7 ms·

A family member in the DOT told me this as but one of many tales of woe. Several hundred miles of an interstate were going to be rehabbed. There was a proven

A family member in the DOT told me this as but one of many tales of woe. Several hundred miles of an interstate were going to be rehabbed. There was a proven technique to redo the joints between the concrete slabs, which were in good shape. A contractor was hired to do a small number of miles as a test, but they had a learning curve. The first few joints that they redid were not done well, but they rapidly improved and the approach looked really good. However, the state selected a different approach which required tearing up the road and redoing it. The excuse was those first few bad joints. There was also the unstated matter that the contractor favored by the state did not know how to do this technique. The result was billions of wasted money to redo the road with an inferior material. That material failed within a few years, and they now need to redo it again. And this is not just a cost issue. Its estimated that failure to adhere to known safer pavement designs is resulting in 10,000 - 15,000 unnecessary deaths a year.

koolba 7y ago
> There was also the unstated matter that the contractor favored by the state did not know how to do this technique. I’m gonna bet this was the deciding factor.
daenz 7y ago
The further you are removed from "other people" with regards to "other people's money", the easier it is to waste/pocket/embezzle. Fixing that problem would go a long way.
- afarrell 7y ago
  The solution to that problem in many places is currently to have lists of approved suppliers.
  - dsfyu404ed 7y ago
    And once you're on the list it's basically a license to print money so the last thing you want is changes to the system.
  - moltar 7y ago
    Well that clearly doesn’t work. Montreal is a perfect example. So much corruption on that list.
    - afarrell 7y ago
      Right, so my point is that we need a solution to that corruption which itself is not an avenue for corruption.
  - corodra 7y ago
    Yea, that's called gsa.
  - Nimitz14 7y ago
    And then they get comfy and loosen their standards... and when someone new comes along with a better technique it takes forever to hire them. As anybody with industry experience should know, that does not work.
  - kilotaras 7y ago
    The better alternative is forcing supplier to get an insurance. e.g. we want a road that will be X feet wide and will last Y years provided no earthquakes. Maintenance cost + Z dollars per day closed comes from insurance. Want to use old boring tech - you insurance cost is lower. Want to try something new and shiny. Your insurance rate is higher at first, but may go down in the future.
- jmcqk6 7y ago
  This is not unique to government. Private Corporations are really, really good at wasting money as well. Is there a realistic approach to this that doesn't require changing a fundamental aspect of humanity?
ijpoijpoihpiuoh 7y ago
> And this is not just a cost issue. Its estimated that failure to adhere to known safer pavement designs is resulting in 10,000 - 15,000 unnecessary deaths a year. That seems unlikely, if this was in a single state, considering only about 35k people die each year on the roads in the entire country.
- lostlogin 7y ago
  Is it possible that the 10-15k figure includes a different way of counting? Pedestrians and bikes etc? It would be good to see a source.
  - ijpoijpoihpiuoh 7y ago
    No pedestrians or bikes on the interstate. It's likely the figure is just a large exaggeration.
    - Timothy055 7y ago
      Or it’s multiplied over the expected life of the roadway?
      - ijpoijpoihpiuoh 7y ago
        Since the figure quoted is "X deaths per year", that that would be a large exaggeration, as I said, right?
Anechoic 7y ago
Here is another way to think about that story: DOT and their proven, reliable contractor had experience with a certain method of rehabbing the joints between concrete slabs. A new technique was tried, and the first few attempts were not done well. The new technique showed promise, but there was a concern that if the new technique failed, there would be consequences to the state for trying a new technique rather than the tried-and-true method. To reduce the risk to themselves, the DOT went with the old method. IME, DOT and transit agencies often shy away from new methods/techniques because they are raked over the coals whenever the new approach doesn't work out (see SF Bay Bridge, or the Big Dig [0]). That makes them risk averse to trying or sticking with innovative methods. [0] I'm not saying that cost problems with those projects are completely due to new methods/processes, but significant chunks were.
- dqpb 7y ago
  Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a riskless option.
  - TeMPOraL 7y ago
    If the last decades of experience with government and corporate bureaucracies taught us anything, it's that one of the primary functions of bureaucracies is to route risk around. Every part of an organization is risk-phobic, so the risk accumulates in places where the people either can't effectively dump it on someone else, or they don't notice what's happening. So e.g. here, by choosing an inferior but established method over a superior but new one, the DOT was routing the risk in the form of "they might rake us over the coals" away from themselves, and dumping it onto taxpayers in the form of "we'll pay more for it now, and even more when it breaks in a couple of years".
- nsxwolf 7y ago
  We should still be talking about this. That story fascinated me. If the media went into more detail on infrastructure beyond stories about how it's crumbling or who in congress does or doesn't want to pay for it, that could really make a difference. I would watch a nightly news show called "Infrastructure Tonight" if it existed.
aldoushuxley001 7y ago
Almost certainly they switched contractors because of corruption. Here in Montreal, it's well known that the mob runs the construction industry and quite frankly you're not allowed to even bid on contracts without their say so, otherwise you'll get visited for a very frank chat. So I can't speak for why infrastructure is expensive elsewhere, but atleast here in Quebec (& likely RoC) it's simply because of corruption. See the recent woes of SNC Lavalin.
- glitchc 7y ago
  Also explains the crumbling infrastructure of Montreal. The mob always needs more money to do the same work, sometimes many times more.
- Analemma_ 7y ago
  The thing is, even if this is true, it still doesn’t explain the cost difference between us and e.g. Japan. Construction firms and public infrastructure works in Japan have well-known ties to the yakuza, yet they still finish these at way lower costs than us (even though labor is more expensive!) Why?
  - smolder 7y ago
    Cultural differences: Japan is pretty homogenous and they seem to see themselves as part of a whole whereas in the US, for example, exploiting your fellow citizens for profit is almost a matter of duty in business.
    - BubRoss 7y ago
      Seems like a cliched and simplistic explanation to just waive away a large difference with 'culture'.
      - siphon22 7y ago
        Sometimes things really are that simple though. Why can you (most of the time) leave your bike outside a store you stop at in Japan but not in America? Because it isn't part of Japanese culture to take what doesn't belong to you, but is normal for a number of Americans. Why can you get relatively wholesome food at a 7-11 in East Asian countries while you get junk and trash at ones in America? Because Japanese people prefer real food over getting chips and a crappy sandwich for lunch. Why are nice public facilities possible in those kinds of countries and not America? Because those people don't wreck, vandalize, and spray grafiti on them, while Americans do.
adamc 7y ago
Given that the US vehicle fatalities as a whole are only around 36,000 (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in...), 10 - 15 thousand seems hard to believe.
- Retric 7y ago
  I read that as a worldwide figure. But, I would still like a source.
NullPrefix 7y ago
>The first few joints that they redid were not done well, but they rapidly improved and the approach looked really good. So in the end the contractor knew how to do it properly but decided not to fix the initial burnt batch? Is it really a surprise that they were not hired?
Balgair 7y ago
My SO did soil testing for the state for public works projects. Things like water retention rates, expansion, Atterberg tests, etc. It's incredibly basic stuff. Like, how much does the soil expand when it rains/snows? Over a few hundred miles of road bed, even small percentages will add up. In our state there are clays that will expand 4x their volume before water can no longer be absorbed. It turns out, the earth can be suprisingly active on a week to week basis, just from rain. So, yeah, there is a LOT of corruption and incompetence out there. But we've figured out a lot about soils/rocks/dirt in the last 40 years or so too. It's that there is this deep perception in most people that dirt is well ... dirt. Like, it's dirt, it doesn't change or move. So, you get issues where they pave the road-bed over just after a rain. And then the road dries out over 2 years and the entire road just breaks apart. Or you get the problem where the the pH of the soil wasn't tested, so the rebar in the concrete will corrode faster. Or they build another thing nearby and change the drainage patterns around your dam. It's not simple stuff to make a house or a 70mph highway that will last for 50 years without a lot of issues. Honestly, it does take a PhD these days.
- brandmeyer 7y ago
  Apropos: https://www.denverpost.com/2019/07/16/us-36-denver-boulder-collapse-blame/ https://www.denverpost.com/2019/07/16/us-36-denver-boulder-c... We have had an unusually wet year and a chunk of roadway collapsed. Fortunately, it was slow enough that the road was closed well in advance of being a danger to motorists. The blame game is extra-complex since this is a toll road and a public/private partnership. The article goes into good detail.
capkutay 7y ago
tl;dr lawyers/actors are in charge of projects for which they have no domain expertise. just using their temporary appointment on a 'transportation committee' as a stepping stone to some other job in public office. the actual planning and execution are either completely neglected over politicized that its almost impossible to build something efficiently. not to mention building such projects in large cities is extremely complicated and requires tons of focus and experience. doing it the way our government structures projects is almost impossible.
whydoineedthis 7y ago
there are only like 40k fatal accidents a year in the US, i seriously doubt 25-30% would be prevented from safer pavement design.
SubiculumCode 7y ago
There are a lot of opinions being floated here, so I feel free to float mine. I think that the use of private contractors for public works leads to corruption and large cost overruns. It is a truism that government agencies lack competition, and thus can be less efficient and/or innovative compared to private enterprise. However, as we know, private enterprise's goal is profit, and profit only requires efficiency in the face of competition and price sensitivity of the consumer. While there can be competition and price sensitivity during contract bidding process, this can be corrupted through back door dealings, political donations, etc. Perhaps even more dire, is that government agencies may be bad at keeping contractors to the terms of their contract, being responsible for cost over-runs, etc, who actively wish to get the government to pay as much as possible. I think that infrastructure would be much cheaper if it were designed and built by government employees of the relevant agencies, because although they might not have extreme efficiency, they have no profit motive to swindle an inattentive government consumer. It is my opinion anyway. I do not have the resources to find the relevant data to see if there is a correlation in cost and private vs public employee construction. I'd like to see some empirical meat on my hunch. I did find several articles: https://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/13/us/13contractor.html https://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/13/us/13contractor.html https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/09/18/do-private-contractors-save-the-government-money/#320b057e6266 https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/09/18/do-private-...
simonebrunozzi 7y ago
> 10,000 - 15,000 unnecessary deaths a year It's a very strong claim, and I don't believe it. Total deaths in US for road accidents is ~37,000 per year. [0]. I find it hard to believe that 30-40% of it is caused just by inferior pavement design. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in...

koolba 7y ago

> There was also the unstated matter that the contractor favored by the state did not know how to do this technique. I’m gonna bet this was the deciding factor.

daenz 7y ago

The further you are removed from "other people" with regards to "other people's money", the easier it is to waste/pocket/embezzle. Fixing that problem would go a long way.

afarrell 7y ago
The solution to that problem in many places is currently to have lists of approved suppliers.
- dsfyu404ed 7y ago
  And once you're on the list it's basically a license to print money so the last thing you want is changes to the system.
- moltar 7y ago
  Well that clearly doesn’t work. Montreal is a perfect example. So much corruption on that list.
  - afarrell 7y ago
    Right, so my point is that we need a solution to that corruption which itself is not an avenue for corruption.
- corodra 7y ago
  Yea, that's called gsa.
- Nimitz14 7y ago
  And then they get comfy and loosen their standards... and when someone new comes along with a better technique it takes forever to hire them. As anybody with industry experience should know, that does not work.
- kilotaras 7y ago
  The better alternative is forcing supplier to get an insurance. e.g. we want a road that will be X feet wide and will last Y years provided no earthquakes. Maintenance cost + Z dollars per day closed comes from insurance. Want to use old boring tech - you insurance cost is lower. Want to try something new and shiny. Your insurance rate is higher at first, but may go down in the future.
jmcqk6 7y ago
This is not unique to government. Private Corporations are really, really good at wasting money as well. Is there a realistic approach to this that doesn't require changing a fundamental aspect of humanity?

ijpoijpoihpiuoh 7y ago

> And this is not just a cost issue. Its estimated that failure to adhere to known safer pavement designs is resulting in 10,000 - 15,000 unnecessary deaths a year. That seems unlikely, if this was in a single state, considering only about 35k people die each year on the roads in the entire country.

lostlogin 7y ago
Is it possible that the 10-15k figure includes a different way of counting? Pedestrians and bikes etc? It would be good to see a source.
- ijpoijpoihpiuoh 7y ago
  No pedestrians or bikes on the interstate. It's likely the figure is just a large exaggeration.
  - Timothy055 7y ago
    Or it’s multiplied over the expected life of the roadway?
    - ijpoijpoihpiuoh 7y ago
      Since the figure quoted is "X deaths per year", that that would be a large exaggeration, as I said, right?

Anechoic 7y ago

Here is another way to think about that story: DOT and their proven, reliable contractor had experience with a certain method of rehabbing the joints between concrete slabs. A new technique was tried, and the first few attempts were not done well. The new technique showed promise, but there was a concern that if the new technique failed, there would be consequences to the state for trying a new technique rather than the tried-and-true method. To reduce the risk to themselves, the DOT went with the old method. IME, DOT and transit agencies often shy away from new methods/techniques because they are raked over the coals whenever the new approach doesn't work out (see SF Bay Bridge, or the Big Dig [0]). That makes them risk averse to trying or sticking with innovative methods. [0] I'm not saying that cost problems with those projects are completely due to new methods/processes, but significant chunks were.

dqpb 7y ago
Unfortunately, there is no such thing as a riskless option.
- TeMPOraL 7y ago
  If the last decades of experience with government and corporate bureaucracies taught us anything, it's that one of the primary functions of bureaucracies is to route risk around. Every part of an organization is risk-phobic, so the risk accumulates in places where the people either can't effectively dump it on someone else, or they don't notice what's happening. So e.g. here, by choosing an inferior but established method over a superior but new one, the DOT was routing the risk in the form of "they might rake us over the coals" away from themselves, and dumping it onto taxpayers in the form of "we'll pay more for it now, and even more when it breaks in a couple of years".
nsxwolf 7y ago
We should still be talking about this. That story fascinated me. If the media went into more detail on infrastructure beyond stories about how it's crumbling or who in congress does or doesn't want to pay for it, that could really make a difference. I would watch a nightly news show called "Infrastructure Tonight" if it existed.

aldoushuxley001 7y ago

Almost certainly they switched contractors because of corruption. Here in Montreal, it's well known that the mob runs the construction industry and quite frankly you're not allowed to even bid on contracts without their say so, otherwise you'll get visited for a very frank chat. So I can't speak for why infrastructure is expensive elsewhere, but atleast here in Quebec (& likely RoC) it's simply because of corruption. See the recent woes of SNC Lavalin.

glitchc 7y ago
Also explains the crumbling infrastructure of Montreal. The mob always needs more money to do the same work, sometimes many times more.
Analemma_ 7y ago
The thing is, even if this is true, it still doesn’t explain the cost difference between us and e.g. Japan. Construction firms and public infrastructure works in Japan have well-known ties to the yakuza, yet they still finish these at way lower costs than us (even though labor is more expensive!) Why?
- smolder 7y ago
  Cultural differences: Japan is pretty homogenous and they seem to see themselves as part of a whole whereas in the US, for example, exploiting your fellow citizens for profit is almost a matter of duty in business.
  - BubRoss 7y ago
    Seems like a cliched and simplistic explanation to just waive away a large difference with 'culture'.
    - siphon22 7y ago
      Sometimes things really are that simple though. Why can you (most of the time) leave your bike outside a store you stop at in Japan but not in America? Because it isn't part of Japanese culture to take what doesn't belong to you, but is normal for a number of Americans. Why can you get relatively wholesome food at a 7-11 in East Asian countries while you get junk and trash at ones in America? Because Japanese people prefer real food over getting chips and a crappy sandwich for lunch. Why are nice public facilities possible in those kinds of countries and not America? Because those people don't wreck, vandalize, and spray grafiti on them, while Americans do.

adamc 7y ago

Given that the US vehicle fatalities as a whole are only around 36,000 (source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in...), 10 - 15 thousand seems hard to believe.

Retric 7y ago
I read that as a worldwide figure. But, I would still like a source.

NullPrefix 7y ago

>The first few joints that they redid were not done well, but they rapidly improved and the approach looked really good. So in the end the contractor knew how to do it properly but decided not to fix the initial burnt batch? Is it really a surprise that they were not hired?

Balgair 7y ago

My SO did soil testing for the state for public works projects. Things like water retention rates, expansion, Atterberg tests, etc. It's incredibly basic stuff. Like, how much does the soil expand when it rains/snows? Over a few hundred miles of road bed, even small percentages will add up. In our state there are clays that will expand 4x their volume before water can no longer be absorbed. It turns out, the earth can be suprisingly active on a week to week basis, just from rain. So, yeah, there is a LOT of corruption and incompetence out there. But we've figured out a lot about soils/rocks/dirt in the last 40 years or so too. It's that there is this deep perception in most people that dirt is well ... dirt. Like, it's dirt, it doesn't change or move. So, you get issues where they pave the road-bed over just after a rain. And then the road dries out over 2 years and the entire road just breaks apart. Or you get the problem where the the pH of the soil wasn't tested, so the rebar in the concrete will corrode faster. Or they build another thing nearby and change the drainage patterns around your dam. It's not simple stuff to make a house or a 70mph highway that will last for 50 years without a lot of issues. Honestly, it does take a PhD these days.

brandmeyer 7y ago
Apropos: https://www.denverpost.com/2019/07/16/us-36-denver-boulder-collapse-blame/ https://www.denverpost.com/2019/07/16/us-36-denver-boulder-c... We have had an unusually wet year and a chunk of roadway collapsed. Fortunately, it was slow enough that the road was closed well in advance of being a danger to motorists. The blame game is extra-complex since this is a toll road and a public/private partnership. The article goes into good detail.

capkutay 7y ago

tl;dr lawyers/actors are in charge of projects for which they have no domain expertise. just using their temporary appointment on a 'transportation committee' as a stepping stone to some other job in public office. the actual planning and execution are either completely neglected over politicized that its almost impossible to build something efficiently. not to mention building such projects in large cities is extremely complicated and requires tons of focus and experience. doing it the way our government structures projects is almost impossible.

whydoineedthis 7y ago

there are only like 40k fatal accidents a year in the US, i seriously doubt 25-30% would be prevented from safer pavement design.

SubiculumCode 7y ago

There are a lot of opinions being floated here, so I feel free to float mine. I think that the use of private contractors for public works leads to corruption and large cost overruns. It is a truism that government agencies lack competition, and thus can be less efficient and/or innovative compared to private enterprise. However, as we know, private enterprise's goal is profit, and profit only requires efficiency in the face of competition and price sensitivity of the consumer. While there can be competition and price sensitivity during contract bidding process, this can be corrupted through back door dealings, political donations, etc. Perhaps even more dire, is that government agencies may be bad at keeping contractors to the terms of their contract, being responsible for cost over-runs, etc, who actively wish to get the government to pay as much as possible. I think that infrastructure would be much cheaper if it were designed and built by government employees of the relevant agencies, because although they might not have extreme efficiency, they have no profit motive to swindle an inattentive government consumer. It is my opinion anyway. I do not have the resources to find the relevant data to see if there is a correlation in cost and private vs public employee construction. I'd like to see some empirical meat on my hunch. I did find several articles: https://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/13/us/13contractor.html https://www.nytimes.com/2011/09/13/us/13contractor.html https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/09/18/do-private-contractors-save-the-government-money/#320b057e6266 https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2011/09/18/do-private-...

simonebrunozzi 7y ago

> 10,000 - 15,000 unnecessary deaths a year It's a very strong claim, and I don't believe it. Total deaths in US for road accidents is ~37,000 per year. [0]. I find it hard to believe that 30-40% of it is caused just by inferior pavement design. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in_U.S._by_year https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motor_vehicle_fatality_rate_in...