4 ms·

Ten years ago, my city decided to repave a stretch of a local street. The contract stipulated that work must begin in April and must be concluded the same year

Ten years ago, my city decided to repave a stretch of a local street. The contract stipulated that work must begin in April and must be concluded the same year, and the city awarded it to the lowest qualified bidder, a local contractor. The contractor crews showed up in April, closed the road with detour signs, tore up and removed the previous pavement, and left. All summer and fall a third of the city choked through a residential detour around a road project nobody was working on. With their deadline so far away, the the contractor was free to chase lucrative summer work elsewhere and returned only in late November to meet their contractual obligation to the city. They hurriedly poured the concrete and left it to cure in freezing winter temps, undermining a good cure and ensuring it'll need to be redone decades sooner than would be otherwise necessary. For all the sub optimal contract writing, construction work, and traffic inconvenience, there was no news story, no outrage, and no politicians lost their jobs. People are too busy to punish incompetence if things start to work _eventually_, so the incompetent can keep calm and carry on.

quesera 2y ago
This is a failure at the city contracting level. Incompetence or corruption or both.
- WarOnPrivacy 2y ago
  > This is a failure at the city contracting level. Incompetence or corruption or both. Solely? Editing out the contractor's actions seems to leave an incomplete picture. edit: I suggest there is a fault with society, when society gives a pass to a business operating unethically - simply because it leveraged (or purchased, fed/state) loopholes that allow it to do so.
  - quesera 2y ago
    Contractor fulfilled obligation. City contracting office failed to specify the requirements correctly. In particular the curing schedule/temperature. If this was a homeowner getting a driveway paved, it would be one thing. But a city needs to employ people who know how to write contracts. If they do not, and bad contracts are legally fulfilled, then yes I'd argue that it's entirely the city's fault. And the contractor's unethical exploitation, of course. But that's contracts. To your edit: I agree, and it sucks! But this is not a novel problem, and people in this business know how to get their desired results. I would argue that this kind of error does not happen accidentally.
    - ajsnigrutin 2y ago
      I'm pretty sure a homeowner would want his driveway repaved much faster than that, and done properly You either must really not care about the job, or be corrupt (and get some under-the-table money) to sign something like this. Somehow in the private sector people complain, and once it comes to someone high up, heads fall until it's solved... but not in the public sector.
- jcranmer 2y ago
  Ironically, there's a decent chance that they were required to pick an incompetent contractor by regulation. Many places in the US have requirements that public agencies go with the lowest bidder without permitting them to consider things like "is this contractor capable of performing the work" or "has this contractor screwed us over in the past," generally because discretionary choice is seen as a vehicle for corruption.
  - deleted 2y ago
    [deleted]
  - xboxnolifes 2y ago
    While sometimes true, it doesn't explain the 9 month windows they gave the project.
zdw 2y ago
This sounds like two things: a badly written contract, and a company working in it's singular best interest. Making it so that best interests of all parties aren't at least somewhat aligned is usually a recipe for disaster. On example of this going right: there was a local public works project to widen a highway. The contract was written so that if the company working it completed the work early they got a small % bonus depending on how quickly it was complete. It got done early - the incentives were aligned properly. Yes, there are all the obvious caveats about correct quality standards and corners weren't cut, but that would be the case anyway.
- ahazred8ta 2y ago
  After the 1994 Los Angeles earthquake, rebuilding the elevated freeway was expected to take over 12 months. The "Fix The 10" plan offered a $200K bonus for every day ahead of schedule. The project was finished in 3 months. https://www.planacademy.com/construction-project-acceleration-won-millions/ https://www.planacademy.com/construction-project-acceleratio...

quesera 2y ago

This is a failure at the city contracting level. Incompetence or corruption or both.

WarOnPrivacy 2y ago
> This is a failure at the city contracting level. Incompetence or corruption or both. Solely? Editing out the contractor's actions seems to leave an incomplete picture. edit: I suggest there is a fault with society, when society gives a pass to a business operating unethically - simply because it leveraged (or purchased, fed/state) loopholes that allow it to do so.
- quesera 2y ago
  Contractor fulfilled obligation. City contracting office failed to specify the requirements correctly. In particular the curing schedule/temperature. If this was a homeowner getting a driveway paved, it would be one thing. But a city needs to employ people who know how to write contracts. If they do not, and bad contracts are legally fulfilled, then yes I'd argue that it's entirely the city's fault. And the contractor's unethical exploitation, of course. But that's contracts. To your edit: I agree, and it sucks! But this is not a novel problem, and people in this business know how to get their desired results. I would argue that this kind of error does not happen accidentally.
  - ajsnigrutin 2y ago
    I'm pretty sure a homeowner would want his driveway repaved much faster than that, and done properly You either must really not care about the job, or be corrupt (and get some under-the-table money) to sign something like this. Somehow in the private sector people complain, and once it comes to someone high up, heads fall until it's solved... but not in the public sector.
jcranmer 2y ago
Ironically, there's a decent chance that they were required to pick an incompetent contractor by regulation. Many places in the US have requirements that public agencies go with the lowest bidder without permitting them to consider things like "is this contractor capable of performing the work" or "has this contractor screwed us over in the past," generally because discretionary choice is seen as a vehicle for corruption.
- deleted 2y ago
  [deleted]
- xboxnolifes 2y ago
  While sometimes true, it doesn't explain the 9 month windows they gave the project.

zdw 2y ago

This sounds like two things: a badly written contract, and a company working in it's singular best interest. Making it so that best interests of all parties aren't at least somewhat aligned is usually a recipe for disaster. On example of this going right: there was a local public works project to widen a highway. The contract was written so that if the company working it completed the work early they got a small % bonus depending on how quickly it was complete. It got done early - the incentives were aligned properly. Yes, there are all the obvious caveats about correct quality standards and corners weren't cut, but that would be the case anyway.

ahazred8ta 2y ago
After the 1994 Los Angeles earthquake, rebuilding the elevated freeway was expected to take over 12 months. The "Fix The 10" plan offered a $200K bonus for every day ahead of schedule. The project was finished in 3 months. https://www.planacademy.com/construction-project-acceleration-won-millions/ https://www.planacademy.com/construction-project-acceleratio...