10 ms·

> If we made the assembly of steel, concrete, and asphalt cheaper, do you think suburban mayors would stop demanding we build them big box interchanges? I gene

by danans 7y ago

> If we made the assembly of steel, concrete, and asphalt cheaper, do you think suburban mayors would stop demanding we build them big box interchanges? I generally agree with many of Strong Towns' arguments, but this really seems to miss the mark. The reason why major infrastructure projects like regional/urban rail systems, tunnels, etc are so expensive vs other developed countries isn't due to the cost of commodities like concrete or steel. It's due to the lack of sufficient domestic expertise in designing, managing, and building such large scale works. Because we don't build that scale of project frequently in the US, when we do it, we don't do it as efficiently. A recent example would be the use of the incorrect grade of steel in San Francisco's new Chinatown subway line. OTOH, we have huge amounts of experience building big box stores, parking lots, and freeways, which are the sort of infrastructure that the Strong Towns perspective says (correctly IMO) that we don't need so much of. We need to build infrastructure with higher utilization, which therefore doesn't need to rely on what Strong Towns describes as the Growth Ponzi Scheme, but unfortunately that's exactly the sort of infrastructure that we are not very good at building.

jdavis703 7y ago
We also have "Build America" policies that penalize us from bringing in foreign companies with expertise. We have to make a decision, is infrastructure a jobs program for today or an economic investment for tomorrow?
erentz 7y ago
Two things this makes me think of. 1. The US has a large NIH attitude and is unwilling to adopt overseas experience or standards. 2. Somehow we have to move away from building infrastructure as stepwise huge mega projects. And start building infrastructure as an ongoing incremental and reliable program into perpetuity. E.g. instead of CAHSR designed largely as a dedicated rail system with huge up front capital costs the benefits of which can’t be felt until it is all spent, set up a state rail agency to consolidate and consistently fund incremental improvements to the rail system, with incremental ROW purchases and improvements that over time reach the really big HSR goals. Imagine for example CAHSRs capital budget of $80 billion but instead going to fund an agency for 30 years that can then hire engineers and project managers and allocate it to its projects that have the best ROI over 30 years. That last one seems to primarily be a political challenge though. Nobody likes state run agencies and everyone loves defunding them.
- Ididntdothis 7y ago
  “The US has a large NIH attitude and is unwilling to adopt overseas experience or standards.” This indeed seems to be a problem. The US always wants to lead and if something works better somewhere else there is always the excuse “we are too big/spread out/not socialists” or something else. Or it just gets ignored. See healthcare or internet availability.
  - bin0 7y ago
    > internet availability Remind me again, which nation has produced companies with a realistic chance of delivering satellite internet to every one?
    - Ididntdothis 7y ago
      There are plenty of countries that have cheaper and better internet right now.
      - bin0 7y ago
        Most of them are much smaller, meaning there is significantly less distance to cover. Of course you can get fiber to the home every where when you have a small nation. Let's look at larger nations: Canada has worse broadband but better mobile [0][1]. I'd attribute this to population density: most of their population is fairly close to our border because the rest is a frozen wasteland. Russia has worse speeds by far, and the certain things simply are not accessible due to being blocked. No, we're not South Korea, but S. Korea is small with most people living in a very concentrated area. Again, no other nation has companies with excellent chances of setting up satellite network infrastructure, which is a good solution for a nation as big and spread-out as America. [0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinmurnane/2016/09/15/comparing-internet-access-speeds-in-canada-mexico-and-the-united-states/#31a949661039 https://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinmurnane/2016/09/15/compari... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Internet_connection_speeds#Average_connection_speeds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Internet_...
avgDev 7y ago
Reading this reminded me of US stop signs, which are just terrible for traffic and fuel efficiency. I recently went to Europe, and round abouts started feeling "right" so fast I was amazed. Do civil engineers not learn these things in schools in the US? Is efficiency not considered? So many questions.
- toomuchtodo 7y ago
  Roundabouts are making a comeback. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-10-03/roundabouts-are-slowly-conquering-the-american-midwest https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-10-03/rounda...
- gok 7y ago
  Roundabouts are occasionally used in the US, but they are not a panacea. They require much more space than conventional intersections, and can't easily be converted to traffic lights. It's also difficult for visually impaired people to navigate roundabouts, so it can be hard to be ADA-compliant. The Department of Transportation published a study about 20 years ago about roundabouts [1]; I'm sure most American Civil Engineers doing road design are familiar with it. [1] https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/research/safety/00068/ https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/research/safety/00068/
  - pkaye 7y ago
    > It's also difficult for visually impaired people to navigate roundabouts, so it can be hard to be ADA-compliant. So how do the they deal with this aspect in the EU countries?
    - gok 7y ago
      Detectable warning surfaces, pedestrian signals, bigger pedestrian refuges are options. There's also a familiarity problem; a guide dog in the US might have never seen a roundabout before and get confused, which is less likely in a country with many roundabouts.
    - Miraste 7y ago
persistent 7y ago
The subway rail problem for SF doesn't seem to me to have a root cause of American governments lack expertise (which they do, to be certain) but rather simply that Americans are dishonest. Tutor-Perini thought they could chisel off a couple dollars by using inadequate rails because they didn't think SFMTA's supervising engineers would notice. They were right: it was a third-party audit that discovered the problem. As a country we basically venerate fraud. This has consequences which could easily have been predicted.
- ozim 7y ago
  Don't be so hard on your fellow countrymen. Fraud is quite popular thing to do in other countries as well.
- gamblor956 7y ago
  I disagree with the statement in general that Americans are dishonest, but I do agree that Tutor-Perini is one of the most dishonest construction companies in the world. They've literally never had a project come in on-time or under budget. They're not even all that politically well connected anymore, but keep getting projects because they're one of the few US companies with the experience in massive infrastructure projects.
bin0 7y ago
> It's due to the lack of sufficient domestic expertise in designing, managing, and building such large scale works. > Because we don't build that scale of project frequently in the US, when we do it, we don't do it as efficiently. A recent example would be the use of the incorrect grade of steel in San Francisco's new Chinatown subway line. No, it's because the government doesn't do it often, because the government is slow and inefficient. Private companies can do it fine; let them do it rather than sending the work to corrupt union shops owned by some one's brother-in-law.
burlesona 7y ago
You're missing two things: 1. The parking lots, freeways, and such that the US builds so much of, at such large scale, is still very expensive. 2. From the article, Chuck's point is almost the same as yours. We have plenty of expertise -- but our experts have been conditioned by the enormous wealth for almost two generations after WW2 to develop systems that are good at all sorts of metrics, but affordability is not one of them. Whereas your point is that other countries have more experience building things and having to worry about the budget. I think the reason that these things get talked about mostly regarding transit etc. is that projects that are uncommon in the US naturally attract more attention / skepticism. As an anecdote, years ago I remember driving in the Austin area listening to local radio and hearing two segments back to back, which went something like this... Segment 1: "The local light rail plan is a boondoggle, you know they spent $80 million on that thing and hardly anyone rides it! Just imagine how many new schools we could have built for that money!" Segment 2: "The DOT is considering a highway expansion to help deal with traffic in Bee Cave... this project is estimated to cost $400M, which sounds like a lot, but it's actually pretty reasonable as a percentage of the state's overall budget..." For context the light rail line was built, it was the first rail project in the Austin area and spanned some 32 miles but has very few stops, is slow, and has very little capacity (because, surprise, they built it as cheaply as they could).[1] The freeway expansion project is a plan for just a few miles, really to deal with one funky intersection where US290 stops being a freeway. It hasn't happened yet, and maybe won't.[2] The point of this anecdote is that the entire conversation around infrastructure projects is pretty strange. We spend huge sums of money on "routine" mega freeway projects all the time, and we just think that's normal. Even "simple" residential streets cost a lot more than people realize, and in most cases a lot more than the taxable value of the homes would justify. But we've been so wealthy for so long that we got away with all that without anyone questioning it. Now that our wealth is fading, we've got a lot of difficult questions facing us. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_MetroRail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_MetroRail [2]: https://www.oakhillparkway.com/about/ https://www.oakhillparkway.com/about/

by danans 7y ago

jdavis703 7y ago

We also have "Build America" policies that penalize us from bringing in foreign companies with expertise. We have to make a decision, is infrastructure a jobs program for today or an economic investment for tomorrow?

erentz 7y ago

Two things this makes me think of. 1. The US has a large NIH attitude and is unwilling to adopt overseas experience or standards. 2. Somehow we have to move away from building infrastructure as stepwise huge mega projects. And start building infrastructure as an ongoing incremental and reliable program into perpetuity. E.g. instead of CAHSR designed largely as a dedicated rail system with huge up front capital costs the benefits of which can’t be felt until it is all spent, set up a state rail agency to consolidate and consistently fund incremental improvements to the rail system, with incremental ROW purchases and improvements that over time reach the really big HSR goals. Imagine for example CAHSRs capital budget of $80 billion but instead going to fund an agency for 30 years that can then hire engineers and project managers and allocate it to its projects that have the best ROI over 30 years. That last one seems to primarily be a political challenge though. Nobody likes state run agencies and everyone loves defunding them.

Ididntdothis 7y ago
“The US has a large NIH attitude and is unwilling to adopt overseas experience or standards.” This indeed seems to be a problem. The US always wants to lead and if something works better somewhere else there is always the excuse “we are too big/spread out/not socialists” or something else. Or it just gets ignored. See healthcare or internet availability.
- bin0 7y ago
  > internet availability Remind me again, which nation has produced companies with a realistic chance of delivering satellite internet to every one?
  - Ididntdothis 7y ago
    There are plenty of countries that have cheaper and better internet right now.
    - bin0 7y ago
      Most of them are much smaller, meaning there is significantly less distance to cover. Of course you can get fiber to the home every where when you have a small nation. Let's look at larger nations: Canada has worse broadband but better mobile [0][1]. I'd attribute this to population density: most of their population is fairly close to our border because the rest is a frozen wasteland. Russia has worse speeds by far, and the certain things simply are not accessible due to being blocked. No, we're not South Korea, but S. Korea is small with most people living in a very concentrated area. Again, no other nation has companies with excellent chances of setting up satellite network infrastructure, which is a good solution for a nation as big and spread-out as America. [0] https://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinmurnane/2016/09/15/comparing-internet-access-speeds-in-canada-mexico-and-the-united-states/#31a949661039 https://www.forbes.com/sites/kevinmurnane/2016/09/15/compari... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Internet_connection_speeds#Average_connection_speeds https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_Internet_...

avgDev 7y ago

Reading this reminded me of US stop signs, which are just terrible for traffic and fuel efficiency. I recently went to Europe, and round abouts started feeling "right" so fast I was amazed. Do civil engineers not learn these things in schools in the US? Is efficiency not considered? So many questions.

toomuchtodo 7y ago
Roundabouts are making a comeback. https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-10-03/roundabouts-are-slowly-conquering-the-american-midwest https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2018-10-03/rounda...
gok 7y ago
Roundabouts are occasionally used in the US, but they are not a panacea. They require much more space than conventional intersections, and can't easily be converted to traffic lights. It's also difficult for visually impaired people to navigate roundabouts, so it can be hard to be ADA-compliant. The Department of Transportation published a study about 20 years ago about roundabouts [1]; I'm sure most American Civil Engineers doing road design are familiar with it. [1] https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/research/safety/00068/ https://www.fhwa.dot.gov/publications/research/safety/00068/
- pkaye 7y ago
  > It's also difficult for visually impaired people to navigate roundabouts, so it can be hard to be ADA-compliant. So how do the they deal with this aspect in the EU countries?
  - gok 7y ago
    Detectable warning surfaces, pedestrian signals, bigger pedestrian refuges are options. There's also a familiarity problem; a guide dog in the US might have never seen a roundabout before and get confused, which is less likely in a country with many roundabouts.
  - Miraste 7y ago

persistent 7y ago

The subway rail problem for SF doesn't seem to me to have a root cause of American governments lack expertise (which they do, to be certain) but rather simply that Americans are dishonest. Tutor-Perini thought they could chisel off a couple dollars by using inadequate rails because they didn't think SFMTA's supervising engineers would notice. They were right: it was a third-party audit that discovered the problem. As a country we basically venerate fraud. This has consequences which could easily have been predicted.

ozim 7y ago
Don't be so hard on your fellow countrymen. Fraud is quite popular thing to do in other countries as well.
gamblor956 7y ago
I disagree with the statement in general that Americans are dishonest, but I do agree that Tutor-Perini is one of the most dishonest construction companies in the world. They've literally never had a project come in on-time or under budget. They're not even all that politically well connected anymore, but keep getting projects because they're one of the few US companies with the experience in massive infrastructure projects.

bin0 7y ago

> It's due to the lack of sufficient domestic expertise in designing, managing, and building such large scale works. > Because we don't build that scale of project frequently in the US, when we do it, we don't do it as efficiently. A recent example would be the use of the incorrect grade of steel in San Francisco's new Chinatown subway line. No, it's because the government doesn't do it often, because the government is slow and inefficient. Private companies can do it fine; let them do it rather than sending the work to corrupt union shops owned by some one's brother-in-law.

burlesona 7y ago

You're missing two things: 1. The parking lots, freeways, and such that the US builds so much of, at such large scale, is still very expensive. 2. From the article, Chuck's point is almost the same as yours. We have plenty of expertise -- but our experts have been conditioned by the enormous wealth for almost two generations after WW2 to develop systems that are good at all sorts of metrics, but affordability is not one of them. Whereas your point is that other countries have more experience building things and having to worry about the budget. I think the reason that these things get talked about mostly regarding transit etc. is that projects that are uncommon in the US naturally attract more attention / skepticism. As an anecdote, years ago I remember driving in the Austin area listening to local radio and hearing two segments back to back, which went something like this... Segment 1: "The local light rail plan is a boondoggle, you know they spent $80 million on that thing and hardly anyone rides it! Just imagine how many new schools we could have built for that money!" Segment 2: "The DOT is considering a highway expansion to help deal with traffic in Bee Cave... this project is estimated to cost $400M, which sounds like a lot, but it's actually pretty reasonable as a percentage of the state's overall budget..." For context the light rail line was built, it was the first rail project in the Austin area and spanned some 32 miles but has very few stops, is slow, and has very little capacity (because, surprise, they built it as cheaply as they could).[1] The freeway expansion project is a plan for just a few miles, really to deal with one funky intersection where US290 stops being a freeway. It hasn't happened yet, and maybe won't.[2] The point of this anecdote is that the entire conversation around infrastructure projects is pretty strange. We spend huge sums of money on "routine" mega freeway projects all the time, and we just think that's normal. Even "simple" residential streets cost a lot more than people realize, and in most cases a lot more than the taxable value of the homes would justify. But we've been so wealthy for so long that we got away with all that without anyone questioning it. Now that our wealth is fading, we've got a lot of difficult questions facing us. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_MetroRail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_MetroRail [2]: https://www.oakhillparkway.com/about/ https://www.oakhillparkway.com/about/