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> The project is projected to cost $800 million What a steal. The Big Dig buried less road and cost 20-30 times more. I wonder why infrastructure costs are s

> The project is projected to cost $800 million What a steal. The Big Dig buried less road and cost 20-30 times more. I wonder why infrastructure costs are so out of control in the U.S. We should ask Germany or Japan to build California's high speed rail for us.

theklub 12y ago
Let's see what it costs them in the end. Big projects like this always go over budget.
- lars_francke 12y ago
  Yes, one prominent example from Hamburg is the "Elphilharmonie": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elbe_Philharmonic_Hall http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elbe_Philharmonic_Hall
mikeyouse 12y ago
The Big Dig also had significantly more issues to deal with, including actually tunneling rather than just digging a hole and then capping it, corrosion resistance due to being below the water table a few hundred yards from the harbor, tunneling under active trains and through old unstable landfills, etc. US infrastructure costs are far too expensive, the Big Dig was a catastrophe of a project, but it's not really fair to compare this project to Boston's.
DasIch 12y ago
The projection is almost certainly done by someone completely incompetent or borders on being fraudulent. The real cost will almost certainly be at least 10 times higher.
rtpg 12y ago
I think Japan has started to learn from the US a lot, rail lines have become pretty expensive (recent example being the Tokyo Oedo subway line costing about $300 million per kilometer). At least things actually get built though. It's very depressing to see the length of infrastructure projects (decades even in Europe), but maybe it's always been like this...
bsamuels 12y ago
there's going to be a bit of a price differential when one project is in the middle of dry land and the other is in the middle of a metropolis built on top of a landfill next to an ocean
- pgeorgi 12y ago
  I wouldn't call Hamburg, a city hosting one of the world's largest harbours, "in the middle of dry land"
jsilence 12y ago
If you take a look at the financial and technical desaster of the new Berlin Airport, you'll quickly change your mind. Financially off by factor of ten and with such serious flaws that some people actually suggest to scrap whats been built (almost done) and restart from zero. Same goes for the new music hall in Hamburg. Projected cost around 70mio, actual cost around 700mio.
- tormeh 12y ago
  Agreed about BER. If you go to google maps and look at existing large and medium airports, you'll find they all have designs intended to maximize the amount of gates. Not BER. BER is square because that's elegant. It's a catastrophe, an error so obvious it can be seen from space! Of course there are more subtle ones, but that one's enough. If incompetence was illegal... The architect is shit, the politicians that ran the project are shit... It's so bad, so bad.
yk 12y ago
You really should not ask Hamburg for some pointers on building such projects. ( The new concert hall, the Elbphilharmonie, was estimated to cost about 250 M euros entirely financed by donations. The current estimate is, that the city will have to pay something like 500 M Euros.) And on the topic of the Deckel, they only have to build the roof since the highway already runs in a trench.
socialist_coder 12y ago
Germany isn't perfect either: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Brandenburg_Airport http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Brandenburg_Airport > Originally planned to open in 2010, Berlin Brandenburg Airport has encountered a series of delays due to poor construction planning, management, execution and corruption.[2][3][4] As of January 2014, planners had not set a new opening date, but say it will not be before 2015.[5] Since the unfinished construction and corrective work is estimated to take 18 months, an opening prior to late 2016 is unlikely.[6] Remarks made in August 2014, by airport CEO Hartmut Mehdorn point toward 2017 or 2018.[7] Mehdorn announced no opening date as expected 14 October 2014, so a special commission established by the Brandenburg Parliament will retain oversight of the project.[8][9][10]Current estimates suggest that the airport will open in 2018 or 2019, at the latest.[11][12][13][14][15]

theklub 12y ago

Let's see what it costs them in the end. Big projects like this always go over budget.

lars_francke 12y ago
Yes, one prominent example from Hamburg is the "Elphilharmonie": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elbe_Philharmonic_Hall http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elbe_Philharmonic_Hall

mikeyouse 12y ago

The Big Dig also had significantly more issues to deal with, including actually tunneling rather than just digging a hole and then capping it, corrosion resistance due to being below the water table a few hundred yards from the harbor, tunneling under active trains and through old unstable landfills, etc. US infrastructure costs are far too expensive, the Big Dig was a catastrophe of a project, but it's not really fair to compare this project to Boston's.

DasIch 12y ago

The projection is almost certainly done by someone completely incompetent or borders on being fraudulent. The real cost will almost certainly be at least 10 times higher.

rtpg 12y ago

I think Japan has started to learn from the US a lot, rail lines have become pretty expensive (recent example being the Tokyo Oedo subway line costing about $300 million per kilometer). At least things actually get built though. It's very depressing to see the length of infrastructure projects (decades even in Europe), but maybe it's always been like this...

bsamuels 12y ago

there's going to be a bit of a price differential when one project is in the middle of dry land and the other is in the middle of a metropolis built on top of a landfill next to an ocean

pgeorgi 12y ago
I wouldn't call Hamburg, a city hosting one of the world's largest harbours, "in the middle of dry land"

jsilence 12y ago

If you take a look at the financial and technical desaster of the new Berlin Airport, you'll quickly change your mind. Financially off by factor of ten and with such serious flaws that some people actually suggest to scrap whats been built (almost done) and restart from zero. Same goes for the new music hall in Hamburg. Projected cost around 70mio, actual cost around 700mio.

tormeh 12y ago
Agreed about BER. If you go to google maps and look at existing large and medium airports, you'll find they all have designs intended to maximize the amount of gates. Not BER. BER is square because that's elegant. It's a catastrophe, an error so obvious it can be seen from space! Of course there are more subtle ones, but that one's enough. If incompetence was illegal... The architect is shit, the politicians that ran the project are shit... It's so bad, so bad.

yk 12y ago

You really should not ask Hamburg for some pointers on building such projects. ( The new concert hall, the Elbphilharmonie, was estimated to cost about 250 M euros entirely financed by donations. The current estimate is, that the city will have to pay something like 500 M Euros.) And on the topic of the Deckel, they only have to build the roof since the highway already runs in a trench.

socialist_coder 12y ago

Germany isn't perfect either: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Brandenburg_Airport http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Berlin_Brandenburg_Airport > Originally planned to open in 2010, Berlin Brandenburg Airport has encountered a series of delays due to poor construction planning, management, execution and corruption.[2][3][4] As of January 2014, planners had not set a new opening date, but say it will not be before 2015.[5] Since the unfinished construction and corrective work is estimated to take 18 months, an opening prior to late 2016 is unlikely.[6] Remarks made in August 2014, by airport CEO Hartmut Mehdorn point toward 2017 or 2018.[7] Mehdorn announced no opening date as expected 14 October 2014, so a special commission established by the Brandenburg Parliament will retain oversight of the project.[8][9][10]Current estimates suggest that the airport will open in 2018 or 2019, at the latest.[11][12][13][14][15]