3 ms·

Is there anything under the parking lot?

by jefftk 2y ago

roenxi 2y ago
That does make a difference, but not that much of a difference. Reading between the lines, the issue here seems to be that the city doesn't keep records of what is underground that can be referred to during the planning process - the "they unexpectedly found a maze of Con Edison gas and steam lines" quote sounds expensive. Possibly they should consider engaging some sort of dial-before-you-dig program - https://newyork-811.com/homeowners/ https://newyork-811.com/homeowners/ sounds promising on a quick search - or keeping better records. This situation sounds a bit weird to me, I'm not sure how they made the mistakes the article is suggesting they made.
- deltarholamda 2y ago
  I've done some work with big hospitals on big campuses. Back in the day, the physical plant people were lifelong employees and they knew where all the bones were buried. They worked closely with design and engineering teams, and they had long term relationships with architects and engineers. Big construction projects also routinely did as-built drawings, and this was a cost built into the contracts. So if the physical plant people didn't have, or had lost the record drawings, they knew which architect or engineer to call. This happened all the time. I can recall pulling out a drawing from the early 80s to answer a question in the early 2000s. However, all of this was a cost center. Starting some twenty years ago or so, everybody has been rooting out these cost centers as cost-cutting measures. Institutional knowledge is an unquantifiable asset, but it's far, far, far from zero. You lose it at your peril.
  - toomuchtodo 2y ago
    Spot on. This is self inflicted debt and pain from not valuing what you enumerated. And now it will cost even more to rebuild that muscle memory.
  - Aurornis 2y ago
    > Back in the day, the physical plant people were lifelong employees and they knew where all the bones were buried. They worked closely with design and engineering teams, and they had long term relationships with architects and engineers. Some of this infrastructure in NYC is old enough that there likely isn’t anyone alive who remembers what went there. Not to mention the fact that NYC is orders of magnitude bigger than a hospital complex. Good luck finding anyone who worked on that exact section decades ago, even if they were still alive. > Institutional knowledge is an unquantifiable asset, but it's far, far, far from zero. You lose it at your peril. There is no possible way a city could store their institutional knowledge spanning more than a century within employees. Institutional knowledge is how they got into this problem, not a solution.
    - bluGill 2y ago
      The drawings should exist though - they should have been created and kept. Someone should be in prison if they were destroyed (including via accidental fire - keep backups is important for paper as much as electronic data!) Where drawings don't exist the city should demand they be created.
    - deltarholamda 2y ago
      Well, FWIW, the campus I'm familiar with has been around long enough that it has outlived many employees. And yet the institutional knowledge remains. Not sure where you get the idea that I think the answer is solely institutional knowledge as you seem to imply. It is but a part of the whole solution, which includes record keeping, standard practices, etc. The articles shows a single example of a more persistent problem plaguing NYC. Not being able to deal with 500 feet of water and sewer in 10 years and millions upon millions of dollars indicates a deep problem, and there is no acceptable excuse for it. NYC has kicked the can down the road for a long time, and now they are paying the price for that. My issue is that many places and institutions have been doing this as well, and it will bite us in the ass.
- _visgean 2y ago
  > or keeping better records I think the issue is that those historical records are simply not available and the best you can do is record whenever you dig out something new..
  - roenxi 2y ago
    Yeah, but the dude thinks that sitting down with the utilities might help and it is a bit ... how would that help? If they don't have records either then that doesn't make things better. You have to go exploring whatever happens. And their plans should account for that.
    - bluGill 2y ago
      The costs should be on the utility to do the exploring though. They are the ones who via incompetence (likely cost cutting) don't know where their pipes are.
- Aurornis 2y ago
  > Reading between the lines, the issue here seems to be that the city doesn't keep records of what is underground that can be referred to during the planning process They keep records of modern infrastructure. It’s the extremely old infrastructure that is missing records. It’s part archaeology project, with potential missteps creating outages for many people who depend on the infrastructure.
ajsnigrutin 2y ago
It was a repaving job, just the top 20centimeters removed, and new asphalt added and some cement blocks/barriers, edge pieces etc. I was just comparing a project length (while price should also be compared) between a private business needing something done and government needing something done.

Is there anything under the parking lot?

by jefftk 2y ago

Is there anything under the parking lot?

That does make a difference, but not that much of a difference. Reading between the lines, the issue here seems to be that the city doesn't keep records of what is underground that can be referred to during the planning process - the "they unexpectedly found a maze of Con Edison gas and steam lines" quote sounds expensive. Possibly they should consider engaging some sort of dial-before-you-dig program - https://newyork-811.com/homeowners/ https://newyork-811.com/homeowners/ sounds promising on a quick search - or keeping better records. This situation sounds a bit weird to me, I'm not sure how they made the mistakes the article is suggesting they made.

deltarholamda 2y ago
I've done some work with big hospitals on big campuses. Back in the day, the physical plant people were lifelong employees and they knew where all the bones were buried. They worked closely with design and engineering teams, and they had long term relationships with architects and engineers. Big construction projects also routinely did as-built drawings, and this was a cost built into the contracts. So if the physical plant people didn't have, or had lost the record drawings, they knew which architect or engineer to call. This happened all the time. I can recall pulling out a drawing from the early 80s to answer a question in the early 2000s. However, all of this was a cost center. Starting some twenty years ago or so, everybody has been rooting out these cost centers as cost-cutting measures. Institutional knowledge is an unquantifiable asset, but it's far, far, far from zero. You lose it at your peril.
- toomuchtodo 2y ago
  Spot on. This is self inflicted debt and pain from not valuing what you enumerated. And now it will cost even more to rebuild that muscle memory.
- Aurornis 2y ago
  > Back in the day, the physical plant people were lifelong employees and they knew where all the bones were buried. They worked closely with design and engineering teams, and they had long term relationships with architects and engineers. Some of this infrastructure in NYC is old enough that there likely isn’t anyone alive who remembers what went there. Not to mention the fact that NYC is orders of magnitude bigger than a hospital complex. Good luck finding anyone who worked on that exact section decades ago, even if they were still alive. > Institutional knowledge is an unquantifiable asset, but it's far, far, far from zero. You lose it at your peril. There is no possible way a city could store their institutional knowledge spanning more than a century within employees. Institutional knowledge is how they got into this problem, not a solution.
  - bluGill 2y ago
    The drawings should exist though - they should have been created and kept. Someone should be in prison if they were destroyed (including via accidental fire - keep backups is important for paper as much as electronic data!) Where drawings don't exist the city should demand they be created.
  - deltarholamda 2y ago
    Well, FWIW, the campus I'm familiar with has been around long enough that it has outlived many employees. And yet the institutional knowledge remains. Not sure where you get the idea that I think the answer is solely institutional knowledge as you seem to imply. It is but a part of the whole solution, which includes record keeping, standard practices, etc. The articles shows a single example of a more persistent problem plaguing NYC. Not being able to deal with 500 feet of water and sewer in 10 years and millions upon millions of dollars indicates a deep problem, and there is no acceptable excuse for it. NYC has kicked the can down the road for a long time, and now they are paying the price for that. My issue is that many places and institutions have been doing this as well, and it will bite us in the ass.
_visgean 2y ago
> or keeping better records I think the issue is that those historical records are simply not available and the best you can do is record whenever you dig out something new..
- roenxi 2y ago
  Yeah, but the dude thinks that sitting down with the utilities might help and it is a bit ... how would that help? If they don't have records either then that doesn't make things better. You have to go exploring whatever happens. And their plans should account for that.
  - bluGill 2y ago
    The costs should be on the utility to do the exploring though. They are the ones who via incompetence (likely cost cutting) don't know where their pipes are.
Aurornis 2y ago
> Reading between the lines, the issue here seems to be that the city doesn't keep records of what is underground that can be referred to during the planning process They keep records of modern infrastructure. It’s the extremely old infrastructure that is missing records. It’s part archaeology project, with potential missteps creating outages for many people who depend on the infrastructure.

ajsnigrutin 2y ago

It was a repaving job, just the top 20centimeters removed, and new asphalt added and some cement blocks/barriers, edge pieces etc. I was just comparing a project length (while price should also be compared) between a private business needing something done and government needing something done.