3 ms·
Costs are higher throughout the entire US for infrastructure projects. The US routinely pays an order of magnitude more per mile for similarly scoped projects c
by shalmanese 11y ago
Costs are higher throughout the entire US for infrastructure projects. The US routinely pays an order of magnitude more per mile for similarly scoped projects compared to countries like Spain.
The root cause appears to be in the unique way projects are bid on in the US, where details need to be laid out in excruciating detail ahead of time and then any unplanned changes are cause for cost padding.
- brenschluss 11y agoSincerely curious: What's an alternative to the bidding process you mention?
- rmxt 11y agoHistorically, most projects in the United States performed by public agencies have been of the "Design-Bid-Build" variety, but there are a number of other styles. Most of which involve the owner/agency contracting to fewer entities who do more of the various types of work that need to be done (design, constructing, managing, operating, financing etc.). Traditionally, in Design-Bid-Build the owner contracts with one company to design, they perform the bidding process, and a separate entity does the building, with financing also coming from their own operating/capital budget. The alternatives shown here [1] spice up that process. DBB isn't completely evil, the wiki page does a good breakdown of it's pros and cons. [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_delivery_method https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Project_delivery_method [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design%E2%80%93bid%E2%80%93build#Potential_problems_of_design.E2.80.93bid.E2.80.93build https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Design%E2%80%93bid%E2%80%93bui...