I live we spent tens of billions expanding highway infrastructure, and it has not improved the lives of anyone meaningfully, traffic is as bad as its ever been. We need to spend more money creating better metropolitan areas that people want to live in, rather than usin…

Chuck Marohn did my favorite exploration of this issue in "The Growth Ponzi Scheme"[0]. I wish this was front and center in the Zeitgeist. [0] https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme/

If you prefer videos, Not Just Bikes on YouTube made a series of videos about Strong Towns: https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJp5q-R0lZ0_FCUbeVWK6...

Here is here video about The Growth Ponzi Scheme: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7IsMeKl-Sv0

Re: Why U.S. Infrastructure Costs So Much

#225

Post by GekkePrutser »

rendang wrote: post #172
earthscienceman wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

France is known for its aggressive unions, but aren't Germany and the Nordics known for more cooperative labor relations?

Germany is more cooperative yes. But their "workers council" concept is very strict. We've had several times we couldn't implement a global change in the multinational I work for because some workers council in a 10-man office in some German village didn't agree.

In Holland we used to have good union representation that really worked together with government and employers. The "polder model" it was called. However since we've had many neoliberal governments this concept has been hollowed out and the unions are now run as companies by the same kind of people so they no longer really represent the workers. They're just corporate puppets now. It's gone completely the other way from France or Germany. When it did work it was pretty good though. There was a decent balance between workers rights and efficiency and there was no need for many strikes.

Re: Why U.S. Infrastructure Costs So Much

#226

Post by ral82 »

carabiner wrote: post #121
danny_codes wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, it's entirely politics and policy. California has an extremely cumbersome legal baggage that drags against public projects. Strong public unions, poorly implemented environmental protection laws, and a legal code that enables rampant NIMBYism are, IMO, the main limiting factors for Californian growth. We could today pass legislation that circumvented all of this nonsense, and we would see HSR rapidly built across…

Yeah, and I know China + civil rights etc. I wonder what specific civil rights abuses occurred in building their HSR? Was it similar to the US use of eminent domain to acquire land for building the interstate highways? Maybe we should bring that back. I'm seriously in awe of the Chinese government these days. In 30 years, they went from a raw labor and manufacturing country, to landing rovers on Mars. They built new…

I am from India and the sheer scale and speed of China's development is astonishing to watch. India as a whole is just a big mess as far as living conditions are concerned. Pre-pandemic, I traveled across the country and it was the same sight pretty much everywhere - squalor, run-down and dirty public utities, streams and rivers filled with sewage and garbage etc. Our rabble-rousing politicans screech nonstop about nonsensical issues and then publish some cooked-up numbers to placate people. These days, I just search for 'china walk' in Youtube and watch videos that show a country that seems to be opposite of what I read in mainstream media.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC1sd1imhPbLpJeWRv6798UQ/vid...

https://www.youtube.com/c/WalkEast/videos

There are plenty of problems in China too, but India is not exactly a shining model regarding human rights...

Re: Why U.S. Infrastructure Costs So Much

#227

Post by lotsofpulp »

danny_codes wrote: post #212
geodel wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the American individual pursuit of happiness is not compatible with Chinese good for society approach. Now it feels good to think that one can combine all the good stuff from different systems and make a best system but somehow it is not possible.

I fail to see how these are in contention. Our (American) lack of HSR actually _decreases_ individual choice. Instead of having the extra option of convenient rail connections, we have to suffer through long drives or airport transits. Insofar as public infrastructure enables individual freedom, I believe China is currently out-America-ing America.

America puts a premium on the freedoms of current landowners.

All the land has been allocated already. The price required to obtain the necessary land for nationwide HSR would be a nonstarter in the current legal system.

Only a top down system where the individual land owners get less than what they expect like China would make it possible.

Even the interstate highway system would not work today. It only worked in the 50s to 80s because it cut through minority neighborhoods who could not afford and did not have the knowledge of being able to use the courts to prevent it without earning top dollar for giving up their land.

Re: Why U.S. Infrastructure Costs So Much

#228

Post by hoseja »

dr_dshiv wrote: post #173
drak0n1c wrote: post #168

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Unions get a bad rap. They don’t have to be bad. Everyone should have an incentive for efficiency.

I feel like unions in the US are like everything else in the US: socially engineered up the wazoo, with nary a hint of any stable foundation.

Re: Why U.S. Infrastructure Costs So Much

#229

Post by _dain_ »

criddell wrote: post #222
munk-a wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If self-driving cars ever become a real thing, it's all over for team urbanization. Urbanization is more than just hatred of vehicles - Europe has managed to development walkable cities where cars are significantly less convenient than other modes of transport - even if the cars are automated they're going to continue to be suboptimal compared to well planned and zoned cities. At the heart of the issue is whether a…

> even if the cars are automated they're going to continue to be suboptimal That’s kind of irrelevant. The only thing that matters is what you can convince taxpayers to fund. If self-driving cars become a thing, people will move further and further out of the city. Who cares if they have a 90 minute commute to work if they can eat or sleep or work or play games during that time. Taxpayers will continue to fund big ro…

>Who cares if they have a 90 minute commute to work if they can eat or sleep or work or play games during that time.

You can do all that on public transport yet people still prefer shorter commutes.

Re: Why U.S. Infrastructure Costs So Much

#230

Post by _dain_ »

cletus wrote: post #148

Here's my favourite example of this. NYC recently opened the first stage of the Second Avenue Subway. This is a project that was initially started ~90 years ago and has been started and stopped multiple times in the intervening years. I believe the final version used none of the original tunnels however. It cost ~$6B for 1.5 miles of track [1]. The budget was padded at probably every level (eg [2]). There are a bunch…

On the other hand, HS2 is the UK's other big rail infrastructure project and it has had huge cost overruns, delays, and scope cutback.
Post reply on HN