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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: 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 :(