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I will also add that there is essentially a ton of overhead built in by construction firms dealing with the city/MTA/PA. The industry generally sees them as be

I will also add that there is essentially a ton of overhead built in by construction firms dealing with the city/MTA/PA. The industry generally sees them as being difficult customers who change their mind, plan poorly, and have a lot of change requests. This results in a fairly small pool of firms bidding on projects, the costs being padded, plus overruns and change requests being tacked on as they go for even more cost.

Gibbon1 6y ago
I read a paper on tunneling costs. One of their explanations why costs were higher in the US was the government shifts the risk onto the contractor. And then tries to save money by not employing enough oversight. The result low numbers of heavily padded bids on contracts. And then execution tends to be inflexible and prone to bogging down.
- steveBK123 6y ago
  Another factor I have other family members who dealt with the city on the technology side rather than construction side is certifications / qualifications. There are only certain qualified bidders for projects that have attained a level of certification from the city. This reduces the pool of bidders, but it also just adds cost layers. I have a relative that worked (briefly) at a firm that bids on city tech projects and then delegates all development implementation to tech subcontractors who then sub out most of it to offshore, with a few onshore dev&management. The subcontractor can't bid because they don't have the scale to get the certifications, so the city pays a 40% margin to the certified contractor who is doing glorified project management. I would be shocked if the same thing wasn't happening on the construction contracting/bidding process side of city/state/etc work.
  - Gibbon1 6y ago
    > 40% margin to the certified contractor who is doing glorified project management. This makes sense. My dad was an engineer working for the Feds. Really the job is technical project management and oversight. In the US there is a fetish for keeping the government workforce small. Which then results in outsourcing things at great expense. Example I've heard that part of the reason there were delays and and cost overruns with the eastern span of the bay bridge was because CALTRANS didn't have enough engineers to do effective and timely oversight. Nor engineers with the proper experience.

Gibbon1 6y ago

I read a paper on tunneling costs. One of their explanations why costs were higher in the US was the government shifts the risk onto the contractor. And then tries to save money by not employing enough oversight. The result low numbers of heavily padded bids on contracts. And then execution tends to be inflexible and prone to bogging down.

steveBK123 6y ago
Another factor I have other family members who dealt with the city on the technology side rather than construction side is certifications / qualifications. There are only certain qualified bidders for projects that have attained a level of certification from the city. This reduces the pool of bidders, but it also just adds cost layers. I have a relative that worked (briefly) at a firm that bids on city tech projects and then delegates all development implementation to tech subcontractors who then sub out most of it to offshore, with a few onshore dev&management. The subcontractor can't bid because they don't have the scale to get the certifications, so the city pays a 40% margin to the certified contractor who is doing glorified project management. I would be shocked if the same thing wasn't happening on the construction contracting/bidding process side of city/state/etc work.
- Gibbon1 6y ago
  > 40% margin to the certified contractor who is doing glorified project management. This makes sense. My dad was an engineer working for the Feds. Really the job is technical project management and oversight. In the US there is a fetish for keeping the government workforce small. Which then results in outsourcing things at great expense. Example I've heard that part of the reason there were delays and and cost overruns with the eastern span of the bay bridge was because CALTRANS didn't have enough engineers to do effective and timely oversight. Nor engineers with the proper experience.