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I don't disagree with this sentiment, but it's worth pointing out that nearly all transportation projects from the "old days" around the world were done by priv

I don't disagree with this sentiment, but it's worth pointing out that nearly all transportation projects from the "old days" around the world were done by private companies, and often met a swift end in bankruptcy. Creditors lost a lot, but the assets were then picked up by others, and refined through years of trial and error into endeavors of modest profitability. Only our sepia-colored glasses and the survival bias of remaining parts makes it look like people back then had it figured out, and we don't. Private rail systems in Europe eventually were nationalized during the warring decades of the 1900s and remained that way longer than in the US, while in the US the government spun up Amtrak to relieve rail operators from passenger rail and its rapidly declining revenues, while letting freight railroads go through waves of mergers until only a handful remained. Soon after Amtrak, the airline industry was deregulated, and airlines proceeded to copy the idea: rack up costs, declare bankruptcy, sell, reset. Truth is, big, ambitious construction projects, and big, ambitious service networks have always sucked, and the ones that remain went through many cycles of overruns and disappointment and service reduction before they stuck. Maybe what ought to worry us isn't that we've lost the magic touch of delivering ambitious, long-running deliverables (railroads, infrastructure, cities, government services...) sustainably, but that we never mastered it in the first place, and the things we have now are the much-recycled husks of former grand ideas that managed to eke by.

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adrianratnapala 8y ago
> it's worth pointing out that nearly all transportation projects from the "old days" around the world were done by private companies, and often met a swift end in bankruptcy... Only our sepia-colored glasses and the survival bias of remaining parts makes it look like people back then had it figured out, and we don't. This is true, but only part of the story. The private railroads (and indeed much internet infrastructure) had two phases. In the first, early entrants made big profits by picking the low hanging fruit (i.e. most profitable opportunities) in a new market. This created investor euphoria just as the opportunities for "easy" profits were drying up. So things turned towards speculative, even fraudulent investments that left the investors out of pocket. But, as you point out, even the second phase left some infrastructure on the ground that could be operated at a profit once bought at firesale prices.
- Nav_Panel 8y ago
  In NYC specifically, the problem was the city government introduced price caps that made the privately owned lines unprofitable, then refused to raise them. So, of course the trains went out of business. It was set to 5 cents in 1904 and remained there for over 40 years. Not even the lowest hanging fruit could survive such a thing.
  - adrianratnapala 8y ago
    Yeah I believe you, I had taken temp-dude's comment to be more about railroads in general and not suburban railways or NYC in particular. And those are different, always were more government related.
siculars 8y ago
I'll take issue with your thesis. I was once standing in Marin county overlooking the Golden Gate bridge, there I read a plaque describing how the bridge was built ahead of schedule and under budget - in the 1930s (no computers!). Behind the Golden gate bridge in the distance you see the Bay bridge, built with tremendous cost overruns and delays measured in billions of dollars and many years, respectively. I'll make the case that, as a nation, we have lost the ability to deliver civil infrastructure projects on time and on budget, not to mention manage them once they are operational. Regarding NYC MTA, I'll share an anecdote. I have a very close friend who worked on the second avenue Subway line a few years back. He's a civil engineer by training and was in middle management on this project, employed by the general contractor awarded this contact. His comment was along the lines of: "imagine dozens of dump trucks full of hundred dollar bills backing up to an incinerator and dumping the money. That's what the MTA does. Burn money." The sentiment was that these public institutions are chuck full of incompetence with no repercussions for mismanagement or incentive to excel. As a life long New Yorker, I don't have to work in the tunnels to know that he's right.
- TylerE 8y ago
  It’s called worker safety, for one thing. Eleven workers died during construction, and this was considered better than average for its era!
- deleted 8y ago
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- jtolmar 8y ago
  Just two years ago in Seattle, the University Link Tunnel was completed ahead of time and under budget, while all media attention went to the Alaskan Way Viaduct Replacement Tunnel (Bertha) which was over budget and massively delayed. The former was a relatively standard tunnel using standard machines, while the latter was the largest single-bore tunnel ever attempted.
- gamblor956 8y ago
  I take issue with your thesis. Every day, I ride to work on the Metro Expo line, which was built on time (actually early) and only delayed opening because a private company couldn't get its shit together and build the rail cars on time. I'll make the case that, as a nation, we're doing fine with the ability to deliver civil infrastructure projects on time and on budget, and to manage them once they are operational, in those regions where they actually care about their infrastructure. See, e.g., LA Metro, Denver's metro, Cleveland's RTA, our utilities grid post-Enron. These are all things done at a scale and density that have been equaled or exceeded only by authoritarian states.
Arn_Thor 8y ago
You may be speaking from the US point of view there. Internationally, many of the biggest projects were government-built and then only later given over to private firms to run

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adrianratnapala 8y ago

> it's worth pointing out that nearly all transportation projects from the "old days" around the world were done by private companies, and often met a swift end in bankruptcy... Only our sepia-colored glasses and the survival bias of remaining parts makes it look like people back then had it figured out, and we don't. This is true, but only part of the story. The private railroads (and indeed much internet infrastructure) had two phases. In the first, early entrants made big profits by picking the low hanging fruit (i.e. most profitable opportunities) in a new market. This created investor euphoria just as the opportunities for "easy" profits were drying up. So things turned towards speculative, even fraudulent investments that left the investors out of pocket. But, as you point out, even the second phase left some infrastructure on the ground that could be operated at a profit once bought at firesale prices.

Nav_Panel 8y ago
In NYC specifically, the problem was the city government introduced price caps that made the privately owned lines unprofitable, then refused to raise them. So, of course the trains went out of business. It was set to 5 cents in 1904 and remained there for over 40 years. Not even the lowest hanging fruit could survive such a thing.
- adrianratnapala 8y ago
  Yeah I believe you, I had taken temp-dude's comment to be more about railroads in general and not suburban railways or NYC in particular. And those are different, always were more government related.

siculars 8y ago

I'll take issue with your thesis. I was once standing in Marin county overlooking the Golden Gate bridge, there I read a plaque describing how the bridge was built ahead of schedule and under budget - in the 1930s (no computers!). Behind the Golden gate bridge in the distance you see the Bay bridge, built with tremendous cost overruns and delays measured in billions of dollars and many years, respectively. I'll make the case that, as a nation, we have lost the ability to deliver civil infrastructure projects on time and on budget, not to mention manage them once they are operational. Regarding NYC MTA, I'll share an anecdote. I have a very close friend who worked on the second avenue Subway line a few years back. He's a civil engineer by training and was in middle management on this project, employed by the general contractor awarded this contact. His comment was along the lines of: "imagine dozens of dump trucks full of hundred dollar bills backing up to an incinerator and dumping the money. That's what the MTA does. Burn money." The sentiment was that these public institutions are chuck full of incompetence with no repercussions for mismanagement or incentive to excel. As a life long New Yorker, I don't have to work in the tunnels to know that he's right.

TylerE 8y ago
It’s called worker safety, for one thing. Eleven workers died during construction, and this was considered better than average for its era!
deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
jtolmar 8y ago
Just two years ago in Seattle, the University Link Tunnel was completed ahead of time and under budget, while all media attention went to the Alaskan Way Viaduct Replacement Tunnel (Bertha) which was over budget and massively delayed. The former was a relatively standard tunnel using standard machines, while the latter was the largest single-bore tunnel ever attempted.
gamblor956 8y ago
I take issue with your thesis. Every day, I ride to work on the Metro Expo line, which was built on time (actually early) and only delayed opening because a private company couldn't get its shit together and build the rail cars on time. I'll make the case that, as a nation, we're doing fine with the ability to deliver civil infrastructure projects on time and on budget, and to manage them once they are operational, in those regions where they actually care about their infrastructure. See, e.g., LA Metro, Denver's metro, Cleveland's RTA, our utilities grid post-Enron. These are all things done at a scale and density that have been equaled or exceeded only by authoritarian states.

Arn_Thor 8y ago

You may be speaking from the US point of view there. Internationally, many of the biggest projects were government-built and then only later given over to private firms to run