4 ms·

Driven by this post, out of curiosity I started looking at the price tag of some mega-projects around the world. Interestingly, the most expensive ones are alm

Driven by this post, out of curiosity I started looking at the price tag of some mega-projects around the world. Interestingly, the most expensive ones are almost always highway systems. Can someone briefly explain why? I'm my naive view it's mostly asphalt and terrain work.

julienreszka 4y ago
Highway systems are expensive projects because they require a lot of land, they are very labor intensive, and they require a lot of materials.
- rvieira 4y ago
  Ah, yes. I forgot the "detail" of land purchasing/compensations...
samwillis 4y ago
Anything that involves digging holes in the ground is enormously expensive. If you take house building as an example, 25-30% of the cost is the foundations - digging it out then filling them with concrete. It’s labour, fuel, and material, intensive work.
- threeseed 4y ago
  Also there is the wonderful element of surprise. Sometimes when they dig into the ground they find something unpredictable e.g. contaminated soil which can result in a major cost blowout, a legal fight between government and contractor and then unplanned delays which further increases costs.
slickrick216 4y ago
Not an expert but I would say for the following reasons: - It’s a lot of asphalt - construction happens over a wide possibly remote area so all construction materials need transportation - materials are probably made to order so you are buying effectively a lot of custom components - engineering/architecture/construction talent isn’t cheap and there’s a lot of competing demand - hiring is even more difficult as the job isn’t in one place may require a lot of travel, bed and board for all types of workers - property itself is possible a significant cost to build it through. Even more if you get caught up in legal battles acquiring certain properties - grift, with large projects in any country at any time there’s always grift. Grift is a constant
Ekaros 4y ago
These projects are also big in length and width. So just volume and area is considerable compared to buildings.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
perryizgr8 4y ago
Probably because highways are almost always public projects, funded by taxpayer money. There is little incentive to be efficient and cost effective.
- permo-w 4y ago
  yeah that'll be it. it's not the colossal scale, expensive machinery, or cost of land. big government is to blame
FairlyInvolved 4y ago
Several people have answered this from the angle of why the cost is large, but missed the other (necessary) angle - the benefits are also massive and well understood. Plenty of potential projects have huge costs but they don't exist because the benefits aren't big enough, highways exhibit a sort of survivor bias in the mega project world. Highway systems create massive economic benefits that are relatively simple to calculate, just in the raw # hours saved which massively increases productivity. This can be well captured by the state through taxes or (less frequently) by private industry through tolls - i.e. the people that direct their construction. Other mega projects have much less certain benefits, or the benefits are harder to capture by those with the ability to allocate resources because incentives aren't sufficiently aligned.
- leeter 4y ago
  It's reasons like this that I don't necessarily see LHC or whatever rev of it as a problem per se. If the technologies developed to get there pay back the cost of the collider then it could end up being a very expensive toy and I wouldn't care. To me it's about the journey and getting there, because for big science in many case the real science is not the tool produced at the end but the science and engineering that has to go into making that tool. Thus the question I have to the scientists pushing for a new LHC is: "What would we get from the journey?" If they truly believe in the project they'll have a dozen technologies that need to be developed to make their project happen, all of which have practical applications beyond their experiment. If they don't they'll just be pushing for "same but larger" which is IMO a waste of resources. Because why shouldn't we be investing in the technology to do "Same but smaller" in that case so we can do more with less?
  - marcosdumay 4y ago
    > If they truly believe in the project they'll have a dozen technologies that need to be developed to make their project happen, all of which have practical applications beyond their experiment. I don't think one should even have to demonstrate "practical applications beyond the experiment" beforehand. Just that it is a complete problem that can be solved independently from the entire project. If there are a lot of those, it's much better to fund those and get the results that will push the cost of the full thing down. Even if the total costs turn up to be higher than focusing on the collider from the start.
inglor_cz 4y ago
From what I know about highways, they would have been a lot cheaper if they only carried personal cars. What really damages them are the heavy trucks. Having to carry trucks for decades means a lot more steel and concrete. Especially when constructing bridges and overpasses.

julienreszka 4y ago

Highway systems are expensive projects because they require a lot of land, they are very labor intensive, and they require a lot of materials.

rvieira 4y ago
Ah, yes. I forgot the "detail" of land purchasing/compensations...

samwillis 4y ago

Anything that involves digging holes in the ground is enormously expensive. If you take house building as an example, 25-30% of the cost is the foundations - digging it out then filling them with concrete. It’s labour, fuel, and material, intensive work.

threeseed 4y ago
Also there is the wonderful element of surprise. Sometimes when they dig into the ground they find something unpredictable e.g. contaminated soil which can result in a major cost blowout, a legal fight between government and contractor and then unplanned delays which further increases costs.

slickrick216 4y ago

Not an expert but I would say for the following reasons: - It’s a lot of asphalt - construction happens over a wide possibly remote area so all construction materials need transportation - materials are probably made to order so you are buying effectively a lot of custom components - engineering/architecture/construction talent isn’t cheap and there’s a lot of competing demand - hiring is even more difficult as the job isn’t in one place may require a lot of travel, bed and board for all types of workers - property itself is possible a significant cost to build it through. Even more if you get caught up in legal battles acquiring certain properties - grift, with large projects in any country at any time there’s always grift. Grift is a constant

Ekaros 4y ago

These projects are also big in length and width. So just volume and area is considerable compared to buildings.

deleted 4y ago
[deleted]

perryizgr8 4y ago

Probably because highways are almost always public projects, funded by taxpayer money. There is little incentive to be efficient and cost effective.

permo-w 4y ago
yeah that'll be it. it's not the colossal scale, expensive machinery, or cost of land. big government is to blame

FairlyInvolved 4y ago

Several people have answered this from the angle of why the cost is large, but missed the other (necessary) angle - the benefits are also massive and well understood. Plenty of potential projects have huge costs but they don't exist because the benefits aren't big enough, highways exhibit a sort of survivor bias in the mega project world. Highway systems create massive economic benefits that are relatively simple to calculate, just in the raw # hours saved which massively increases productivity. This can be well captured by the state through taxes or (less frequently) by private industry through tolls - i.e. the people that direct their construction. Other mega projects have much less certain benefits, or the benefits are harder to capture by those with the ability to allocate resources because incentives aren't sufficiently aligned.

leeter 4y ago
It's reasons like this that I don't necessarily see LHC or whatever rev of it as a problem per se. If the technologies developed to get there pay back the cost of the collider then it could end up being a very expensive toy and I wouldn't care. To me it's about the journey and getting there, because for big science in many case the real science is not the tool produced at the end but the science and engineering that has to go into making that tool. Thus the question I have to the scientists pushing for a new LHC is: "What would we get from the journey?" If they truly believe in the project they'll have a dozen technologies that need to be developed to make their project happen, all of which have practical applications beyond their experiment. If they don't they'll just be pushing for "same but larger" which is IMO a waste of resources. Because why shouldn't we be investing in the technology to do "Same but smaller" in that case so we can do more with less?
- marcosdumay 4y ago
  > If they truly believe in the project they'll have a dozen technologies that need to be developed to make their project happen, all of which have practical applications beyond their experiment. I don't think one should even have to demonstrate "practical applications beyond the experiment" beforehand. Just that it is a complete problem that can be solved independently from the entire project. If there are a lot of those, it's much better to fund those and get the results that will push the cost of the full thing down. Even if the total costs turn up to be higher than focusing on the collider from the start.

inglor_cz 4y ago

From what I know about highways, they would have been a lot cheaper if they only carried personal cars. What really damages them are the heavy trucks. Having to carry trucks for decades means a lot more steel and concrete. Especially when constructing bridges and overpasses.