4 ms·

California is terrible at managing infrastructure projects.

by jkw 7y ago

pretendscholar 7y ago
The question is why? Why are some government entities better at managing large infrastructure projects than other?
- jaypeg25 7y ago
  I'd say in the US at least it's hard for a politician to devote money toward a multi-year program that their constituents won't see the benefit of for quite some time (or in the case of upkeep and maintenance, at all). The politician isn't looking to do what's right, they're looking to get reelected.
  - spaced-out 7y ago
    Why are politicians in other countries able to accomplish this while those in the US can't? Are American politicians just lower quality than those in other countries? Or is that their constituents are more prone to short-term thinking than their counterparts elsewhere?
  - BurningFrog 7y ago
    > The politician isn't looking to do what's right, they're looking to get reelected. But that's true in all democracies, pretty much by definition.
- pxeboot 7y ago
  The people managing these projects are often hired based on political connections, not expertise. And cost overruns usually lead to higher profits, so there is little incentive to keep costs down.
  - spaced-out 7y ago
    Is this a problem unique to the US? Or is it just worse in the US than in Taiwan?
    - pas 7y ago
      Sort of. The US is big and rich (so small mistakes compound into really big expensive errors fast/eventually) and sort of refuses to shop abroad for expertise, because. Reasons.
  - wwweston 7y ago
    While I’m always a fan of remembering that incentives matter (and believe that some degree citizen attention is a price for a well-functioning government), I would think that a forum full of software engineers could think of other reasons projects go over budget than graft.
    - pas 7y ago
      It's not graft exactly, but simply the project structure leads to enormous inefficiencies. Eg subcontractors cannot work/meet/organize/plan directly with each other, because financial interests put silly lines in the sand. (Just think about how slow/dumb things can become if the backend, frontend and ops are completely separated, plus there's a middle layer (the general contractor) between them and the stakeholders.) Plus, it seems that the main problem is that there's simply not enough experience/expertise at governments for managing/planning/executing these projects. Because too few people are in-house (or on payroll/retainer with the right/aligned incentives), and too few projects are done, so no competent team forms over time.
    - malandrew 7y ago
      > I would think that a forum full of software engineers could think of other reasons projects go over budget than graft. We're not talking about projects in the private domain. We're talking about government projects. Look at the Obamacare website boondoggle. Or the recent lack of backups in Baltimore when hit with ransomware. When it's a government project, it's very fair to consider graft and corruption as the primary causes, especially as they often lead to favoring incompetent people in charge of executing the project.
- Barrin92 7y ago
  More centralised authority, no local counter initiatives that bog them down, less political gridlock and stronger consensus mechanisms, less influence by third parties through lobbying which the US glamorises as free speech, no bias against public transportation and so on. The US almost prides itself in the fact that its government is dysfunctional, that individuals can stop projects at the expense of the general public. One just needs to look at the countless of Hollywood movies where some lone Erin Brockovich-esque hero stands up to 'the machine', with the question rarely being raised what the collective costs and trade-offs are, or whether there's even a rational case to be made for the resistance.
  - pas 7y ago
    There is no big problem with going through courts to make sure the project has sufficiently good cost-benefit ratios. The problem is, that alternatives are not priced comparably, thus the economics simply favors them. (Such as driving or flying.) If tunneling would be cheaper (in concrete construction costs), then those could go ahead, because there's not much issue about it, it's about as straightforward as flying. (Of course below a certain depth, so no noise and structural concerns arise.)
setpatchaddress 7y ago
Genuine question: do any of the US state governments serve as a better model?
throwawaytoday5 7y ago
It's not just California, it's every state and every city in the US. People have an aversion to public works projects often crying about taxes or how the service is useless or not good enough. We have a political system where one major party (out of two) decries any public spending that might help people who aren't millionaires/billionaires/corporations. Is it any wonder when you have evil groups of people spending hundreds of millions of dollars to tell people that they should vote against their interests? https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/19/climate/koch-brothers-public-transit.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/19/climate/koch-brothers-pub...
- smsm42 7y ago
  > People have an aversion to public works projects People have aversion to public works projects because they routinely see public works projects being mismanaged, hugely overbudget, delayed to geological times, used as source to appropriate public money into private pockets, and paraded for political influence while being badly maintained and chronically broken. I am far from being a millionaire, but I would require a lot of convincing to see how it actually benefits me and doesn't turn into another boondoggle for politicians and contractors. Maybe spending serious chunk of my income on a project that would not happen for decades, would be poorly maintained and I probably won't end up using because they'd screw up something like not having proper access to the endpoints is actually not my interests?
- SomeOtherThrow 7y ago
  > We have a political system where one major party (out of two) decries any public spending that might help people who aren't millionaires/billionaires/corporations. Wasn’t it Newsom who canceled the project? Most high ranking Democrats are certainly rich from things like “energy” and “weapons” via k street and international analogues. We are bipartisan in our corruption and failure to build infrastructure.
  - phlakaton 7y ago
    > Wasn't it Newsom who canceled the project? No. Newsom was the messenger saying what was already pretty evident: the project had run itself into a logistic and financial corner that there was no feasible path out of (at least for now). Note that HSR planning and construction is still taking place. The current public assumption seems to be that the "train from nowhere to nowhere" is all we'll ever get out of the project, but Newsom was actually pretty careful not to say this.
malandrew 7y ago
You can omit “infrastructure projects”. California is terrible at managing.

California is terrible at managing infrastructure projects.

by jkw 7y ago

California is terrible at managing infrastructure projects.

pretendscholar 7y ago

The question is why? Why are some government entities better at managing large infrastructure projects than other?

jaypeg25 7y ago
I'd say in the US at least it's hard for a politician to devote money toward a multi-year program that their constituents won't see the benefit of for quite some time (or in the case of upkeep and maintenance, at all). The politician isn't looking to do what's right, they're looking to get reelected.
- spaced-out 7y ago
  Why are politicians in other countries able to accomplish this while those in the US can't? Are American politicians just lower quality than those in other countries? Or is that their constituents are more prone to short-term thinking than their counterparts elsewhere?
- BurningFrog 7y ago
  > The politician isn't looking to do what's right, they're looking to get reelected. But that's true in all democracies, pretty much by definition.
pxeboot 7y ago
The people managing these projects are often hired based on political connections, not expertise. And cost overruns usually lead to higher profits, so there is little incentive to keep costs down.
- spaced-out 7y ago
  Is this a problem unique to the US? Or is it just worse in the US than in Taiwan?
  - pas 7y ago
    Sort of. The US is big and rich (so small mistakes compound into really big expensive errors fast/eventually) and sort of refuses to shop abroad for expertise, because. Reasons.
- wwweston 7y ago
  While I’m always a fan of remembering that incentives matter (and believe that some degree citizen attention is a price for a well-functioning government), I would think that a forum full of software engineers could think of other reasons projects go over budget than graft.
  - pas 7y ago
    It's not graft exactly, but simply the project structure leads to enormous inefficiencies. Eg subcontractors cannot work/meet/organize/plan directly with each other, because financial interests put silly lines in the sand. (Just think about how slow/dumb things can become if the backend, frontend and ops are completely separated, plus there's a middle layer (the general contractor) between them and the stakeholders.) Plus, it seems that the main problem is that there's simply not enough experience/expertise at governments for managing/planning/executing these projects. Because too few people are in-house (or on payroll/retainer with the right/aligned incentives), and too few projects are done, so no competent team forms over time.
  - malandrew 7y ago
    > I would think that a forum full of software engineers could think of other reasons projects go over budget than graft. We're not talking about projects in the private domain. We're talking about government projects. Look at the Obamacare website boondoggle. Or the recent lack of backups in Baltimore when hit with ransomware. When it's a government project, it's very fair to consider graft and corruption as the primary causes, especially as they often lead to favoring incompetent people in charge of executing the project.
Barrin92 7y ago
More centralised authority, no local counter initiatives that bog them down, less political gridlock and stronger consensus mechanisms, less influence by third parties through lobbying which the US glamorises as free speech, no bias against public transportation and so on. The US almost prides itself in the fact that its government is dysfunctional, that individuals can stop projects at the expense of the general public. One just needs to look at the countless of Hollywood movies where some lone Erin Brockovich-esque hero stands up to 'the machine', with the question rarely being raised what the collective costs and trade-offs are, or whether there's even a rational case to be made for the resistance.
- pas 7y ago
  There is no big problem with going through courts to make sure the project has sufficiently good cost-benefit ratios. The problem is, that alternatives are not priced comparably, thus the economics simply favors them. (Such as driving or flying.) If tunneling would be cheaper (in concrete construction costs), then those could go ahead, because there's not much issue about it, it's about as straightforward as flying. (Of course below a certain depth, so no noise and structural concerns arise.)

setpatchaddress 7y ago

Genuine question: do any of the US state governments serve as a better model?

throwawaytoday5 7y ago

It's not just California, it's every state and every city in the US. People have an aversion to public works projects often crying about taxes or how the service is useless or not good enough. We have a political system where one major party (out of two) decries any public spending that might help people who aren't millionaires/billionaires/corporations. Is it any wonder when you have evil groups of people spending hundreds of millions of dollars to tell people that they should vote against their interests? https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/19/climate/koch-brothers-public-transit.html https://www.nytimes.com/2018/06/19/climate/koch-brothers-pub...

smsm42 7y ago
> People have an aversion to public works projects People have aversion to public works projects because they routinely see public works projects being mismanaged, hugely overbudget, delayed to geological times, used as source to appropriate public money into private pockets, and paraded for political influence while being badly maintained and chronically broken. I am far from being a millionaire, but I would require a lot of convincing to see how it actually benefits me and doesn't turn into another boondoggle for politicians and contractors. Maybe spending serious chunk of my income on a project that would not happen for decades, would be poorly maintained and I probably won't end up using because they'd screw up something like not having proper access to the endpoints is actually not my interests?
SomeOtherThrow 7y ago
> We have a political system where one major party (out of two) decries any public spending that might help people who aren't millionaires/billionaires/corporations. Wasn’t it Newsom who canceled the project? Most high ranking Democrats are certainly rich from things like “energy” and “weapons” via k street and international analogues. We are bipartisan in our corruption and failure to build infrastructure.
- phlakaton 7y ago
  > Wasn't it Newsom who canceled the project? No. Newsom was the messenger saying what was already pretty evident: the project had run itself into a logistic and financial corner that there was no feasible path out of (at least for now). Note that HSR planning and construction is still taking place. The current public assumption seems to be that the "train from nowhere to nowhere" is all we'll ever get out of the project, but Newsom was actually pretty careful not to say this.

malandrew 7y ago

You can omit “infrastructure projects”. California is terrible at managing.