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UK's infrastructure is too expensive: Railways, Trams, and Roads all cost more
- baybal2 3y agoShould people in the West start calling things their names? Public sector corruption, not unlike at all what once plagued Eastern European countries. I see the problem as very similar in nature, despite dramatically different origins. The difference I see though, is that much of Eastern Europe hardcore criminalized things which would not amount to a crime at all in Western legal systems, and not pass the extreme standards of proof. 1. Look for nepotism in appointments 2. Illogical high profile job competitions 3. Oversized, omnibus projects 4. Strange demands in procurement tenders, or one intentionally made noncompetitive 5. Income beyond known means of supervising officials 6. Strange project structuring, and legal acrobatics 7. Illogical financing arrangements 8. Long periods of doing nothing to extract more fees 9. Unreasonable fees of intermediaries and third parties
- thesaintlives 3y agoEnjoy: https://archive.ph/GjqCK https://archive.ph/GjqCK
- supernova87a 3y agoIsn't this an unavoidable curse of all maturing democratic/capitalistic countries and economies? As the society matures, and people's incomes and standard of living rises, and the apparatus for doing such projects grows, it gets more costly to build the infrastructure that powered the very same improvements to get there? Factors: People's labor is no longer so cheap to build stuff, they have more qualifications and alternatives to their labor and they want to be paid more. Government contracting becomes influenced by political / additional considerations. The projects get more and more complex and are no longer decided by just a few responsible people but dispersed among multiple agencies each with requirements. Regulations and standards increase. There are more people to insert their hands into the revenue streams and extract some value. Property now is worth something and has to be bought off. It goes on and on. I don't know if there are any good examples of where an advanced economy was able to avoid this increasing cost of basic infrastructure building, although of course, some countries manage to do it without the same levels of cost as the USA for example.
- c54 3y agoI’d agree with this except that France seems to be getting way better prices per mile, as mentioned in the article. What is France doing differently?
- selectodude 3y agoThe NY Times did an expose on infrastructure expenses and found that France simply uses fewer people to build and doesn’t waste time asking for peoples opinions. 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-...
- kwhitefoot 3y agoFrance also has half the population density meaning that there are in fact fewer people to ask and fewer people negatively affected (per unit distance of rail for instance).
- jeromegv 3y agoParis Subway construction is much cheaper than anywhere in North America and yet they have a very high population density.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- selectodude 3y agoCounterpoint: Paris.
- AshamedCaptain 3y agoThese metrics are almost meaningless when you use them this generically -- for the same reason Spain is on the lower end of EU countries ranked by population density yet contains some of the most densely populated regions in all of Europe (as mentioned in the article). Moreso than Paris.
- ricardobeat 3y agoCan someone explain in plain numbers how one mile of railroad can cost £396 million unless the whole thing is cutting through the city center?
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- doublerabbit 3y agoCorruption.
- franciscop 3y agoWe at Spain are the (western Europeans) kings of corruption and we still build very cheap according to the article, so that doesn't explain it: https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26014387 https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26014387
- nextos 3y agoSpain has a long tradition in civil engineering and is able to reach some of the lowest costs per km in multiple infrastructures, despite a difficult landscape, and execute complex projects well. Two things really help: * Government has an engineering corps that draft really detailed specs for all projects, and ensure compliance * Laws that allow confiscating land in the name of public interest The second item tends to be problematic in common law frameworks typical of the Anglosphere.
- jasec57322 3y agoI'll explain it, since no other local has bothered to. In the UK, those who know don't call the so-called 'DfT - Department for Transport', we call it Department for Roads, because that's what it is. But those who actually know are not yet a majority. The majority think 'Dr Beeching' (an mere frontman), destroyed the railways, yet have never heard the name Ernest Marples. Since the Marples creature unleashed carnage decades ago, there hasn't been a single government in Westminster which has not been anti-railways. Nobody wants 'HS2'. The railway industry does not want it. The PR for it is ridiculous even by Unicorn-chaining HM Gov standards (see: Gareth Dennis), even the contractors admit its a farce. Not only does 'HS2' reflect the bigotry of UKpolitik against real civilised transport, but it reflects a much greater stagnation and overall decline in the 'yu-kay' formerly Great Britain.
- Simon_O_Rourke 3y ago[flagged]
- zadler 3y agoCycle of life
- hkt 3y ago[flagged]
- CalRobert 3y agoIreland's not too great at getting anything built either.
- gadders 3y ago[flagged]
- radicalbyte 3y agoOh the UK are absolutely catching up - they've started by just dumping raw sewage into the rivers and beaches. Give it another 20 years of Tory leadership and there will be a complete reverse.
- gadders 3y ago[flagged]
- joe__f 3y agoLucky for you it looks like if you wait till next May and then 20 months you'll get to find out
- bemusedthrow75 3y agoWhy next May? I reckon they will push it all the way to December again.
- loxs 3y agoInfrastructure is not expensive. Massive over-regulation, bureaucracy an over-taxation is expensive.
- Guvante 3y ago132 miles of railways is never going to be cheap. It can be cheaper of course but never cheap.
- skywhopper 3y agoDoes the UK or US have more of this than France?
- readthenotes1 3y ago"was estimated to cost about £56.7bn in 2023 prices. But this proved to be a massive underestimate. The 134 miles of track between London and Birmingham alone is now forecast to cost £53bn," How is -£3.7bn a massive underestimate. Usually coming in under estimate is a good thing (outside of govt and consulting, of course)
- AS37 3y agoThe article says the original estimate was for tracks between 4 cities, not 2.
- Dfiesl 3y agoThe original £56.7bn estimate was from London all the way to Leeds. Whereas the £53bn figure they quoted is just for London to Birmingham which is only about half way to Leeds.
- DanielVZ 3y agoIt says a part of the project now costs almost as much as the whole previous estimate. Emphasis on “alone”.
- lowbloodsugar 3y agoI feel like the pound is strong against other currencies because of the city of London and arms sales (and what’s behind those). But it’s spending power inside the UK is shit. People just don’t make much money compared to how much things cost. I moved to the USA when the pound was worth two dollars, but I earned far more dollars and those dollars bought more. Britain is a tiny overpopulated island with legacy law and property problems that effectively has serfdom. It got powerful because it had the right ingredients for the Industrial Revolution but all the reasons that made the revolution happen are all reasons that weigh on it now. It is already a failed state.
- deleted 3y ago[deleted]
- RobinL 3y agoUK citizen here. I earn poor money relative to a comparative US citizen, but I wouldn't swap places if given the chance. I walk my kids to school, and local schools are pretty good. I cycle them a couple miles down the canal to the local sports centre for cheap swimming and recreation. I have many free high quality playgrounds nearby within walking and cycling distance, and streams and woods to play in. As a result my family can get away with a single medium sized car and use it infrequently. I don't think there are many places in the - especially affluent areas - where this would be the case in the US, but I may be wrong. I paid little for university and get free healthcare, which has been excellent quality whenever I've needed it (including for the birth of my two kids). My employer gives me 30 days leave a year, with the option to buy more (and I do). There's no implicit pressure not to. I was able to take 6 months of after the birth of each of my kids on shared parental leave, which my employer had a legal duty to allow me if asked. There are many beautiful historical places to visit for little money. The coast in any direction is within a day's drive and a varied holidays can be had without flying. My country has in the pipeline 100GW of wind power, meaning that in a couple of decades energy is likely to be abundant and cheap if on a smart plan. We do lots wrong as a country, and I haven't listed the negatives, but Britain is far from a failed state.
- hsjqllzlfkf 3y ago
- neovialogistics 3y ago> HS2, a train route, has so far been more expensive per mile than the Large Hadron Collider. I reckon a couple economists could get a bestselling book out of this.
- whatshisface 3y agoIt's an electron bound state nevercollider.
- mhh__ 3y agoI don't intuitively see why trains would be massively cheaper than a circle nowhere interesting (underground). HS2 is too expensive, sure, but the LHC is built next to ~a century of research institutions and took a very long time, whereas trains can actually be on somewhat tight schedules in the places where it actually matters and requiring bulldozing a fuckload of expensive land, houses, and history etc.
- duped 3y agoThere are a lot more trains than particle accelerators, I'd think economies of scale would be significant
- mikhailfranco 3y agoAnd the protons go 3 million times faster than the trains.
- switch007 3y agoHS2 will never reach Euston, mark my words. All the money so far has just been the design phase of the station rebuild AIUI plus some preparatory work. They’re going to spend £200m just to pause the work. If it were completed at the current budget it would be the most expensive station in the world by some margin. Hence they’ll go for the presumably cheaper option of terminating at Old Oak Common What an enormous waste of money on the existing work Edit: I double it’ll ever reach Manchester. It’ll just be Birmingham to turn it in to a commuter hub and for companies to get cheaper office space. I said this from the very beginning. Leeds was a total joke, Manchester somewhat believable if you are the kind of person to trust and believe London would ever fund such a project in the north lol. And here we are
- jasec57322 3y agodouble-O says it's not going to reach Birmingham. Word is it will be scrapped. I would have Kim Johngson, Goodun Broon, Warmonger Bliar et al replant every tree they dug up along the route; all whilst singing that old favourite: "all the world's a stage, for ...'
- switch007 3y agoWouldn’t surprise me either if the entire thing was scrapped
- akadruid1 3y agoI have not found a coherent explanation why HS2 does not link to HS1. The unreasonable cost of rail tickets makes the current scheme a toy for rich people. Connecting the last few metres to HS1 at St Pancras would allow trains to compete with air travel to Europe. Taking an eco-guilt-free trip from northern England to Paris is something a normal person might do, even if the rail tickets cost 3x the flights. But not when you have book multiple tickets and drag your stuff between stations in London.
- growse 3y ago> I have not found a coherent explanation why HS2 does not link to HS1. The unreasonable cost of rail tickets makes the current scheme a toy for rich people. The current scheme is designed to relieve capacity on the WCML to make way for more local services. I'm not sure that providing local public transport is a "toy for rich people". > Connecting the last few metres to HS1 at St Pancras would allow trains to compete with air travel to Europe. Taking an eco-guilt-free trip from northern England to Paris is something a normal person might do You can already get the the train from the north to Paris. You change at KGX/STP. > even if the rail tickets cost 3x the flights. But not when you have book multiple tickets and drag your stuff between stations in London. You can book a direct ticket, and dragging your stuff between two stations 50 yards apart is much easier than dragging to/from the airport.
- markjonsona989 3y agoEverybody knows HS2 will never happen and looking at trains in general maybe it's better that it doesn't. I pay £45 for a return from Biggleswade to London. It's a 45min journey one way, trains rarely come on time and are often slowed down once you pass Stevenage or we have to randomly stop at a red signal. Going back they are often cancelled, almost as a rule they are 10min late when they come and a lot of times they come in 8 carriages instead of 12, so that means standing like a sardine for 45min not being able to breathe normally and when you do you're breathing in someone else's bad breath or afternoon farts. Sometimes going to London if we get stopped at Finsbury Park (because "that's as far as we go sorry") then I have to buy a new ticket to get to Moorgate for example which wouldn't be a problem normally if Moorgate had QR scanners, so instead I have to queue 20min to leave the station, go outside and buy a paper ticket and then go back into the station to get onto the platform. Imagine a train station in central London not having the high-tech that's capable of scanning e-tickets. That's why I can never go to work "on time" but instead have to go an hour early because I never know what's going to happen and leaving work I have to monitor both thetrainline.com and TfL in case a train is cancelled or the Tube is part suspended or heavily delayed. Worst part is I have to pay a small fortune for the privilege. I would like to mention something else. I recently sold my car and moved to a place close to the train station because "public transport is great, why should I need a car" and it was working great until a few days ago when I was looking to go somewhere for the long weekend. A simple trip from Stevenage which has great train links to a place like Norwich proved impossible. Best trains I could get were one stop and 2h 30min and most had two stops 2h 30min. But those were expensive, between £90 and £130 for a return is a bit much and I got a warning saying due to strikes trains may be cancelled. National Express had no coaches in that direction, taxi was more expensive than trains and there's not a single BigName car hire company that is available in Stevenage and one that I found was not open on Sunday and Bank Holiday so I wouldn't be able to return the car. Had I rented it, it would be £120 for two days with £700 security deposit. With train strikes and ticket prices I didn't want to risk booking a hotel, so I stayed at home because what else am I going to do. Uneless I go to a local supermarket across the road or live in central London, I need a car. NHS is also public infrastructure but I'd rather not even get into that. I'll just say that I'm convinced the Gov is letting NHS collapse on purpose so that they can pick it apart and privatise it. It's simply impossible that people are actually that incompetent.