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Why U.S. Infrastructure Costs So Much

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Re: Why U.S. Infrastructure Costs So Much

#251

Post by jfengel »

SkeuomorphicBee wrote: post #238
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.

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?

Unions in the US have to be more defensive, because they're constantly under attack. Unions and management are pitted against each other as enemies, and the only way for the union to protect its members is to make and enforce rules. Each of those rules is in place to protect against some past abuse, and in that hostile environment, they know that flexibility on the rules invites a return of that abuse.

Not that everything in Europe is sweetness and light with unions, but they are more widely accepted. That leaves more room for amicable rule-making and flexibility.

The anti-union forces in the US, of course, put all of the blame for that on the unions -- which is exactly the kind of hostility that makes it difficult for the unions to negotiate flexible, reasonable contracts.

Re: Why U.S. Infrastructure Costs So Much

#252

Post by diordiderot »

vkou wrote: post #150
dsr_ wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One alternative would be to have a public works department which does the work itself. It would hire people, plan, write specs, buy or lease equipment, buy materials, do the work. That, however, would be socialism, so it can't be done, even though it's done on a smaller scale in every US city for issues starting at road repair and going on up.

This would be a good alternative, but it has a cold-start problem. We don't build enough because building is expensive, and building is expensive because we don't build enough. When we don't build enough, a crown corporation dedicated to building is not going to have enough consistent work to justify its existence.

What if maintaining capability justified the existence

Re: Why U.S. Infrastructure Costs So Much

#253

Post by munk-a »

criddell wrote: post #243
_dain_ wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

That's because public transportation, as it's run today, is generally a pretty awful experience. In my own vehicle I'm going point-to-point, I can reroute for coffee or food, I can play the music I want, set the temperature to what I want, etc... Also, a big factor these days, using public transportation puts you in contact with a lot of people and your chances of picking up COVID are higher. Although, maybe by livin…

I don't know how much I believe that car travel is so drastically superior to public transit. Cars are definitely more comfortable, but I still think that most people prefer a moderate walk to a short ride. We do have one thing we can look at as a comparison: trains. People still don't like long train rides where you have pretty convenient access to food and drinks - along with a comfortable temperature and spacious seating.

Re: Why U.S. Infrastructure Costs So Much

#254

Post by zipswitch »

Cederfjard wrote: post #149
Traster wrote: post #129

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah my first reaction to this was "Oh it's going to be the public". Because the US has strong rights and legal system basically anyone can come along and considerably screw up a project just by claiming some endangered bat is living in the path of it, or some economic harm will be done, or some community will be damaged, it's far easier to just to just stick planning notice on display in the bottom of a locked filin…

Stonehenge isn’t that big. I don’t know what the surrounding area is like, but isn’t it an option to build the road around it? With compulsory purchases of properties along the way, if necessary.

I've had the same thought.

I confess to not having closely followed the issue, but every time I see it mentioned, my brain twitches. Is the choice between A) large construction project that overlaps with a site of immense historical and cultural significance, and B) spend the money for a couple extra miles of freeway, seems to be a very obvious one. The only reason I can see for B is a sort of aggressive anti-humanism.

Re: Why U.S. Infrastructure Costs So Much

#255

Post by WhisperingShiba »

systemvoltage wrote: post #186
WhisperingShiba wrote: post #175

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh oh things are not looking good for our fair nation. Fortunately it seems like China isnt doing the best either, but in other ways. Hopefully we fall together.

The internet sort of centralized journalism. Local newspapers couldn’t keep up. I remember my dad reading local printed newspaper and always keeping abreast of what issues impacted local infra, municipality effectiveness, elections and general know how about how the local gov functioned. No one cares about it anymore. Instead, a friend of mine is asking me about Cuomo’s sexual assault case - mind you, he lives in Per…

So how do we go back? If our problem is human nature, perhaps we just have to survive long enough, and the human organism will self-correct.

I want to overtake small cities and make an escape rout for people who feel trapped in society, like me. The problem is that you need money in order to make jobs in those cities. Basically we are just stuck waiting for culture to change again.

Re: Why U.S. Infrastructure Costs So Much

#256

Post by _dain_ »

criddell wrote: post #243
_dain_ wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>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.

That's because public transportation, as it's run today, is generally a pretty awful experience. In my own vehicle I'm going point-to-point, I can reroute for coffee or food, I can play the music I want, set the temperature to what I want, etc... Also, a big factor these days, using public transportation puts you in contact with a lot of people and your chances of picking up COVID are higher. Although, maybe by livin…

>That's because public transportation, as it's run today, is generally a pretty awful experience.

Where you live, maybe. Where I live, it is pleasant, practical, and affordable.

Yes, private vehicles have the advantages you list. But the disadvantages: expense (borne both by the owner and by the taxpayer through subsidies), immense space requirements, parking, congestion, noise, pollution, pedestrian fatalities, encouragement of sprawl development patterns, and so on. EVs and autonomous vehicles only solve a few of these. As for COVID -- hate to break it to you, but you're going to catch it no matter what, if you haven't already.

Why is it that people dismiss the idea of making public transit (and other transportation modes) better, and hang their hopes on fantastically complicated and unproven engineering and software efforts like self-driving vehicles? There are plenty of examples of cities and whole countries achieving the former, while the latter is a -- well, I don't want to say a pipe dream, but there's no concrete proof it would work as advertised at scale.

The part about replacing buses with a shared autonomous fleet seems crazy to me. You have 20 people in a single bus, replaced with 20 people in 20 individual autonomous cars. That's at least an order of magnitude more space taken up on the roads. AI or not, they're gonna make more traffic!

Re: Why U.S. Infrastructure Costs So Much

#257

Post by vkou »

diordiderot wrote: post #252
vkou wrote: post #150

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This would be a good alternative, but it has a cold-start problem. We don't build enough because building is expensive, and building is expensive because we don't build enough. When we don't build enough, a crown corporation dedicated to building is not going to have enough consistent work to justify its existence.

What if maintaining capability justified the existence

Then it will be axed the moment a 'small government' type gets elected.

Re: Why U.S. Infrastructure Costs So Much

#258

Post by _dain_ »

munk-a wrote: post #253
criddell wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because public transportation, as it's run today, is generally a pretty awful experience. In my own vehicle I'm going point-to-point, I can reroute for coffee or food, I can play the music I want, set the temperature to what I want, etc... Also, a big factor these days, using public transportation puts you in contact with a lot of people and your chances of picking up COVID are higher. Although, maybe by livin…

I don't know how much I believe that car travel is so drastically superior to public transit. Cars are definitely more comfortable, but I still think that most people prefer a moderate walk to a short ride. We do have one thing we can look at as a comparison: trains. People still don't like long train rides where you have pretty convenient access to food and drinks - along with a comfortable temperature and spacious…

>We do have one thing we can look at as a comparison: trains. People still don't like long train rides where you have pretty convenient access to food and drinks - along with a comfortable temperature and spacious seating.

Part of the problem can be frequency. You have to factor in the time spent waiting at the station and changing between trains. If you can just walk to the station and not have to consult a timetable because you know there'll be one coming by within 5-10 minutes, that's a much more attractive proposition than having your whole day ruined because you arrived too late and the next one isn't for 2 hours. It could be the most comfortable train in the world and it wouldn't make up for that inconvenience.

Re: Why U.S. Infrastructure Costs So Much

#259

Post by greedo »

munk-a wrote: post #253
criddell wrote: post #243

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's because public transportation, as it's run today, is generally a pretty awful experience. In my own vehicle I'm going point-to-point, I can reroute for coffee or food, I can play the music I want, set the temperature to what I want, etc... Also, a big factor these days, using public transportation puts you in contact with a lot of people and your chances of picking up COVID are higher. Although, maybe by livin…

I don't know how much I believe that car travel is so drastically superior to public transit. Cars are definitely more comfortable, but I still think that most people prefer a moderate walk to a short ride. We do have one thing we can look at as a comparison: trains. People still don't like long train rides where you have pretty convenient access to food and drinks - along with a comfortable temperature and spacious…

I love trains. I just can't afford to take them anywhere since the cost in both time and $$ is so high compared to other options.

Re: Why U.S. Infrastructure Costs So Much

#260

Post by mikewarot »

zdragnar wrote: post #179
caeril wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> pulled of the completely absurd task of putting a man on the moon and then returning him safely to earth, in less than a decade At a congressional allocation level, this was all pork, too. The vast majority of this project went to politically-connected contractors, subcontractors, etc. Not much has changed, except for one critical factor: We were competent in the 20th century. All of the engineers, machinists, meta…

Putting a man on the moon was relatively simple in comparison, actually. All the resources focused down to a single task, a single vessel, and a single mission. In comparison, there are countless jurisdictions and hundreds of millions of lives being effected, plus well established property lines that need to be redrawn all over the place. I'm not saying I approve of how much it costs to do reasonable infrastructure r…

At its peak, the Apollo program employed 400,000 people and required the support of over 20,000 industrial firms and universities.
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