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Why U.S. Infrastructure Costs So Much

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Re: Why U.S. Infrastructure Costs So Much

#231

Post by jes »

handrous wrote: post #156
joe_the_user wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The old expression "we have the worst system in the world, except for all the others" .. comes to mind That's what (I think) Winston Churchill said about democracy (might be true there). But here, I think you can just say "we have the worst system". Period. The US has a variety of sectors (public works, health care, etc) which aren't just bad but fated to get worse and worse through both through the particular way US…

> That's what (I think) Winston Churchill said about democracy (might be true there). As E.M. Forster put it (from memory, so I'm sure less well-worded than the original): "So, two cheers for democracy—there's no occasion for three, two is quite enough." > But here, I think you can just "we have the worst system". Period. Yeah, our system's about as bad as it could possibly be and have held together this long, true.…

> And our country's too disunited to ever fix that without breaking apart to do it.

A tribe that lacks a serious external threat often goes to war with itself.

Re: Why U.S. Infrastructure Costs So Much

#232

Post by zimpenfish »

_dain_ wrote: post #230
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.

See also West Coast Mainline: "By May 2002, the projection of the program’s final cost had risen from £2.5 billion (in 1998) to £14.5 billion but had delivered only a sixth of the original scope."

https://www.sebokwiki.org/wiki/UK_West_Coast_Route_Modernisa...

Re: Why U.S. Infrastructure Costs So Much

#233

Post by cjfd »

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.

Well, it is not the first time I hear such stories. Not only from the US either. At my own job we sometimes work at unionized places and it is the same everywhere. Horrendously en ridiculously inefficient work practices. It certainly gives me a very negative image of unions.

Re: Why U.S. Infrastructure Costs So Much

#234

Post by chrisseaton »

poopypoopington wrote: post #221
bshipp wrote: post #199

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

But the union don't recommend things for engineering reasons though, do they? That's not their remit and they don't represent users of the railway or future maintainers of the railway. They represent the employees today.

In fact the incentive of the union is shoddier work so they have more work to do late to replace it.

Re: Why U.S. Infrastructure Costs So Much

#235

Post by justin66 »

ska wrote: post #43
davidw wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

These are all things, but they're things in other countries, too. France has strong unions and subcontractors and bureaucrats and all of that. And yet it costs less there.

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?

> Relationships with unions in the US seem much more adversarial than there, on average.

Which is a function of relationships between employers and employees being more adversarial in the US.

Re: Why U.S. Infrastructure Costs So Much

#236

Post by bregma »

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?

It's more likely an elite capitalist thing. Some boss somewhere plays golf at an exclusive club with a regular foursome. He has some work to be done, and each of his three buddies get a slice. They have some friends that could also get a cut. The end result is the golden shower that trickles down. The shops might be unionized, but the contracts are signed at the clubhouse while a boy brings the single malt and cubans.

Re: Why U.S. Infrastructure Costs So Much

#237

Post by JohnWhigham »

KingMachiavelli wrote: post #16

Every time any land is going to be developed where I live (Denver/Boulder/etc.), there is always a thread on Nextdoor advocating for people to stop it by raising environmental concerns and putting in a ton of comments. If 1/10 projects get canceled due to individual objections that means a lot of time and money gets wasted. Another 4/10 projects might eventually get built but only after long drawn out discussions and…

It's things like this that make me yearn for the government of yore that just fucking did it, no questions asked i.e. the federal government laying out the interstate highway system. They didn't care it tore apart neighborhoods, they did it because if they didn't, the evil Soviets would eventually build a better highway system and the US couldn't have that embarrassment. A shitty motivator? Sure, but it was a motivator. Now in the 3 decades since the end of the Cold War, what accomplishments has any government done that rivals what happened during the Cold War era? None.

Re: Why U.S. Infrastructure Costs So Much

#238

Post by SkeuomorphicBee »

drak0n1c wrote: post #168
chrisseaton wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Non American here, can someone explain to me what is unique about USA society that creates this situations? I mean, most of the world has unions, most countries to a much greater extant than USA, and yet we don't see those horror stories of loss of work efficiency from anywhere else. What is unique about USA unions that drive those?

Re: Why U.S. Infrastructure Costs So Much

#239

Post by praestigiare »

lotsofpulp wrote: post #151
lakecresva wrote: post #111

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Those things have legal remedies, the US legal system has just decided that the investor class should be absolved of any risk or liability. If you intentionally underbid to win a contract, you've committed fraud and are supposed to go to prison to disincentivize the next guy. If you are a contractor and are incapable of giving a good faith estimate of your costs, you're supposed to go out of business. If you cut a bu…

>If you intentionally underbid to win a contract, you've committed fraud and are supposed to go to prison to disincentivize the next guy. How would you measure and enforce this?

It's not as hard as it might seem. If you are actually held to the contract and you have underbid, you either have a plan to continue the fraud (using substandard materials or illegal labor to save costs) or you will be forced to take a loss or go out of business. If your investors, employees (or their union), or client(s) are unhappy with that, and there is any evidence of intentionally underbidding to be found (and there generally will be, these are decisions made by teams. There are emails. There are notes) those people will have incentive to find it.
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