4 ms·

Corruption, environmental reviews, and labor costs make most major projects in the US a failure. San Francisco's subway extension. https://en.wikipedia.org/wi

Corruption, environmental reviews, and labor costs make most major projects in the US a failure. San Francisco's subway extension. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Subway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Subway 3 years behind schedule, with work starting in 2012 and a cost of 1.6 billion dollars for 1.7 miles of rail. The same story repeats itself all over the country. https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-construction-costs.html https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-... New York clocking in at 2.7 billion per mile for a 6 billion dollar extension.

RangerScience 7y ago
Anything jump out at you when you compare/contrast with non-failure projects? AFAIK, examples are: 1) The east bay bridge ramp repair after that tanker fire 2) The Culver CIty <-> Santa Monica portion of the LA Expo Line AFAIK, both of these finished early and the first one "under budget".
- renewiltord 7y ago
  Great comparisons. I'm not familiar with these, so would you mind spelling out why you think those worked?
  - RangerScience 7y ago
    The story I remember for the bridge repair... An oil truck tipped over, lit on fire, melted the steel in the overpasses (same level, above, and below). Bids were put out; you got a bonus if you got it done in under a month, and then for every day before that, further bonus. One bid came in both super low on "cost", and in time (like a week or something), and they'd make all their money on the bonus structure. Firm succeeded (lost like a day to a flat tire on a shipment, too), and AFAIK they were the firm selected for the Yerba Buena changeover. No quality issues either, although I don't know details. For LA... LA expo line was originally not going to reach the beach until... nowish? But something happened, and it got done years early. AFAIK, that schedule increase didn't come with a cost increase. Literally right now, my understanding is that the Beverly Hills line is getting accelerated, since there's no traffic to interrupt / work around. Edit: Has any government project been on time and overbudget, or are they always both over time and over budget?
MAGZine 7y ago
Doing anything in san francisco underground is a huge PITA. By nature, this consumes a lot of money, time, and expense. As soon as you start digging underground you find a whole litany of old pipes, wires, mains, etc that do not appear on any drawing. You're unsure if they're in use or not, and some of them are so old that just pulling the earth away from them causes them to fail. There's more to it other than politics. These things are hard to do in established cities, especially at the shallow depths that muni operates at.
- novok 7y ago
  You compare america vs other even older cities in other developed european cities delivering new rail lines far faster and cheaper and those kinds of excuses just doesn't pass muster. More context: https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/01/why-its-so-expensive-to-build-urban-rail-in-the-us/551408/ https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/01/why-its-so-ex...
  - MAGZine 7y ago
    they specifically call out san francisco's line as having reason to be expensive, but point taken—America has broader problems developing rapid transit.
- bluGill 7y ago
  Everything you say should apply to Madrid or Barcelona Spain, but worse as the city is older. Yet Spain manages to build subways for a small fraction of the cost.
- pm90 7y ago
  It’s certainly not an easy engineering task but it’s made even more complex by regulations. At some point we need to understand the trade offs that come with regulations and either redesign them to enable large scale infrastructure projects or accept the fact that such projects are just not possible in the current framework. So for eg environmental regulations to deter coal plants are fantastic because they encourage the alternatives. But regulations that prohibit anything seem as useless as no regulations: we need to generate power somehow.
jimthrow 7y ago
Here in the Bay Area we have local politicians who brag about all the building plans they’ve shut down and voters applaud this!
BurningFrog 7y ago
Maybe I'm overly cynical, but my impression is that San Francisco building projects are primarily intended for contracting companies, unions, and elected officials to make as much money as possible on. The resulting built thing is a distant afterthought.
- renewiltord 7y ago
  Especially when Dianne Feinstein's husband owned large portions of Tutor Perini. TPC were the guys who tried to pass off the low-quality steel rails they installed as equivalent to what was requested in the Central Subway. My personal hypothesis is that Americans get very defensive about this because there's a cultural resistance to being the guy who got fooled, so many of us will invent reasons that fall down really fast like "SF is an old city with lots of underground things." or "SF is in an earthquake zone" or (my new favourite) "Liquefaction", etc. etc.
  - BurningFrog 7y ago
    Thanks, I wasn't aware of that only mildly surprising piece of seeming corruption. My suspicion is that SF these days is more like an oil emirate. It can pump all this free tech money, and doesn't need to worry about having a functioning society around it. Just an unfinished thought.
Paradox0 7y ago
Then why does Europe execute much better on infrastructure projects with similar labor costs (and more unionized workers and labor protections) and similar if not stricter environmental regulations? Seems like corruption is potentially the only big differentiating factor here.
- jcranmer 7y ago
  The New York Times' report on the exorbitantly overpriced Second Avenue Subway work highlighted extensive union featherbedding in that instance, which probably explains some (but not all) of the cost premium. Another plausible factor is the push to privatization and contracting in the US public sector removing effective management from the picture, so that the public sector is no longer capable of cost control. For example, by realizing when bidders on contracts are bullshitting too high or too low, or by pushing people to suggest cheaper designs. A corollary to the previous point is that the US generally seems unwilling to look at foreign countries (especially countries not named Canada or the UK) for insights into what can be done better. This can result in people not adopting newer, cheaper technologies in a kind of NIH syndrome. Another possible factor is that, for several kinds of projects, the US's diverging rules (e.g., FRA regulations basically banning all European rolling stock until they were revised a year or two ago) combined with a relatively low install base could be preventing economies of scale to make things cheaper. There's lots of plausible factors. Actually digging into what makes them so expensive is very time-consuming, and I suspect there is very little pressure (let alone ability!) from anyone on any side of the political spectrum to actually make it happen. It's much easier to pick the factor you personally believe in and say it's so without any evidence to back it up.
  - Ididntdothis 7y ago
    “Another plausible factor is the push to privatization and contracting in the US public sector removing effective management from the picture, so that the public sector is no longer capable of cost control. “ This seems to be a big factor also in companies. My company’s IT department has outsourced a lot and so a lot of projects are managed by people who can’t judge if something is good or not. I have heard the same about government agencies. They have no experts left.

RangerScience 7y ago

Anything jump out at you when you compare/contrast with non-failure projects? AFAIK, examples are: 1) The east bay bridge ramp repair after that tanker fire 2) The Culver CIty <-> Santa Monica portion of the LA Expo Line AFAIK, both of these finished early and the first one "under budget".

renewiltord 7y ago
Great comparisons. I'm not familiar with these, so would you mind spelling out why you think those worked?
- RangerScience 7y ago
  The story I remember for the bridge repair... An oil truck tipped over, lit on fire, melted the steel in the overpasses (same level, above, and below). Bids were put out; you got a bonus if you got it done in under a month, and then for every day before that, further bonus. One bid came in both super low on "cost", and in time (like a week or something), and they'd make all their money on the bonus structure. Firm succeeded (lost like a day to a flat tire on a shipment, too), and AFAIK they were the firm selected for the Yerba Buena changeover. No quality issues either, although I don't know details. For LA... LA expo line was originally not going to reach the beach until... nowish? But something happened, and it got done years early. AFAIK, that schedule increase didn't come with a cost increase. Literally right now, my understanding is that the Beverly Hills line is getting accelerated, since there's no traffic to interrupt / work around. Edit: Has any government project been on time and overbudget, or are they always both over time and over budget?

MAGZine 7y ago

Doing anything in san francisco underground is a huge PITA. By nature, this consumes a lot of money, time, and expense. As soon as you start digging underground you find a whole litany of old pipes, wires, mains, etc that do not appear on any drawing. You're unsure if they're in use or not, and some of them are so old that just pulling the earth away from them causes them to fail. There's more to it other than politics. These things are hard to do in established cities, especially at the shallow depths that muni operates at.

novok 7y ago
You compare america vs other even older cities in other developed european cities delivering new rail lines far faster and cheaper and those kinds of excuses just doesn't pass muster. More context: https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/01/why-its-so-expensive-to-build-urban-rail-in-the-us/551408/ https://www.citylab.com/transportation/2018/01/why-its-so-ex...
- MAGZine 7y ago
  they specifically call out san francisco's line as having reason to be expensive, but point taken—America has broader problems developing rapid transit.
bluGill 7y ago
Everything you say should apply to Madrid or Barcelona Spain, but worse as the city is older. Yet Spain manages to build subways for a small fraction of the cost.
pm90 7y ago
It’s certainly not an easy engineering task but it’s made even more complex by regulations. At some point we need to understand the trade offs that come with regulations and either redesign them to enable large scale infrastructure projects or accept the fact that such projects are just not possible in the current framework. So for eg environmental regulations to deter coal plants are fantastic because they encourage the alternatives. But regulations that prohibit anything seem as useless as no regulations: we need to generate power somehow.

jimthrow 7y ago

Here in the Bay Area we have local politicians who brag about all the building plans they’ve shut down and voters applaud this!

BurningFrog 7y ago

Maybe I'm overly cynical, but my impression is that San Francisco building projects are primarily intended for contracting companies, unions, and elected officials to make as much money as possible on. The resulting built thing is a distant afterthought.

renewiltord 7y ago
Especially when Dianne Feinstein's husband owned large portions of Tutor Perini. TPC were the guys who tried to pass off the low-quality steel rails they installed as equivalent to what was requested in the Central Subway. My personal hypothesis is that Americans get very defensive about this because there's a cultural resistance to being the guy who got fooled, so many of us will invent reasons that fall down really fast like "SF is an old city with lots of underground things." or "SF is in an earthquake zone" or (my new favourite) "Liquefaction", etc. etc.
- BurningFrog 7y ago
  Thanks, I wasn't aware of that only mildly surprising piece of seeming corruption. My suspicion is that SF these days is more like an oil emirate. It can pump all this free tech money, and doesn't need to worry about having a functioning society around it. Just an unfinished thought.

Paradox0 7y ago

Then why does Europe execute much better on infrastructure projects with similar labor costs (and more unionized workers and labor protections) and similar if not stricter environmental regulations? Seems like corruption is potentially the only big differentiating factor here.

jcranmer 7y ago
The New York Times' report on the exorbitantly overpriced Second Avenue Subway work highlighted extensive union featherbedding in that instance, which probably explains some (but not all) of the cost premium. Another plausible factor is the push to privatization and contracting in the US public sector removing effective management from the picture, so that the public sector is no longer capable of cost control. For example, by realizing when bidders on contracts are bullshitting too high or too low, or by pushing people to suggest cheaper designs. A corollary to the previous point is that the US generally seems unwilling to look at foreign countries (especially countries not named Canada or the UK) for insights into what can be done better. This can result in people not adopting newer, cheaper technologies in a kind of NIH syndrome. Another possible factor is that, for several kinds of projects, the US's diverging rules (e.g., FRA regulations basically banning all European rolling stock until they were revised a year or two ago) combined with a relatively low install base could be preventing economies of scale to make things cheaper. There's lots of plausible factors. Actually digging into what makes them so expensive is very time-consuming, and I suspect there is very little pressure (let alone ability!) from anyone on any side of the political spectrum to actually make it happen. It's much easier to pick the factor you personally believe in and say it's so without any evidence to back it up.
- Ididntdothis 7y ago
  “Another plausible factor is the push to privatization and contracting in the US public sector removing effective management from the picture, so that the public sector is no longer capable of cost control. “ This seems to be a big factor also in companies. My company’s IT department has outsourced a lot and so a lot of projects are managed by people who can’t judge if something is good or not. I have heard the same about government agencies. They have no experts left.