45 ms·

I was a management consultant ages ago and worked on large capital projects. In my experience (as the article mentions) it was a mix of: 1. Red tape & public "

by sofard 5y ago

I was a management consultant ages ago and worked on large capital projects. In my experience (as the article mentions) it was a mix of: 1. Red tape & public "input" 2. Layers of contractors and subcontractors, each taking their slice 3. No real incentives for governments to be cost sensitive. Usually capital projects last well into the next administration. 4. Too many cooks in the kitchen and consultations

phenkdo 5y ago
IMO #2 takes the cake (rest is all icing)
- lotsofpulp 5y ago
  In my experience with construction projects, legal costs and liabilities take the cake. Once something is in court, there is zero telling how long and how much money it takes to resolve.
  - jltsiren 5y ago
    This is interesting from a foreign perspective. I still follow urban planning in Helsinki, Finland. Major public projects always face opposition and go to court, but it's not a big deal. Because zoning plans and similar project plans are decisions made by public officials, all complaints about them go to the administrative court system. Administrative courts don't care about the substance of the argument. (That's for elected representatives.) They only determine if the officials followed all appropriate regulations and decisiomaking processes. Going to administrative court is cheap enough and fast enough that the costs and delays are usually included in the project plan. Sometime the court overturns the decision, delaying or canceling the project. Sometimes their justifications are stupid and sometimes there are unintended consequences. Regardless, the system more or less works most of the time.
    - maccolgan 5y ago
      Sounds like a despotate, residents are fucked if one of the officials make a wrong decision.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
- jimt1234 5y ago
  I'm leaning towards #3. There just doesn't seem to be any real incentive for governments to look for cost savings, like it's all Monopoly money.
  - Shacklz 5y ago
    That's the case for other countries too but they still manage to do better
  - nicoburns 5y ago
    That seems like a political culture issue rather than something inherent to governments. If you really care about doing good in the world (isn't that the whole point of politics?) then you have a huge incentive to save on costs as any money saved can be put to good use elsewhere.
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]
mistrial9 5y ago
I have seen some public transportation work up close in the USA -- "me first" and competition between different teams ate up quite a bit of the (expensive) time.. lots of very competent, skilled people and also quite cynical and profit-seeking management. The actions of management were sometimes directly contradictory to recommendations by hard-working staff. Worse, management that tried to get things done quickly were pushed out by others who were better at looking good (or something else I dont know about). The old expression "we have the worst system in the world, except for all the others" .. comes to mind edit- I would like to point to NORESCO in particular as a sponge-like entity with a long history of failed, expensive projects and a long pipeline of new funding, based on what I saw with my own eyes.
- czzr 5y ago
  I think in the case of US infrastructure spend it’s more like “we have the best system in the world, except for all the others”.
- ska 5y ago
  > "we have the worst system in the world, except for all the others" .. comes to mind Wouldn't that imply the US system has better execution, not just higher costs?
- joe_the_user 5y ago
  The old expression "we have the worst system in the world, except for all the others" .. comes to mind That's what (I think) Winston Churchill said about democracy (might be true there). But here, I think you can just say "we have the worst system". Period. The US has a variety of sectors (public works, health care, etc) which aren't just bad but fated to get worse and worse through both through the particular way US ruling interests deal with each other. Each solution introduces more pork interests since each solution follows the haphazard paradigm. For example; I think Yimby ("yes in my back yard") proposals have aimed to facilitate development in at transit hubs, a worthy seeming cause. But since there's no California state transit plan, this approach has to define "transit hub" haphazardly - "there's currently a bus stop there". This allows those aiming to sink a development to do so by removing the bus stop. Or oppositely, allows someone to facilitate a development by adding an otherwise unneeded bus stop. I'm not sure if this approach was implemented but just proposal illustrates the inherent problem of trying to solve transfic/housing/development problems by tossing random legislation at them.
davidw 5y ago
These are all things, but they're things in other countries, too. France has strong unions and subcontractors and bureaucrats and all of that. And yet it costs less there.
- Symmetry 5y ago
  French bureaucracy has the expertise in house to do high level planning rather than having a subcontractor do it. They're also a lot more insulated than US bureaucracies from the vagaries of political turnover. And they're more often dealing with laws written ahead of time rather than things that can't be decided without a court decision.
- ska 5y ago
  I think it's a mistake to think of european unions and american unions as "the same thing". Relationships with unions in the US seem much more adversarial than there, on average. As you say, there are politics, labor relations, etc. in europe too - I wonder if they are just better at cooperating on this sort of project for some reason?
  - justin66 5y ago
    > Relationships with unions in the US seem much more adversarial than there, on average. Which is a function of relationships between employers and employees being more adversarial in the US.
  - davidw 5y ago
    I think that's what makes it interesting and important to figure out on a deeper level. Simplistic answers don't seem to explain the problem.
  - earthscienceman 5y ago
    What? This could only be so naively said by someone who has never lived in a heavily prop labor socialist country like France. Les grèves are terribly adversarial and a near constant aspect of labor negotiations. The only way they could be considered better, in the way you imply, is that the unions are considered something to negotiate with instead of something to destroy.
adamcstephens 5y ago
I think in-sourcing management expertise to the public agencies would save a lot of money. Management consultants are expensive and their incentives are in conflict with public projects.
Traster 5y ago
Yeah my first reaction to this was "Oh it's going to be the public". Because the US has strong rights and legal system basically anyone can come along and considerably screw up a project just by claiming some endangered bat is living in the path of it, or some economic harm will be done, or some community will be damaged, it's far easier to just to just stick planning notice on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard.' A great example of this is in the UK where the main road going east to west from london to cornwall is a single carriage way with 2 lanes going past one of the country's most historic sites (stone henge). It's a fucking disaster. So the plan is to build a massive tunnel under stone henge to help traffic and remove the blotch on this area of historic importance. It's expected to cost £1.7Bn but it's already been completely tied up in legal fights, it was proposed over 25 years ago (when it was already desparately needed). Essentially plenty of people either don't want it built at all (presumably just accepting that we'll never ever be able to have economic in england west of stonehenge) or they want a tunnel that is several times longer than the proposal sending costs and construction time soaring. What you could do, if you were Turkey, you could just built a 12 lane motorway and shove stonehenge a few miles north. It'd be cheaper.
- Cederfjard 5y ago
  Stonehenge isn’t that big. I don’t know what the surrounding area is like, but isn’t it an option to build the road around it? With compulsory purchases of properties along the way, if necessary.
  - zipswitch 5y ago
    I've had the same thought. I confess to not having closely followed the issue, but every time I see it mentioned, my brain twitches. Is the choice between A) large construction project that overlaps with a site of immense historical and cultural significance, and B) spend the money for a couple extra miles of freeway, seems to be a very obvious one. The only reason I can see for B is a sort of aggressive anti-humanism.

by sofard 5y ago

phenkdo 5y ago

IMO #2 takes the cake (rest is all icing)

lotsofpulp 5y ago
In my experience with construction projects, legal costs and liabilities take the cake. Once something is in court, there is zero telling how long and how much money it takes to resolve.
- jltsiren 5y ago
  This is interesting from a foreign perspective. I still follow urban planning in Helsinki, Finland. Major public projects always face opposition and go to court, but it's not a big deal. Because zoning plans and similar project plans are decisions made by public officials, all complaints about them go to the administrative court system. Administrative courts don't care about the substance of the argument. (That's for elected representatives.) They only determine if the officials followed all appropriate regulations and decisiomaking processes. Going to administrative court is cheap enough and fast enough that the costs and delays are usually included in the project plan. Sometime the court overturns the decision, delaying or canceling the project. Sometimes their justifications are stupid and sometimes there are unintended consequences. Regardless, the system more or less works most of the time.
  - maccolgan 5y ago
    Sounds like a despotate, residents are fucked if one of the officials make a wrong decision.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]
jimt1234 5y ago
I'm leaning towards #3. There just doesn't seem to be any real incentive for governments to look for cost savings, like it's all Monopoly money.
- Shacklz 5y ago
  That's the case for other countries too but they still manage to do better
- nicoburns 5y ago
  That seems like a political culture issue rather than something inherent to governments. If you really care about doing good in the world (isn't that the whole point of politics?) then you have a huge incentive to save on costs as any money saved can be put to good use elsewhere.
deleted 5y ago
[deleted]

mistrial9 5y ago

I have seen some public transportation work up close in the USA -- "me first" and competition between different teams ate up quite a bit of the (expensive) time.. lots of very competent, skilled people and also quite cynical and profit-seeking management. The actions of management were sometimes directly contradictory to recommendations by hard-working staff. Worse, management that tried to get things done quickly were pushed out by others who were better at looking good (or something else I dont know about). The old expression "we have the worst system in the world, except for all the others" .. comes to mind edit- I would like to point to NORESCO in particular as a sponge-like entity with a long history of failed, expensive projects and a long pipeline of new funding, based on what I saw with my own eyes.

czzr 5y ago
I think in the case of US infrastructure spend it’s more like “we have the best system in the world, except for all the others”.
ska 5y ago
> "we have the worst system in the world, except for all the others" .. comes to mind Wouldn't that imply the US system has better execution, not just higher costs?
joe_the_user 5y ago
The old expression "we have the worst system in the world, except for all the others" .. comes to mind That's what (I think) Winston Churchill said about democracy (might be true there). But here, I think you can just say "we have the worst system". Period. The US has a variety of sectors (public works, health care, etc) which aren't just bad but fated to get worse and worse through both through the particular way US ruling interests deal with each other. Each solution introduces more pork interests since each solution follows the haphazard paradigm. For example; I think Yimby ("yes in my back yard") proposals have aimed to facilitate development in at transit hubs, a worthy seeming cause. But since there's no California state transit plan, this approach has to define "transit hub" haphazardly - "there's currently a bus stop there". This allows those aiming to sink a development to do so by removing the bus stop. Or oppositely, allows someone to facilitate a development by adding an otherwise unneeded bus stop. I'm not sure if this approach was implemented but just proposal illustrates the inherent problem of trying to solve transfic/housing/development problems by tossing random legislation at them.

davidw 5y ago

These are all things, but they're things in other countries, too. France has strong unions and subcontractors and bureaucrats and all of that. And yet it costs less there.

Symmetry 5y ago
French bureaucracy has the expertise in house to do high level planning rather than having a subcontractor do it. They're also a lot more insulated than US bureaucracies from the vagaries of political turnover. And they're more often dealing with laws written ahead of time rather than things that can't be decided without a court decision.
ska 5y ago
I think it's a mistake to think of european unions and american unions as "the same thing". Relationships with unions in the US seem much more adversarial than there, on average. As you say, there are politics, labor relations, etc. in europe too - I wonder if they are just better at cooperating on this sort of project for some reason?
- justin66 5y ago
  > Relationships with unions in the US seem much more adversarial than there, on average. Which is a function of relationships between employers and employees being more adversarial in the US.
- davidw 5y ago
  I think that's what makes it interesting and important to figure out on a deeper level. Simplistic answers don't seem to explain the problem.
- earthscienceman 5y ago
  What? This could only be so naively said by someone who has never lived in a heavily prop labor socialist country like France. Les grèves are terribly adversarial and a near constant aspect of labor negotiations. The only way they could be considered better, in the way you imply, is that the unions are considered something to negotiate with instead of something to destroy.

adamcstephens 5y ago

I think in-sourcing management expertise to the public agencies would save a lot of money. Management consultants are expensive and their incentives are in conflict with public projects.

Traster 5y ago

Yeah my first reaction to this was "Oh it's going to be the public". Because the US has strong rights and legal system basically anyone can come along and considerably screw up a project just by claiming some endangered bat is living in the path of it, or some economic harm will be done, or some community will be damaged, it's far easier to just to just stick planning notice on display in the bottom of a locked filing cabinet stuck in a disused lavatory with a sign on the door saying 'Beware of the Leopard.' A great example of this is in the UK where the main road going east to west from london to cornwall is a single carriage way with 2 lanes going past one of the country's most historic sites (stone henge). It's a fucking disaster. So the plan is to build a massive tunnel under stone henge to help traffic and remove the blotch on this area of historic importance. It's expected to cost £1.7Bn but it's already been completely tied up in legal fights, it was proposed over 25 years ago (when it was already desparately needed). Essentially plenty of people either don't want it built at all (presumably just accepting that we'll never ever be able to have economic in england west of stonehenge) or they want a tunnel that is several times longer than the proposal sending costs and construction time soaring. What you could do, if you were Turkey, you could just built a 12 lane motorway and shove stonehenge a few miles north. It'd be cheaper.

Cederfjard 5y ago
Stonehenge isn’t that big. I don’t know what the surrounding area is like, but isn’t it an option to build the road around it? With compulsory purchases of properties along the way, if necessary.
- zipswitch 5y ago
  I've had the same thought. I confess to not having closely followed the issue, but every time I see it mentioned, my brain twitches. Is the choice between A) large construction project that overlaps with a site of immense historical and cultural significance, and B) spend the money for a couple extra miles of freeway, seems to be a very obvious one. The only reason I can see for B is a sort of aggressive anti-humanism.