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Why We Can’t Figure Out Why Infrastructure Is So Expensive

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Re: Why We Can’t Figure Out Why Infrastructure Is So Expensive

#211

Post by schoolboard »

rsync wrote: post #121

I am fascinated to see that 3 hours, 109 upvotes and 107 comments into this story, the word "regulation" occurs only once in the comment thread. I own, jointly with others, a 3 mile long road. If there could be only two things that I impressed upon someone, in relation to this road, they would be the following: 1) You have no idea how costly maintaining a road (any road) is. I didn't. I had no idea . Whatever liberta…

Double plus to the wetland issue. I'm a pretty lefty environmentalist guy, but after building a house and having a wife on city council for a small town, I've realized that the Clean Water Act was essentially a huge government taking of land. Virtually every ditch is now considered a Wetland if you apply the rules literally, which puts it under the Army Corps of Engineers Wetlands guidance. States are federally required to develop regulations around this. Our town has to file for wetlands permits to MOW the ditches.

Imagine any project from the past that would go through anything wet: national highway system, national parks trails, Appalachian trail. None could be built today.

Re: Why We Can’t Figure Out Why Infrastructure Is So Expensive

#212

Post by jmcqk6 »

daenz wrote: post #43
tomohawk wrote: post #36

A family member in the DOT told me this as but one of many tales of woe. Several hundred miles of an interstate were going to be rehabbed. There was a proven technique to redo the joints between the concrete slabs, which were in good shape. A contractor was hired to do a small number of miles as a test, but they had a learning curve. The first few joints that they redid were not done well, but they rapidly improved a…

The further you are removed from "other people" with regards to "other people's money", the easier it is to waste/pocket/embezzle. Fixing that problem would go a long way.

This is not unique to government. Private Corporations are really, really good at wasting money as well.

Is there a realistic approach to this that doesn't require changing a fundamental aspect of humanity?

Re: Why We Can’t Figure Out Why Infrastructure Is So Expensive

#213

Post by tnel77 »

asdff wrote: post #187
rafiki6 wrote: post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Significantly more arbitrary middlemen making their way into the process because of "let the market figure it out" does, in fact, create some process inefficiencies in supply chains and contract pipelines. Few countries are as aggressively market-based for things meant for public good as the US. This times a 1000. This is a huge factor that I think is missing. The market will just price in the labor required of all…

Profit is also priced in of course. You pay a public employee $1 to do $1 worth of labor, all swell. To get that same $1 worth of labor out of the private contractor, you need to pay $1.30 so that their C level employees get paid C level and their shareholders see exponential growth. It's parasitic and public funds should not be allowed to be skimmed by this by these bad actors.

You are correct that private companies are adding cost due to the desire to make money. I think the issue with the “public employee $1 to do $1 worth of labor” is that you get a level of complacency with government employees that can be a huge black hole for project funding. It’s possible, though not always the case, to allow a private company to make a profit while still getting more for your money. If the private employee is more efficient, they may need less hours to accomplish the same task. So the hourly rate may be higher, but there could be less hours in the equation to make the overall cost the same or lower. In theory at least.

Re: Why We Can’t Figure Out Why Infrastructure Is So Expensive

#214

Post by sagarm »

jakewins wrote: post #107
jedberg wrote: post #102

Before we make a report on how our costs differ from other G20 countries, how about a report on how our costs differ from ourselves 100 years ago. In 1900 it took four years to lay nine miles of subway in NYC. The second ave tunnel was just a couple miles and under construction for 12 years. That's just an example. It also took longer to build the new Eastern span of the Bay Bridge than it took to build the whole bri…

As I understand it, most of the NYC subway was built by basically just closing of major chunks of streets and excavating them, sticking the subway in and then covering it back up. Compared to boring underground tunnels, you can imagine how much less involved it is to simply dig a hole from above. I'm not sure why they don't do that anymore, though I can imagine it's some combination of where the new routes are (maybe…

I think what you are describing it's called cut and cover.

Presumably, the idea of inconveniencing motorists for that long "just" for transit is no longer acceptable.

Re: Why We Can’t Figure Out Why Infrastructure Is So Expensive

#215

Post by BubRoss »

nitrogen wrote: post #182
Theodores wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Would you steal a bicycle in Japan? I wouldn't and it has nothing to do with hand-wavy culture. The reason I would not touch the unlocked bicycle is because I know it is registered with the police. If I got stopped on that bicycle and they looked up the frame number then I would have some explaining to do. Even if I claimed it was mine I could still be prosecuted for not registering 'the change of ownership' with the…

Personally I believe that Americans are exceptionally unlikely to steal your stuff. I guess the people who stole my former startup's hardware prototypes and thousands of dollars of equipment didn't get the memo, nor did the professionals who broke into the bike lockers at a previous residence and stole thousands of dollars of bicycles.

I don't think your personal anecdote is a good indictment of corruption of a country on a statistical level.

Re: Why We Can’t Figure Out Why Infrastructure Is So Expensive

#216

Post by cestith »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #148
cestith wrote: post #140

Earlier quoted context omitted.

One of China's more ambitious solutions to this was newly founded, planned metropolises where no major city had previously stood.

Aka the infamous ghost cities?

Many of them, yes. Keep in mind, too, though that there are places like Shenzen. It's grown an order of magnitude in 40 years and was designated as a specific enterprise zone. It was a market town. Now it's an electronics manufacturing powerhouse.

Re: Why We Can’t Figure Out Why Infrastructure Is So Expensive

#217

Post by simonebrunozzi »

tomohawk wrote: post #36

A family member in the DOT told me this as but one of many tales of woe. Several hundred miles of an interstate were going to be rehabbed. There was a proven technique to redo the joints between the concrete slabs, which were in good shape. A contractor was hired to do a small number of miles as a test, but they had a learning curve. The first few joints that they redid were not done well, but they rapidly improved a…

> 10,000 - 15,000 unnecessary deaths a year

It's a very strong claim, and I don't believe it. Total deaths in US for road accidents is ~37,000 per year. [0]. I find it hard to believe that 30-40% of it is caused just by inferior pavement design.

[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in...

Re: Why We Can’t Figure Out Why Infrastructure Is So Expensive

#218

Post by seanmcdirmid »

cestith wrote: post #216
seanmcdirmid wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Aka the infamous ghost cities?

Many of them, yes. Keep in mind, too, though that there are places like Shenzen. It's grown an order of magnitude in 40 years and was designated as a specific enterprise zone. It was a market town. Now it's an electronics manufacturing powerhouse.

For every Shenzhen there are ten Kangbashies and a couple of Tianjin financial districts.

Re: Why We Can’t Figure Out Why Infrastructure Is So Expensive

#219

Post by jfengel »

travisoneill1 wrote: post #117
jfengel wrote: post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As other respondents have said, a good journalist does not rely on a single expert. Good reporting cross-checks multiple sources, often seeking out conflicting ones, and trying to form a coherent story out of that. Unfortunately, that often leads to false dichotomy. It's not sufficient to seek out a contradictory source... especially if that contradictory source is not credible. But it's very exciting journalism to s…

Why is it that you assume that a PhD or community support makes someone right? And surely he gets his paycheck from someone just as Y does, right?

It doesn't, in itself. But when a PhD with very widespread support disagrees with somebody so lacking in the relevant discipline that they keep making the same elementary mistakes over and over in support of a preconceived notion, it's a really strong sign that they're not really talking on an equal footing.

It's not always easy to rule out outsider with novel ideas, but there are lists of warning signs of crankery and motivated reasoning that a journalist should be able to identify. There will always be a gray area, but that's no excuse for lazy journalists to repeatedly seek out anybody willing to disagree just for the purpose of presenting an equal-and-opposite story.

Re: Why We Can’t Figure Out Why Infrastructure Is So Expensive

#220

Post by eqdw »

legitster wrote: post #53

Let alone cost, one thing that boggles my mind is how slow infrastructure building is in the US. In our area, a multi-billion dollar freeway or subway line will often be constructed with 5 days of a single 8-hour shift. I get that certain work needs to be done at night, but surely the work sites shouldn't sit empty for 16 hours a day! Just think about the cost of equipment being rented, the overhead that is on salary…

Given that most labourers are paid hourly, I suspect that the speed (or lack thereof) with which infrastructure projects are built _is_ the reason why they're so expensive
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