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The infrastructural humiliation of America
- narrator 8y agoThe second avenue subway extension costs $2.1 billion dollars per mile to build.[1] [1] https://www.thoughtco.com/rail-transit-projects-costs-2798796 https://www.thoughtco.com/rail-transit-projects-costs-279879...
- Ericson2314 8y agoConway's law: > "organizations which design systems ... are constrained to produce designs which are copies of the communication structures of these organizations." Perhaps that extends to society at large, too. We're still living down IBM's strawman product of the PC. Everything is legacy and ossificed. Newer open source stuff, the other half of our commons, is often fad driven and also doesn't seek to improve/replace the garbage beneath it. Unix is still lauded in these parts, but it's also long out of date. Sometimes I think of old school networking to SDNs. A lot of stuff today in programs and in real life seems overly uncoordinated or narrow-minded. It's all the downsides of distribution systems without the benefits (not autonomous or resilient). Perhaps judicious optional centralization (aquaponics + healthcare co-opt?) Is a path forward? In the virtual realm, Nixpkgs as a "Domesday Book" (first census in a while) of the whole realm of software in the commons (how to build, compose, and develop each piece) strikes me as another example.
- crazynick4 8y agoThe Moscow subway is quite beautiful as well. My grandparents were shocked when I took them into the NY subway for the first time. I guess they were expecting something like this: https://www.google.com/search?q=moscow+subway&tbm=isch https://www.google.com/search?q=moscow+subway&tbm=isch
- kolbe 8y agoI hate these comparisons. What's the marginal benefit to New York for gutting its public transit system to build one as nice as Bangkok? What's the marginal benefit to Chicago of gutting O'Hare to build a new airport comparable to Beijing's? Answer: not a lot. On the other hand, Shenzhen needed to build a new airport relatively recently to accommodate their rapid economic growth. So, they were able to tap all of the new design and building techniques that have been learned in the 70 years since the United States went through its airport boom. And the fact of the matter is capacity and necessity are what should drive the creation and updating of airports--not some inferiority complex about some other city's being nicer.
- ian1321 8y agoAs an expat living in Zurich, I can say that it is difficult to explain to American's what they're missing.
- mberning 8y agoPopulation density, small landmass, and extremely high per capita GDP?
- pandemic_region 8y agoi think he's referring to the healthcare system.
- randcraw 8y agoAnd our insanely expensive higher education system. And the total absence of civil protections against surveillance-based capitalism. And the lack of oversight on speculator-driven excess in the mortgage industry and stock markets. It's death by a thousand tax cuts.
- danans 8y agoMany major metropolitan areas in the US have similar inputs, just different historical priorities.
- ksdale 8y agoYeah I feel like comparisons to Europe often fall flat for this reason. There are plenty of small, wealthy enclaves in the U.S. where the infrastructure is perfectly fine, but the U.S. is so big that telling someone in say, Bellevue, WA that the infrastructure in the Midwest is crumbling is the same as telling someone in Zurich that the infrastructure in Bulgaria or Turkey is crumbling. Obviously that analogy is far from perfect, as Seattle has its own set of infrastructure problems, but extrapolating from most European countries doesn't seem particularly useful.
- aylmao 8y ago
- busterarm 8y agoPeople really underestimate how poorly suited our modern political structure is to accomplishing large scale public works projects. We have loads of critical infrastructure, namely bridges, dams, etc that are long past their serviceable lifespan and are accidents waiting to happen. It's a nationwide problem and we aren't doing anything about it. Unfortunately all signs point to a scenario where people are going to die before it gets any better.
- CydeWeys 8y agoPeople already have died, and the primary response seems to have been to rebuild that one bridge. Hell, people are dying every day in traffic accidents that could be mitigated with better design (or reduced by making better mass transit as an alternative, which as a byproduct is also much safer than driving).
- busterarm 8y agoI don't disagree with you in the slightest but I really meant on a scale that people will care about. It's a really terrible state of affairs.
- YetAnotherNick 8y agoStop making up things and seeing past with rose colored glasses. Accidents due to things like bridge collapse are much lower than in past, and much lower in US/developed countries than in thailand. Google "thailand bridge collapse" to see the cases.
- busterarm 8y ago> Stop making up things https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/more-50-000-american-bridges-are-falling-apart-n842356 https://www.nbcnews.com/news/us-news/more-50-000-american-br... https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/economy/2018/08/13/infrastructure-spending-states-that-are-falling-apart/37270513/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/economy/2018/08/13/infr... https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2018/01/30/report-over-54000-american-bridges-are-structurally-deficient-infographic/#1b5148b419b5 https://www.forbes.com/sites/niallmccarthy/2018/01/30/report... https://www.businessinsider.com/asce-gives-us-infrastructure-a-d-2017-3 https://www.businessinsider.com/asce-gives-us-infrastructure... https://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/cat-item/bridges/ https://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/cat-item/bridges/
- Cieplak 8y agoWho needs transportation infrastructure when you have F22s, B2 Spirits, Ohio-class submarines and aircraft carriers?
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- Faaak 8y agoWhat's your point ?
- ick 8y agoReading between the lines, I took this as a comment pointing out the large difference between military and non-military spending.
- twoheadedboy 8y agoMoney spent on defense could instead be spent on infrastructure. Seems pretty straightforward.
- fredley 8y agoFlying into America (from Europe) is like landing in an airport stuck in a time warp from 50-70 years ago, it's so strange. The first time I landed in New York (can't remember which airport) I was really struck with how old the place was. It had more in common with fading ancient airports (such as Bangalore's old city-centre terminal—now replaced) than the (mostly) smart and clean airports we have this side of the pond (and we're still outclassed by Asia). It was a feeling that followed me around the whole trip, that America was still stuck in the era of the 80's films I'd grown up with.
- nostromo 8y agoMuch like Europe, it really depends on the airport. New York City has some of the worst (and oldest) airports in the nation. And yet, if you fly into neighboring Newark it's fairly nice and has great integration with the train system. What's strange about America is you see this phenomenon where the richest cities have the worst infrastructure. As a foreigner, you may think that New York would be this shining beacon on a hill given its wealth. But, nope, the infrastructure is old, grimey and gross. Meanwhile, the facilities in smaller second-tier cities are quite nice.
- kolbe 8y agoIt's 'strange' because the richest cities were generally also the richest 100 years ago. That meant they were the first to be able to afford it, and used the technologies available at the time. And it's simply not worth the cost of gutting a perfectly functional piece of infrastructure because you're jealous that someone else's is nicer.
- alexhutcheson 8y agoNewark Terminal C is nice. Terminals A and B are still stuck with a layout that was designed right before security checkpoints really became a thing, and consequently doesn't accommodate them well. Not coincidentally Terminal C is the exclusive domain of a single airline (United), who could finance the improvements and realize the benefits of a renovated terminal. Terminals A and B are shared between a bunch of airlines, so no individual airline has much of an incentive to finance renovations. IMO Newark's integration with the train system is much worse than JFK's, because the Newark AirTrain is slow and unreliable, and there are often 40+ minute gaps between NJ Transit trains at the Newark Airport stop. The JFK AirTrain is speedier and more reliable, and the combined frequency of LIRR and the subway is much higher at Jamaica.
- glitchc 8y agoMassive infrastructure projects require massive amounts of money nowadays. Truth is, in North America (U.S. and Canada), the governments at all levels are effectively bankrupt.
- mxschumacher 8y agoif you control the value of the currency you owe money in, you cannot really go bankrupt.
- mberning 8y agoHere we go again. Let me compare a gigantic country that was industrialized over one hundred years ago with much smaller and more recently developed countries. It’s not that we don’t have things that need fixed and maintained, but the hyperventilating about it is overdone at this point.
- danans 8y agoUS states and major metropolitan areas are the comparable entities to the countries and cities mentioned in the article, and those have significantly worse infrastructure than their counterparts in Europe and Asia. Western european countries and cities industrialized even before US states and cities. They just had very different development priorities, that were formed partly around their historical pre-automobile population density. But it turns out that the US model (low density sprawl) has a much higher per capita long-term maintenance and replacement cost. In many cases, that cost outstrips the infrastructure's productivity in the long term. For more background on this: https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme/ https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme/ Of course the US has plenty of neglected infrastructure in high density areas, too. That's a complex subject, having to do with decades of urban disinvestment.
- Swizec 8y agoFair, America as a whole may be vast and mostly empty, but what about the megalopolises? The whole Bay Area has more people than many European countries in a muuuuuuch smaller geography and public transit still sucks. Most of the east coast is now so densely populated you can almost go north to south without ever leaving what one might call “a city/suburbs”, tens if not hundreds of millions of residents in a pretty damn small area when you think about it. Public transit still sucks from what I hear. Granted, everyone always says their public transit sucks and that seems interesting too.
- lucb1e 8y agoThe "decades newer" argument is mentioned in the article. I don't know if it's true or false, but please read at least the article before responding with a common argument.
- 8y ago
- mxschumacher 8y ago"Paris’s metro was inaugurated in 1900, but its well-maintained system continues to run excellently and expand continuously." Any daily commuter in Paris will tell you that this is untrue. Trains are often extremely full, delays happen frequently and many stations are deeply run down.
- JackFr 8y agoAs a New Yorker taking the Metro in Paris was decidedly underwhelming. It didn't seem appreciably cleaner or dirtier or more os less safe & reliable than the NYC subway.
- agumonkey 8y agoIt's a shame, to the point that I have dreams of starting a lavander club to spread flowers onto the decks
- simias 8y agoI also felt that the article made European transport systems appear better than they really are in order to make a point. That being said it is true that the metro keeps expanding (they're currently expanding the line 14 towards the north, hopefully in order to take some of the load of the extremely overcrowded line 13) and they've also extended one tramway line recently. On top of that public transportation in Paris is heavily subsidized and pretty cheap, a lot cheaper than London for instance. On the other hand it's true that many Parisian stations are simply disgusting and could urgently use a renovation. Given how hugely touristic Paris is it's quite shameful really.
- lucb1e 8y agoYeah I'm also not a big fan of the French metro, and as a Dutchman living in Germany I can say that the German also leaves quite something to be desired. I can't imagine what the American system must look like if it's made out like that. Anyone here who lived in the Netherlands as well as the USA to compare?
- theredbox 8y agoLiving in Seoul a city with an insanely good public transportation I have to say that it takes me 1,5h to commute to work. It's crowded, it does not cover everything it's just as good as it can get. Public transp. is not everything and wont solve all your problems.
- coldtea 8y agoAmerica stopped believing in public infrastructure -- so it doesn't get any anymore. As for private infrastructure, private investors are happy to cut all kinds of corners. It's all about profit, preferably short term, than making something lasting, and even less so, about being proud in it. The funny thing is, not very long ago (well, 30 years or so still) people were awestruck going into the US from Asia, Europe, etc. I've visited the US many times in the past decades, but I was more impressed with the past artifacts (e.g. Route 66, Chicagoan art deco, the fabulous country side, old New York skyscrapers, New Orleans, etc.) than with modern infrastructure. Heck, third tier cities in Europe have better subways and airports. (That said, I did appreciate the abundance of ultra-cheap consumer electronics compared to old Europe). The other thing I think (not an expert) is too much bureaucracy -- all the busy works laws and regulations that quadruple the cost of any project, and not in a good (e.g. public safety, long term quality, etc) way. What's funny is the US budget is still huge. Just the stuff going into military BS could provide for top notch infrastructure, and even create an environment that could still jobs from China with a better supply chain (though, of course, the US can never account for the sheer number of Chinese workers).
- fredley 8y ago"The public infrastructure is terrible! Why should our taxes go towards this awful system?" Rinse, repeat. There are politicians pushing this in the UK (most notably with the NHS) - starve [public institution] of cash, make it worse, bring in private companies to plug the gaps and provide a pathway to privatise the whole system. Everybody wins! /s
- andrepd 8y agoSame thing in Portugal. Happened with loads of public enterprises, now it's happening with trains. Block fleet renovations, investment into long-term sustainability, disregard expert's advice |> as it all comes inevitably crumbling down, point at it and go "look how terrible the rail system is, look how terrible the state is at managing enterprises" |> when the company goes 100s of millions in the hole sell it to a private company for pennies (preferably to some well-connected friends in this fucking revolving door "democracy") |> move on dismantling the next public enterprise
- 40acres 8y agoThere's the phrase: "show me your budget and I'll tell you what your priorities are", look at the federal budget and you'll see that the US "priorities" are really focused on two things. Maintaining our military and supporting social programs. The Trump administration is negotiating a deal with the Taliban to end the war in Afghanistan, at the end of the day it will have cost us over 2,000 American lives and 2 Trillion dollars. Imagine if instead we committed 2 trillion dollars to create a 21st century infrastructure? How much dividend would that pay off as compared to this war in which we gained nothing? I highly doubt 2,000 workers would've died in the process. Tackling the military budget is such a political football though, I understand the geopolitical needs to have such a global military, maintain bases, project force, and be at the forefront of military tech. But I wonder when American's will turn an eye and say "hey, why are we spending so much on war when we need programs at home"? As the nation gets older, inequality rises and growth maintains is sluggish pace, the American government will need to take a larger role in facilitating growth. In my opinion de-funding social programs is an absolute nonstarter, the military approaches the same position but I believe are more at risk. Time will come where the Pentagon will need to defend it's budget, especially if you get a future president on the extremes of either party.
- andrewmcwatters 8y agoI used to believe these lies until I actually bothered to take a look at the federal budget: https://datalab.usaspending.gov/budget-function.html https://datalab.usaspending.gov/budget-function.html Could we spend less on military? Oh for sure, but the idea that we spend more on military than anything else is absolute bullshit.
- 40acres 8y agoI never said we spend more on the military than anything else, and the budget you provided just helps to make my point clear. The main hitters of the budget are all social services that are politically impossible to cut. The top non service line items are the VA and defense.
- treis 8y agoThere's something funky going on with that chart. Military spending is about 20% of the budget when you include Veterans benefits. You're right that it's smaller than the ~50% spent on SS and Meciare/Medicaid, but after those it's by far the biggest budget item.
- ohiovr 8y agoMaybe their infrastructure is better because it is several decades newer than ours. If it isn’t broke it doesn’t get fixed here so things have to get kind of bad before they get rebuilt or improved. Some parts of Europe look way more modern than the US because it had to be. Much of it had been destroyed a couple times.
- lucb1e 8y agoThe "decades newer" argument is mentioned in the article. I don't know if it's true or false, but please read at least the article before responding with a common argument (additionally, someone else already mentioned it in another top level comment).
- ohiovr 8y agoSorry but I did read the article. If I missed that line then it was a good observation of the article or whatever anyway. What is there to add? Most of it was built pretty good the first time at least. PS I am not humiliated by some potholes. Decades newer is true. WwI destroyed every penny of Europe’s infrastructure. They did it again less than 30 years later.
- telaport 8y agoWait are you telling me we're due for another... Infrastructure Week?!? But in all seriousness, we've pissed away trillions of dollars in Afghanistan and Iraq and Republicans are enjoying the past 10 years of economic growth by robbing the Government of revenue, giving away $1.5 Trillion to Billionaires and Corporations, all while inflicting billions of dollars of economic harm because the one place Republicans seem to think we need Infrastructure is in building a ridiculous $100 Billion wall that will cost billions of dollars year-over-year just to indefinitely maintain. High speed rails? New Bridges? New Roads? Sorry, we're too busy putting children in cages!
- lucb1e 8y agoDownvoted for saying, as I understand it, half the American population is enjoying some trillions at the cost of the other. I don't know what this 'us vs them' mentality is in America with your two political parties system, but I doubt you're correct and I'd rather see less of it.
- dimillian 8y agoWhile America have a big problem in public and private infrastructure, I've been wondering in my head about the problem even at small scale in cities and village here in France. We have a ton of old buildings, privately owned. Mine included, where it's a small building of 4 floors and 4 owners. One appartement per floor. It's so hard to get people into investing money without any monetary return. We fix problems after they happen. We waited for the rain pipe to break to fix it, we waited for the balcony to leak in order to fix it etc.. In Marseille two buildings collapsed right in the center of city. They were decrepit and owned by a company who never invested a dim despite problem reported. People actually died. I wonder how many time it need to happen until we wake up? I'm managing my coproperty, and it's so hard to even find what kind of local/governmental help we can get. We would be very happy to redo insulation and building beams if it was possible to co-finance it which public/city money. But instead the norm seems to let 150 years old building (built with good materials) getting destroyed and build new cheap reinforced concrete one. Is it really cheaper to pop ton of buildings which will not even last 50 years? What is there no incentive to help privately owned building maintenance?
- abraae 8y ago> We would be very happy to redo insulation and building beams if it was possible to co-finance it which public/city money. Hey, I'd be happy to accept public money to fix my own house as well. But frankly, I bought it cheaper since it had those problems so I don't see how that would be fair to my fellow taxpayers.
- dimillian 8y agoHa, I have no idea on how to make that happen. But what will happen is that the city will slap a motion on the door of the building in the coming years, and we'll be forced to sell for as cheap as possible to city directly or some cheap promotor. Which is kinda lame because giving 250K would be cheaper than buying 1M worth of land to demolish a building and build a 3M building on top of it.
- dsajames 8y agoWhy wouldn't you be financially responsible for your own property? This doesn't make sense.
- RPLong 8y agoThe author of this article can't seem to acknowledge the evidence staring him in the face. First, he criticizes public transportation initiatives in the United States, such as mass transit and airports. Then he says infrastructure isn't all bad here, and mentions ridesharing and telecommunications. Indeed, rideshare and telecomm are not public works here in America. Our brightest lights are the ones supplied by private enterprise. If the author could make his way outside of public-funding enclaves like New England and LA, he might also discover the many private airports that dot our country while being run quite smoothly. It's amazing what can happen when a government committee is not put in charge.
- azinman2 8y agoYes you end up with such amazing privatized infrastructure wonders like Comcast. Privatization isn’t a magic bullet.
- RPLong 8y ago1) I didn't say anything about a "magic bullet." 2) Private enterprise is a different concept from privatization. 3) I don't believe it's mere coincidence that everything the author likes about US infrastructure is privately supplied, while everything he suggests is "humiliating" is publicly funded -- do you?
- mixmastamyk 8y agoAirports are publicly funded?
- RPLong 8y agoGee, folks... https://www.faa.gov/airports/ https://www.faa.gov/airports/ https://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-14-658T https://www.gao.gov/products/GAO-14-658T
- mixmastamyk 8y ago
- sosodev 8y agoI've noticed that a lot of people want to attribute the public works shortcomings to a lack of funding. As someone who currently works for a local government organization that manages public transportation for the region I'm not sure that's the case. I think the author correctly recognizes it as America's problem with "cost disease'". The organization I work for receives billions of dollars yearly and most of it is pissed away. Our websites, for example, often get built by consultants. Sometimes to the tune of millions of dollars. These websites are usually your typical CRUD apps too so you might think they'd be done well for millions of dollars. Nope, they usually have garbage for a code base. The code is so garbage that we usually have to keep paying them to maintain the websites because we don't understand how their mess works. The worst part is that these websites are often rebuilt a few years later. They're built again, by another consultant, with the hopes that they'll better suit our future needs. This is just the massive waste of money that I've noticed from within my department. I can only imagine how bad it is within others. We all know that large corporations are far less efficient than smaller companies. So why do we keep letting public organizations turn into bloated behemoths?
- ausjke 8y agoNo surprise, our focus in this nation has been on LGBT rights, all genders share one restroom, illegal immigration should be able to live here at will, the rich should be taxed 70% because top 20% earners paying 87% of the tax is apparently not enough, our education favors no child left behind fully and nobody cares for the 'race-to-top' thingy, and your chance to get into good colleges is tied to your skin color, job should be distributed by skin colors too(except for NbA though). Seen all these from 10000 feet above, we're rapidly socializing this country. Which, will bring down the nation to rat hole in no time, infrastructure is just the start. The whole country, sadly more so the education system from K-12 and up, and 90% of the main stream media, are so brain washed by the extreme left ideology and political-correctness, good for them the tipping point has already passed, there is no way back, USA is totally screwed, it might be the nation in power in history that has the shortest timeshare. Downvote me freely, I'm ok to get 1000 downvotes than living with the political-correctness nonsense. Enough is enough.
- sctb 8y ago> Eschew flamebait. Don't introduce flamewar topics unless you have something genuinely new to say. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents. https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html
- daenz 8y agoHere's an unpopular theory: America is so pitted against eachother along a number of dimensions: class, race, ethnicity, gender, sex, political view, religion, etc etc... that we've stopped thinking of ourselves as a cohesive society. And when you don't have a cohesive society, you don't care about improving things for everyone, only for your specific tribe. Why should tribe X care about the quality of life of tribe Y, when tribe Y likely doesn't care about them? The article mentions "wealthy Asian nations" as an example of what things could be like in terms of quality of infrastructure. Do you know what those nations have in common? Homogeneity. Japan is 98% ethnically Japanese. Thailand is 92% ethnically Thai. China is 94% Han. It's a lot harder to consider someone "not of your tribe" when you're less diverse.
- exploderwhale 8y ago>that we've stopped thinking of ourselves as a cohesive society. The U.S. was never thought as cohesive. It's why we started with multiple states that facilitated nations.
- buboard 8y agowas america more cohesive when they did the apollo program?
- mschuster91 8y ago> What happened? A cascading series of failures of imagination; failures to invest in the future; paralyzed or ideologically blinkered or simply idiotic governance; and, perhaps most of all, cost disease The same thing happened that is biting Italy and soon Germany: Politicians like to open new buildings/roads/..., but the maintenance budget is often enough forgotten at best and ignored at worst. And to make matters even worse: with most infrastructure, continuous maintenance over 30-40 years is cheap compared to the inevitable outright rebuild neccessary after the same timespan without any maintenance.
- theandrewbailey 8y agoThe author wants to express how American infrastructure is bad, but he only complains about trains of all kinds (with a side of airport security). He mentions that the roads and phone networks are good, but doesn't touch anything else. Did I miss anything?
- mixmastamyk 8y agoAlmost ten years ago I flew from LAX to Guadalajara, which was new and amazing, quite a shocker. They've since upgraded LAX, but the upgrades are more modest, sort of like gutting a 1960's building and refurbishing it, rather than starting from scratch.
- jandrewrogers 8y agoFrequently lost in these discussions is the fact that the US Federal government does not fund most public infrastructure -- most funding and virtually all execution is provided by individual States. As a consequence, cost and quality of infrastructure varies widely by the competency and efficiency of various States. Road construction costs famously vary by over an order of magnitude when they cross a State border, and the less expensive side is often a higher quality product. Talking about the US government when discussing the infrastructure most people talk about is misattribution. State policy creates those outcomes and all politics is local. There is no homogeneous "US infrastructure", there is a conglomeration of State infrastructures of greatly varying quality and reflecting the priorities of different States. All of which is to say that infrastructure is not an America problem, it is a State problem. If the infrastructure in California, Nebraska, etc is dilapidated then that is the fault of the people that live in and run those States.
- mtw 8y agoIsn't this because transportation is centered around cars and planes in the U.S.? You are supposed to have your own personal car to do anything. Nobody takes the bus, trains or subways, except in a city like New York City or SanFran, or if you are poor or new immigrant. Whereas in Asia or in Europe, there's a strong tradition of mass transit. Poor/Rich people take the subway to go to work, and it's ok for everyone in those countries.
- mixmastamyk 8y agoA major portion of this article talks about airports.
- nowandlater 8y agoThis is an old but worthwhile lecture on the topic by the, at times bombastic and over-the-top, James Howard Kunstler: https://www.ted.com/talks/james_howard_kunstler_dissects_suburbia?language=en https://www.ted.com/talks/james_howard_kunstler_dissects_sub...
- IOT_Apprentice 8y agoIn Arizona, public road construction, appears to be based on a sub-contractor ponzi scheme of doing tiny amounts of work all over the state, taking YEARS to build small roadways, repaving etc. Tucson had a project for widening state highway 10 that took years, and it is still not done-- 10+ years after being announced. Signs, barriers etc. go up for months with no sign of work, or when there is work going on it takes forever to complete. As a nation, we are incapable of delivering a high speed rail system to match those in Europe or Asia.