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Last week, Bloomberg's Noah Smith wrote an article titled "The U.S. Has Forgotten How To Do Infrastructure" that asked a lot of questions that would get us to a [David] Goldhill like analysis of our infrastructure approach. Just like on Healthcare Island, on Infrastructure Island we have our own way of talking about things. And we never talk about prices, only about costs. And as Smith suggests, costs go up and nobody seems to understand why.
He goes through and dismisses all of the usual suspects. Union wages drive up infrastructure costs (yet not true in countries paying equivalent wages). It's expensive to acquire land in the property-rights-obsessed United States (yet countries with weaker eminent domain laws have cheaper land acquisition costs). America's too spread out or our cities are too dense (arguments that cancel each other out). Our environmental review processes are too extensive (yet other advanced countries do extensive environmental reviews with far less delay). I concur with all these points, by the way.
Smith concludes with this:
That suggests that U.S. costs are high due to general inefficiency -- inefficient project management, an inefficient government contracting process, and inefficient regulation. It suggests that construction, like health care or asset management or education, is an area where Americans have simply ponied up more and more cash over the years while ignoring the fact that they were getting less and less for their money. To fix the problems choking U.S. construction, reformers are going to have to go through the system and rip out the inefficiencies root and branch.
Much like health care, our infrastructure incentives are all wrong. Until we fix them -- until we go through the system and rip out the inefficiencies root and branch -- throwing more money at this system is simply pouring good money after bad.
Source: https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2017/6/4/this-is-why-infrastructure-is-so-expensive
(Score: 3, Insightful) by kaszz on Sunday June 11 2017, @05:46AM (6 children)
Why can't USA fix so they have roads and railways at the efficiency of Japan or Europe?
Are you forbidden to work with infrastructure in the USA?
(Score: 5, Interesting) by KGIII on Sunday June 11 2017, @07:36AM (5 children)
I modeled traffic, At some point, our economy was going to collapse. During this time, it was announced that they were going to invest "billions" in shovel ready jobs. Most of those jobs were in infrastructure. Many of them were in highways. Specifically, they were going to invest billions in the highways that cross this country. I got an offer I could not refuse. I discussed it with the folks who'd worked WITH me the longest. (Note the capitalization.) The amount offered was such that I'd have been stupid to not sell. So, I sold. The now-parent company is probably pretty easy to discover, given this information, and they're almost a household name. Almost... Some of their products are, but you'd find they made a lot of their income simply filling government contracts - for everything from food to logistic services.
I'm not famous, but I am *that* guy.
As such, I signed an agreement to not work in a competitive field for the remainder of my life. Is that legal? Probably not - but I am expected to do so for a reasonable amount of time. I can't simply go work for another company, country, or even goal. I can switch industries and try to apply the same algorithms and methods to something like economics or climate. However, I'm pretty comfortable being retired. So, I'm prohibited from working in the field - pretty much forever. However, the SEC only reaches so far and I kinda have some leeway now - should I wish to return to the field. I could not, under no circumstances, be the one "driving" the math. It has been 10 years, I'm pretty sure it'd get me smashed in court. Give it another 10 and "reasonable" will have been satisfied, but I'm comfortably retired.
So... To answer your questions... I am going to skip your "Europe" bit, and insert Germany. Europe is a big place, we'll go with Germany.
You asked why can't the US have roads like Japan or Germany. The truth is, we do. I've driven in both countries and both countries have some pretty poor roads and some pretty poor infrastructure.
Now, let's get back to reality, shall we? Per-capita, both countries spend more on infrastructure than we do. Japan and Germany are both fairly small but have an economy that exceeds expectations, given their size. Both of them pride themselves on infrastructure. Both of them have much, much less infrastructure than you're going to see in the US.
However... I took plans from traffic engineers and told them how it would work. Basically, I said, "You'll get this, if you do this..." Once in a while, I got to say, "You should do this..." Seldom was it listened to. In other words, if I gave them a list of 50 points to include for maximizing throughput, they'd do MAYBE 30 of them.
Let me try it this way? If you mind, skip this. I think it's the most effective, however.
First they have a proposal. It's usually stupid and not gonna work.
That's then going to have a feasibility study. Believe it or not, I'd already be involved and telling them it's not going to work.
They're gonna do it, no matter what I said.
They're then gonna have an environmental impact study.
Keep in mind, they haven't even established any changes or construction sites, specifically, at this point.
They're then gonna get a bunch of people who come in and yell at them.
Eventually, they'll agree to say fuck that bird sanctuary, we'll accept a bunch of money and move it.
So, they plot a route.
This route interacts with everyone else.
It's probably a bad idea - and I tell them so.
They have another environmental impact study.
I tell them how that will impact the results.
They change it.
I tell them how that will impact the results.
They change it.
I tell them how that will impact the results.
They get a budget idea.
They do another study, maybe two - now we have to account for noise.
I tell them how that will impact results.
They make a plan.
I tell them what that's going to do.
They change their plan.
I tell them what those changes will mean.
They decide on a final plan - sometimes needing a vote - 'cause it's not cheap.
I tell them what the result is going to be - even before hand, 'cause they're gonna vote on it.
I may even go on their local television channels and discuss it.
Doesn't matter, they're gonna change it.
They'll decide the interchange is too expensive and will disrupt traffic.
They'll want models for it - with and without traffic disruption.
At this point, I'm probably intoxicated and not really talking to anyone anymore.
Still, I'll give them the data that they asked for.
They'll change it to suit some political end - like keeping that gas station just off the end of the interchange.
I'll model it again but I'm probably REALLY drunk by now.
They'll cut out a region 'cause a council member was ousted.
I'm gonna drink to that. I have to model it again.
They're gonna put it back, because his daughter won his seat.
Don't care. Gonna get drunk and model it again.
We need a new environmental impact study. They're pretty sure the birds are going extinct and this road will be the culprit.
Don't care - I'm really, really hating collecting data now and too drunk to care.
Gonna move it to a new local construction company - and transfer the data there.
Gotta model that shit again.
Anyhow, it keeps on going like that. I'm not even kidding. I worked on a large project, in the Boston area, where they politicians decided to run for office by saying that traffic would not be interrupted while they did a major change to the highways. I'm guessing you can name the project but let's pretend you cant. It was big and it involved digging. Now, if you go back through, there was NO mention of the idea of not stopping traffic - and there was no mention of not bringing local traffic to a stop. Yet, sure enough, a politician offered to do so AND to ensure that traffic still flowed.
Now, for traffic to still flow, it needed to be modeled in real time. At the time, compute cycles were not cheap. Hell, when the project was started DEC still existed and was the primary computer supplier, on our end. Sadly, we ended up with Sun - but it was a nice trade-off. I digress but, suffice to say, we moved out of MA as quickly as we could.
So, read between the lines. I can keep going but that's the gist of it. I'm assuming you want a real answer. It's mostly down to politics and funding. I can't be specific, but I have suggested that spans be replaced, only to have that ignored because it was impossible to budget for.. I will not assign priorities but I'm of the opinion that the entire roadway should be safe for transit, inasmuch as is possible.
Sorry for the long post, but that's a pretty big question. Meh... Mostly budget and politics.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
(Score: 2) by kaszz on Sunday June 11 2017, @09:03AM (4 children)
Sounds like the project management should do a helicopter perspective environmental impact study first. And then evaluate which of the routes through the area that are workable. Or perhaps integrate the route planning and environmental study into a triangulation setup for a optimization point, mathematically speaking.
Maybe it's a good idea to select corridors that will be invested in and leave the rest. So that some routes are good instead of many half crappy but not really good for any serious use.
As for budget. Present what it will cost. And which options are open to how much they can save now by being shortsighted and what it will cost in the feature. Then run so they can squabble without you getting caught in the fire ;)
Maybe writing a book on all the experiences would be something? fun memories or not, and some income. But at least future professionals maybe can learn?
Seems the project somewhere digging in the north had it's share of shortcuts: "death of an automobile passenger as a poor ceiling design caused a tunnel roof section to collapse on a car in the tunnel, crushing the victim."
(Score: 2) by KGIII on Sunday June 11 2017, @05:27PM (2 children)
I keep mulling over the idea of writing a book. It's been on my "to do list" for a while. However, when I sit to write, I end up on long tangents and losing focus.
My current thinking (and has been my thinking for a while) is just writing it and putting it out there for people to read. I learned some great lessons, from some unexpected people.
I never took any classes on how to run a company, be a boss, or handle people. It took a while, but I learned that it's okay to trust your employees. Give them the tools they ask for and get out of the way. They'll do amazing work, if you just enable them. We didn't really have a whole lot of traffic engineers back then. So, we trained and cross-trained. My company started in the early 1990s and was sold in the late 2000s. In that time, I was able to learn a whole lot from people that might have been overlooked, normally. It was great to work in tech, at a time when the industry was changing so rapidly.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Sunday June 11 2017, @08:45PM (1 child)
1) That is what your (flesh and blood) editor is for
2) Use the journal here on SN to write snippets - seems like it would be an interesting read
(Score: 2) by KGIII on Monday June 12 2017, @01:15AM
Yeah, one of these days I'll have to force myself to sit and write. If nothing else, I've had an interesting life. I've met lots of great people and learned some great things from them. Alas, we're too soon old, and too late wise. I should probably start writing sooner, rather than later.
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
(Score: 2) by SanityCheck on Monday June 12 2017, @01:14AM
You have no idea how this got me excited, then I read the rest of your comment and realized it had nothing to do with giving politicians the Pinochet treatment :(