4 ms·
I think it's only cheaper because people aren't being compensated for the annoyance caused by road works that take forever. Months of detours, traffic jams, dir
by elric 3y ago
I think it's only cheaper because people aren't being compensated for the annoyance caused by road works that take forever. Months of detours, traffic jams, dirt, people struggling to get to their homes/shops/whatever, probably even extra accidents. If we were to put a monetary value on those, maybe the cost of working odd hours would be compensated.
It might not even be necessary to work 24/7. My street was recently dug up over its entire length to install new water mains and sewage pipes. It took nearly 2 years. Only 1 crew of some 5 people were working on it at any given time. Given that the street is roughly 1km in length, at least some of the work could probably have been done in parallel with multiple crews.
But that's just my armchair constructioning.
- mschuster91 3y ago> Given that the street is roughly 1km in length, at least some of the work could probably have been done in parallel with multiple crews. This is routine in Asia. Just look at this video remodeling a railway station in just a few hours [1]. For that to work though, the construction companies need to have the backing of the government that there will always be budget to keep these people employed - even for supposedly "low skill" work such as road construction, recruiting and onboarding costs are significant. But when government appears to be in budget crisis to everyone reading a newspaper, no reasonable construction company will hire more workers than they could also use for private projects (e.g. home construction, garden remodelings, ...) if the government decides to undergo yet another shutdown. [1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIbZqqLra9k https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wIbZqqLra9k