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At the same time, you have to admit that these environmental reviews were weaponized by people such as NIMBY’s to prevent infrastructure being built by tying up

At the same time, you have to admit that these environmental reviews were weaponized by people such as NIMBY’s to prevent infrastructure being built by tying up projects in years of environmental reviews. In the last several decades, the US forgot how to do infrastructure. I doubt we could get the NYC subway ever built now, for example. Something needed to be done. This is heavy handed now, but maybe we can achieve a better balance in the future.

Dwolb 6y ago
Is your statement that you don’t think the country could technological complete the NYC subway (barring any bureaucracy challenges)?
- RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
  I think the bureaucracy challenges including the various environmental challenges would blow up the time and cost so much that it would be infeasible. There is also the issue that we have not done such a big infrastructure project in a long time, so there would be a learning curve again.
  - Dwolb 6y ago
    It’s an interesting claim but not really factual or able to be proven/disproven unless we were to complete the project ourselves :). My own opinion is we could (in this situation let’s just pretend to bureaucracy) build the entirety of the NYC subway. My main reasoning is a) we have repeatedly demonstrated the ability to build underground [1] and b) we have repeatedly demonstrated the ability to build trains [2]. Now a subway is probably harder because you need to combine the two things and there are probably complications to figure out how to build under a city, but I don’t know any further knowledge on the topic. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunnel_and_Reservoir_Plan https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunnel_and_Reservoir_Plan [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_High-Speed_Rail https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_High-Speed_Rail
scoot_718 6y ago
I disagree. In the future it'll be irrelevant. Large building projects are over in any case. In the next few decades the world is not going to be able to support the population we have now.

Dwolb 6y ago

Is your statement that you don’t think the country could technological complete the NYC subway (barring any bureaucracy challenges)?

RcouF1uZ4gsC 6y ago
I think the bureaucracy challenges including the various environmental challenges would blow up the time and cost so much that it would be infeasible. There is also the issue that we have not done such a big infrastructure project in a long time, so there would be a learning curve again.
- Dwolb 6y ago
  It’s an interesting claim but not really factual or able to be proven/disproven unless we were to complete the project ourselves :). My own opinion is we could (in this situation let’s just pretend to bureaucracy) build the entirety of the NYC subway. My main reasoning is a) we have repeatedly demonstrated the ability to build underground [1] and b) we have repeatedly demonstrated the ability to build trains [2]. Now a subway is probably harder because you need to combine the two things and there are probably complications to figure out how to build under a city, but I don’t know any further knowledge on the topic. [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunnel_and_Reservoir_Plan https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunnel_and_Reservoir_Plan [2] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_High-Speed_Rail https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_High-Speed_Rail

scoot_718 6y ago

I disagree. In the future it'll be irrelevant. Large building projects are over in any case. In the next few decades the world is not going to be able to support the population we have now.