9 ms·

I suspect that the actual cost to rebuild the bridge will be far higher than that. Initial estimates of large public works projects are virtually always too low

by rkrzr 3y ago

I suspect that the actual cost to rebuild the bridge will be far higher than that. Initial estimates of large public works projects are virtually always too low, and actual costs can easily be 5-10 times higher. There is a great book about this phenomenon (and how to avoid it) by Brent Flyvbjerg called "How Big Things Get Done".

onetimeuse92304 3y ago
Not only that. you have to dismantle the old one and you will pay premium trying to get the new one done as quickly as possible.
ignoramous 3y ago
> estimates of large public works projects are always too low, and actual costs can be 5-10 times higher. The most recent example I can think of is England's High Speed 2 going from £35b to (est) £170b: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Speed_2#Funding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Speed_2#Funding
- rjsw 3y ago
  A fair bit of the cost increase of HS2 was NIMBYs wanting it to be in tunnels after the route had been chosen, replacing a bridge should be easier to estimate.
  - PeterisP 3y ago
    Do you think that NIMBY factor won't apply when replacing this bridge? And are you really certain that "replacing a bridge" can't or won't turn into building some tunnels during the process, as some people are already suggesting? IMHO everything is possible.
sverhagen 3y ago
What helps push down prices of bridges, is to not build them in US. Or at least, it always strikes me how outlandishly expensive infrastructure projects are in the US (for me coming from Europe, originally).
- dagw 3y ago
  outlandishly expensive infrastructure projects are in the US As someone in Europe I wonder where this notion comes from. Just about every major (and several minor) infrastructure project I can remember in my lifetime, in any of the European cities I've live in, has been both late and wildly over budget
  - sgerenser 3y ago
    Case in point: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Brandenburg_Airport https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Brandenburg_Airport
  - ftrobro 3y ago
    This train tunnel below Malmö in Sweden was finished in 2010 six months earlier than planned and at a cost 10% below budget. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_Tunnel_(Malm%C3%B6) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_Tunnel_(Malm%C3%B6)
    - Filligree 3y ago
      That’s Scandinavia though.
  - have_faith 3y ago
    Similarly, just look at HS2 project in the UK, couldn't even get half way through the project before scrapping it.
  - sofixa 3y ago
    Because it's true. Projects in Europe, especially big ones, often go over budget and are late. There are extremes like Berlin Brandenburg, but usually the price increase is in the order of 20-40%, which isn't too bad considering the complexity, and there's still good results in exchange. (E.g. Grand Paris Express will cost 50% more than originally planned (35 vs 22 billion euros), take a few years more, but it will result in 200km of all new fully automated, mostly underground, metro lines which will be amazing) In comparison, in the US and Canada big projects are absurd. Take the Second Avenue Subway in New York - it's projected to cost $6 billion for 2.4km of track (no, that's not a typo, 2.4 km of track, really). The California HSR is costing multiple times what similar projects in other countries cost (estimated to cost upwards of $100 billion, up from the original estimate of $40 billion for the first phase of 840 km; the Turin - Lyon high speed railway in more challenging terrain, including the longest rail tunnel in the world, is projected to cost around 25 billion euros for 270km, 1/4 of the price for 1/3 of the distance). In fact there are lots of people and publications trying to understand why costs in US and Canada are so absurd compared to anywhere else in the world: https://www.vice.com/en/article/k7b5mn/a-dollar100-billion-lesson-in-why-building-public-transportation-is-so-expensive-in-the-us https://www.vice.com/en/article/k7b5mn/a-dollar100-billion-l... https://www.vox.com/22534714/rail-roads-infrastructure-costs-america https://www.vox.com/22534714/rail-roads-infrastructure-costs... https://www.npr.org/2023/06/26/1184420745/why-building-public-transit-in-the-us-costs-so-much https://www.npr.org/2023/06/26/1184420745/why-building-publi... https://www.marketplace.org/2022/03/28/why-does-transit-infrastructure-cost-so-much-in-the-u-s/ https://www.marketplace.org/2022/03/28/why-does-transit-infr... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zzcy7Usw8y8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zzcy7Usw8y8
shiroiushi 3y ago
Here in Tokyo, there's a relatively new bridge that's almost exactly the same length as the Key bridge in Baltimore, and was expressly designed to allow large ships to pass underneath: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Gate_Bridge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Gate_Bridge By my calculations (using the yen cost in the wikipedia article and the JPY/USD conversion at the time), it cost about USD $1.1B, so a bit less than double this estimate. However, with the way things get done in the US these days, I suspect your 10x prediction is much more likely.
- rich_sasha 3y ago
  It probably needs to be earthquake-proof too, which maybe it doesn't in Baltimore.
  - saalweachter 3y ago
    I suspect the winning bridge design in Baltimore is going to include massive starlings, beyond what is normal, or some other mitigation factor for the last disaster. So maybe earthquake-proofing is a fair comparison, cost-wise.
    - throwup238 3y ago
      They’re just going to put more dolphins around the pylons. They had a few already but they were poorly placed and had an opening a container ship could slip through.
      - vidanay 3y ago
        The cheapest option (and most profitable to tug operators) is to require that ships over a certain tonnage be tug escorted past the bridge.
      - btbuildem 3y ago
        "an opening a container ship could slip through" -- I'm going to use that to mock security people at my work
bArray 3y ago
Almost definitely billions and almost definitely multiple years. Planning, testing and clean-up alone could be over a year. It's far too early to even put a number on it. Even if we assume $600m is the correct number, the expenditure is evenly distributed, and it takes 6 years to be fully up and running. Based on 3% inflation alone: Year 1: $100m, Year 2: $103m, Year 3: $109m, Year 4: $112m, Year 5: $116m, Year 6: $119m = $666m

by rkrzr 3y ago

onetimeuse92304 3y ago

Not only that. you have to dismantle the old one and you will pay premium trying to get the new one done as quickly as possible.

ignoramous 3y ago

> estimates of large public works projects are always too low, and actual costs can be 5-10 times higher. The most recent example I can think of is England's High Speed 2 going from £35b to (est) £170b: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Speed_2#Funding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Speed_2#Funding

rjsw 3y ago
A fair bit of the cost increase of HS2 was NIMBYs wanting it to be in tunnels after the route had been chosen, replacing a bridge should be easier to estimate.
- PeterisP 3y ago
  Do you think that NIMBY factor won't apply when replacing this bridge? And are you really certain that "replacing a bridge" can't or won't turn into building some tunnels during the process, as some people are already suggesting? IMHO everything is possible.

sverhagen 3y ago

What helps push down prices of bridges, is to not build them in US. Or at least, it always strikes me how outlandishly expensive infrastructure projects are in the US (for me coming from Europe, originally).

dagw 3y ago
outlandishly expensive infrastructure projects are in the US As someone in Europe I wonder where this notion comes from. Just about every major (and several minor) infrastructure project I can remember in my lifetime, in any of the European cities I've live in, has been both late and wildly over budget
- sgerenser 3y ago
  Case in point: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Brandenburg_Airport https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Brandenburg_Airport
- ftrobro 3y ago
  This train tunnel below Malmö in Sweden was finished in 2010 six months earlier than planned and at a cost 10% below budget. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_Tunnel_(Malm%C3%B6) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/City_Tunnel_(Malm%C3%B6)
  - Filligree 3y ago
    That’s Scandinavia though.
- have_faith 3y ago
  Similarly, just look at HS2 project in the UK, couldn't even get half way through the project before scrapping it.
- sofixa 3y ago
  Because it's true. Projects in Europe, especially big ones, often go over budget and are late. There are extremes like Berlin Brandenburg, but usually the price increase is in the order of 20-40%, which isn't too bad considering the complexity, and there's still good results in exchange. (E.g. Grand Paris Express will cost 50% more than originally planned (35 vs 22 billion euros), take a few years more, but it will result in 200km of all new fully automated, mostly underground, metro lines which will be amazing) In comparison, in the US and Canada big projects are absurd. Take the Second Avenue Subway in New York - it's projected to cost $6 billion for 2.4km of track (no, that's not a typo, 2.4 km of track, really). The California HSR is costing multiple times what similar projects in other countries cost (estimated to cost upwards of $100 billion, up from the original estimate of $40 billion for the first phase of 840 km; the Turin - Lyon high speed railway in more challenging terrain, including the longest rail tunnel in the world, is projected to cost around 25 billion euros for 270km, 1/4 of the price for 1/3 of the distance). In fact there are lots of people and publications trying to understand why costs in US and Canada are so absurd compared to anywhere else in the world: https://www.vice.com/en/article/k7b5mn/a-dollar100-billion-lesson-in-why-building-public-transportation-is-so-expensive-in-the-us https://www.vice.com/en/article/k7b5mn/a-dollar100-billion-l... https://www.vox.com/22534714/rail-roads-infrastructure-costs-america https://www.vox.com/22534714/rail-roads-infrastructure-costs... https://www.npr.org/2023/06/26/1184420745/why-building-public-transit-in-the-us-costs-so-much https://www.npr.org/2023/06/26/1184420745/why-building-publi... https://www.marketplace.org/2022/03/28/why-does-transit-infrastructure-cost-so-much-in-the-u-s/ https://www.marketplace.org/2022/03/28/why-does-transit-infr... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zzcy7Usw8y8 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Zzcy7Usw8y8

shiroiushi 3y ago

Here in Tokyo, there's a relatively new bridge that's almost exactly the same length as the Key bridge in Baltimore, and was expressly designed to allow large ships to pass underneath: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Gate_Bridge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Gate_Bridge By my calculations (using the yen cost in the wikipedia article and the JPY/USD conversion at the time), it cost about USD $1.1B, so a bit less than double this estimate. However, with the way things get done in the US these days, I suspect your 10x prediction is much more likely.

rich_sasha 3y ago
It probably needs to be earthquake-proof too, which maybe it doesn't in Baltimore.
- saalweachter 3y ago
  I suspect the winning bridge design in Baltimore is going to include massive starlings, beyond what is normal, or some other mitigation factor for the last disaster. So maybe earthquake-proofing is a fair comparison, cost-wise.
  - throwup238 3y ago
    They’re just going to put more dolphins around the pylons. They had a few already but they were poorly placed and had an opening a container ship could slip through.
    - vidanay 3y ago
      The cheapest option (and most profitable to tug operators) is to require that ships over a certain tonnage be tug escorted past the bridge.
    - btbuildem 3y ago
      "an opening a container ship could slip through" -- I'm going to use that to mock security people at my work

bArray 3y ago

Almost definitely billions and almost definitely multiple years. Planning, testing and clean-up alone could be over a year. It's far too early to even put a number on it. Even if we assume $600m is the correct number, the expenditure is evenly distributed, and it takes 6 years to be fully up and running. Based on 3% inflation alone: Year 1: $100m, Year 2: $103m, Year 3: $109m, Year 4: $112m, Year 5: $116m, Year 6: $119m = $666m