[HN Gopher] Why Tunnels in the US Cost Much More Than Anywhere E...
___________________________________________________________________
Why Tunnels in the US Cost Much More Than Anywhere Else in the
World
Author : jseliger
Score : 177 points
Date : 2020-11-02 19:01 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (tunnelingonline.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (tunnelingonline.com)
| azurezyq wrote:
| I just think that anything "big" can be used as a tool for
| political fight in the US. Political filibuster costs time but
| infra-filibuster costs tax money (massive). Really feel sad about
| this.
|
| I'm wondering when this began to happen. I don't think this was
| the case from day 1.
| m0llusk wrote:
| These comparisons appear to miss the biggest issues. The NYC
| Second Avenue subway involves extremely complex construction in a
| location surrounded by other subway lines and infrastructure. The
| Los Angeles subways examined are extremely deep underground in a
| rocky and seismically unstable situation. In all of these cases
| there were extreme challenges unlike those found in other cases.
|
| Note that the Second Ave subway had been proposed and discussed
| for around one hundred years and was consistently considered too
| challenging to be practical. Doesn't it make sense that a
| situation like that would be extremely expensive to eventually
| deal with? Does finally building a subway line that for one
| hundred years was considered out of reach really compare directly
| to the construction currently or recently happening in other
| countries?
| asdff wrote:
| Tokyo is also seismically active and their subway system looks
| like a fisherman's net.
| youngtaff wrote:
| Crossrail tunnelled 14 miles under the centre of London, and
| had to avoid the tube lines, sewers and other utilities
| akadruid1 wrote:
| London's Jubilee and Elizabeth lines were extremely complex and
| threaded through other subway lines and infrastructure. They
| too were on the drawing board for decades, and in the case of
| the Jubilee line, did not start until a new boring technique
| called the bentonite shield was invented. London should be in
| the same ballpark as New York but the article suggests it is
| 3-5x cheaper per mile.
| Maha-pudma wrote:
| Is it for the same reasons health care is so expensive in the US?
| asdff wrote:
| Yup, graft.
| Ottolay wrote:
| The construction labor rate difference between the US and Europe
| is surprising, especially given the stronger unionization rules
| in Europe.
|
| "Although the material and equipment costs are similar (within
| 10%) for projects in the United States and in Europe, labor costs
| are substantially higher in the United States as outlined above.
| For example, in California the average billing labor rates for
| qualified tunnel workers is about $70/hr and the average New York
| labor rate of qualified tunnel workers is at over $100/hr,
| whereas in Germany (one of the high labor rates countries in
| Europe) the comparable labor rate is about $30/hr."
| bogidon wrote:
| Might be a supply issue with completing a vocational school
| being seen as much more prestigious and desirable in Europe
| than in the US.
|
| "47.2 percent--nearly half--of the German population held a
| formal vocational qualification in 2016"
|
| From: https://wenr.wes.org/2018/06/could-germanys-vocational-
| educa...
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| I personally found it very suspect but looking in Denmark it
| seems to be correct - https://www.studentum.dk/job-
| loen/byggearbejder it's in Danish, but roughly comes out to
| slightly higher than 30 dollars an hour (and Denmark generally
| has higher wages than lots of countries)
| echelon wrote:
| Is $70/hr fair market value, or are the contracts negotiated
| via corruption and cronyism?
| yawnr wrote:
| What do you think
| beastman82 wrote:
| Obviously the latter
| AlexandrB wrote:
| Would you say the same thing about CEO salaries? Why or why
| not?
| rhizome wrote:
| I would. It's a racket similar to police unions: upward
| pressure on $ and benefits because not to do so will
| result in a collapse of the larger operation (company,
| society), or so the rhetoric goes.
| bryanrasmussen wrote:
| why would $70 per hour not be fair for working underground
| boring a tunnel? What does a software developer make in
| California?
|
| on edit: added in California.
| xienze wrote:
| > What does a software developer make in California?
|
| Yeah, not the best example to go with. If the numbers on HN
| are at all accurate, it's not uncommon for a FAANG employee
| to make more than a DOCTOR in North Carolina.
| lacker wrote:
| The question is whether it's fair _market_ value. So if
| there were competent people willing to do the work for $60
| an hour, then $70 would no longer be fair market value.
| peterwoerner wrote:
| The laborers don't make $70 an hour, that's what the
| project bills their rate as. They make closer to $20, the
| difference accounts for management salaries, times when
| the buisness has to pay the employees when they don't
| have work but don't want to lay off (because they are
| expecting work) and benefits (sick time, pto, parental
| leave, training etc.)
| bpodgursky wrote:
| This is simply not true. See plenty of other comments in
| this thread talking about actual rate cards.
| [deleted]
| Bayart wrote:
| The few unions that do exist in the US are surprisingly
| powerful.
|
| European unions are either dying with dwindling influence
| (France, Britain, Italy), or just a proxy for social welfare
| and compensation negotiation (Germany, Netherlands, Northern
| countries).
| _paulc wrote:
| The more surprising point was the disparity in staffing levels
| which multiplies the cost differences:
|
| "For example, in New York, the number of workers at the face of
| the tunnel can be up to four times the number of workers
| required in Germany or Austria for similar projects."
| mjevans wrote:
| The article then also highlights the difference in overtime
| pay of 2-3x (for the rate) in the US and 'as time'
| compensation in Europe.
|
| I appreciate 2-3x overtime as a means of encouraging fully
| filling out the workforce at single rate. Overtime should be
| for true need, not a factored in norm.
| yokaze wrote:
| > I appreciate 2-3x overtime as a means of encouraging
| fully filling out the workforce at single rate.
|
| It should encourage the employer to avoid overtime, but at
| that rate I would guess it also encourages the employees to
| do overtime.
| thrav wrote:
| More people get well paying jobs, fewer people are
| overworked, and we pay less overtime? Sounds like killing
| three birds with one stone.
|
| Inefficiencies like this should be the enemy of both
| political parties. They're why Republicans complain about
| Government inefficiency and waste, and they're holding
| progressives back from accomplishing everything they'd like
| the government to do.
|
| This feels like it's basically a matter of labor NIMBYs
| enriching themselves at the general public's expense.
| JackFr wrote:
| It's almost as if it's in the union's benefit to
| artificially restrict supply ...
| JackFr wrote:
| I expected the downvotes of course, but there's no error
| in the logic. The role of the union is to advance the
| interests of it's members. In this case, if the city or
| transit authority was foolish enough to make a contract
| so easily gamed, that's on them.
|
| Although to the extent that labor unions finance local
| political campaigns, one wonders if it isn't perverse
| incentives all the way down...
| jeffbee wrote:
| Europe controls wages by keeping the supply of housing high and
| the price of housing low. Most American cities have an acute
| shortage of housing and this raises wages. It has nothing to do
| with unions and their powers.
| desert_boi wrote:
| My experience in Hamburg, Germany was that getting an
| apartment in the city was waiting for someone else to die.
| Getting an apartment in Boston took me two weeks. In Germany,
| it took two months.
|
| Germany, at least, keeps costs low by using the common market
| to depress wages. Housing supply in the dominant cities is
| very tight vs. wages. See Berlin and Munich.
| ttul wrote:
| Speaking without evidence from the frozen wastelands of Canada,
| it seems that US trade unions are every bit as powerful - if
| not more so - in specific areas of the economy. But, oddly,
| worker pay and protections are weaker on average.
|
| Could this strange state of affairs be the result of a
| political system that is highly polarized and less
| fundamentally democratic than the Canadian and European system?
| bparsons wrote:
| Part of it has to do with the fact that unions have to
| negotiate for health benefits. In other jurisdictions,
| primary health insurance isn't a thing, so the union can
| focus on getting better wages.
| tathougies wrote:
| > Could this strange state of affairs be the result of a
| political system that is highly polarized and less
| fundamentally democratic than the Canadian and European
| system?
|
| Countries that regulate speech via law are more democratic
| than America? Yeah... no thanks.
| deanCommie wrote:
| There is more to democracy and freedom than one (or two if
| you choose to include guns) sets of freedom.
|
| Practically speaking, there is no differences in the
| freedom Canadian and European citizens have regarding
| expression compared to Americans even though EFFECTIVELY
| certain types of speech are restricted (e.g. holocaust
| denial)
|
| That is because the list of restricted speech is incredibly
| miniscule, and there are strong protections in place
| otherwise that prevent a "slippery slope" situation from
| occurring. ("First you ban me from freely speaking about
| the holocaust not happening, next you ban me from
| criticizing the president!")
|
| Practically, non-US democracies have demonstrated a
| stronger commitment freedom of assembly and freedom of the
| press than the US has over the last 4 years.
|
| The only difference is that in the US these protections are
| guaranteed by an effectively "sacred document" that
| supercedes all laws (The constitution)
|
| But it is more and more clear that that is a bug not a
| feature of the system, and is causing legitimate harm as
| your supreme court is getting stacked with "textualist
| originalists" who think that the wisdom of slave-owning
| cotton farmers applies unquestionably to 21st century
| technology and societal concerns.
|
| And this is before we even get into the question of what it
| means for something to be "democratic", which is to say
| there is a "Democratic electoral process", which we're
| about to find out just how much the US process has been
| degraded as seemingly HUNDREDS OF THOUSANDS of people's
| votes will either be not counted, or will be denied the
| opportunity to vote. What is happening in the US would be
| impossible in any other Western Democracy.
| bleepblorp wrote:
| Point of order: the US is far from unique in having a
| written constitution. Most developed countries have a
| written constitution that, among other things, guarantees
| (on paper) basic rights to their citizens. The only
| exception is the UK, which does not have a single written
| constitutional document.
|
| As you say, the commitment to basic democratic rights is
| considerably stronger in other western countries than in
| the US. The kind of abuses the Republican party
| habitually conducts with the aim of disenfranchising
| Democratic voters would not be tolerated elsewhere; this
| is reflected by the fact that the US constitution only
| explicitly prohibits certain forms of electoral
| discrimination (i.e. it's a blacklist policy) but does
| not explicitly grant a right to vote.
| selectodude wrote:
| There's no question that the US has more voter
| suppression issues than Europe, but it's foolish to
| behave as if it's something that isn't to be worried
| about.
|
| https://www.ips-journal.eu/topics/european-union/voter-
| suppr...
| eznzt wrote:
| Is it completely impopular? It is my opinion that expats
| should not be allowed to vote. I've asked around and most
| people seem to disagree, though.
| phaemon wrote:
| That isn't what democratic means. It has nothing to do with
| which laws are passed, it's about _how_ they 're passed.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Less fundamentally democratic? As in you mean that most views
| are subsumed into the two big parties? I sympathize with the
| view that large parties eliminate diversity in political
| thought but I'm trying to understand what "less fundamentally
| democratic" means here.
| scarab5q wrote:
| A vote in the US matters significantly more or less
| depending on what state you live in. California has
| approximately 40 million people living in it and yet it
| still has only 2 senators which means that in California 1
| senator represents 20 million people. Wyoming has
| approximately 600,000 people and still gets two senators
| meaning that 1 senator represents 300,000 people. Given
| that senators are needed to pass laws, your vote has
| significantly more weight if you live in Wyoming than if
| you live in California. What this means is that even though
| republicans have a majority in the senate they represent a
| minority of the American population. I mean even the
| president was voted into office with fewer votes than their
| opponent.
|
| Contrast this with countries that use proportional
| representation which means everyone's vote basically means
| more or less the same as anyone else's vote.
|
| The US is currently ranked 25th in the world by "democracy
| ranking"
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index
| kansface wrote:
| Sure, but compare the relative power of a CA state
| representative or the governor to those of Wyoming. CA
| environmental or privacy regulations for instance often
| function as de facto national law because the consumer
| market is so large. Rectifying the imbalance of senators
| would almost certainly see CA lose that overwhelmingly
| undemocratic power (~12% of US population - democrats who
| write the laws are maybe 60% of that subset so 7 million
| voters).
|
| edit: CA accounts for 15% of the US GDP
| atharris wrote:
| Okay? This sounds like a great trade if your goal is to
| have a representative government instead of minority
| rule.
| kansface wrote:
| No, it is just another form of minority rule. Why should
| 7% of the country get to set its environmental policy in
| exchange for less voice in the national government?
| skissane wrote:
| It's worth pointing out that having a Senate based on
| states not population is not unique to the US, Australia
| does the same thing. In Australia, the 6 states get 12
| senators each, and the two self-governing territories get
| 2 senators each. This means that Tasmania (with a
| population of 539,590) gets 12 senators - 1 senator per
| 44,966 people - whereas New South Wales (with a
| population of 8,157,735) also gets 12 senators - 1
| senator per 679,811 people. So a Tasmanian's Senate vote
| is worth 15 times as much as that of a New South Welshman
| such as myself.
|
| On the other hand, we do use proportional representation
| (single transferrable vote, STV) to elect the senators
| for each state, which is different from the first-past-
| the-post method the US uses. In a normal election, half
| of a state's senators are up for re-election;
| exceptionally, the government may call a special "double
| dissolution" election, in which the whole Senate is re-
| elected, if the Senate repeatedly refuses to pass
| legislation sent to it by the House of Representatives.
| Our use of STV means that minor parties (Greens on the
| far left, One Nation on the far right, various
| centrist/populist independents and other small parties)
| end up controlling the balance of power in the Senate.
| Some people don't like that because these minor parties
| end up sometimes extracting all kinds of concessions from
| the government in exchange for letting government
| legislation through.
|
| I think some kind of unequal representation - like the
| Australian and US Senates - is essential for a federal
| system to work. Look at the United Kingdom - England has
| almost 85% of the population, so a big enough majority in
| England can always overrule the other three smaller
| constituent countries (Scotland, Wales, Northern
| Ireland), and there are no constitutional mechanisms to
| prevent that from happening. That's a large part, I
| think, of why the UK looks like it isn't going to last,
| with Scotland likely to break away sooner or later, quite
| possibly followed by Irish reunification some years
| further down the track, and once its just England and
| Wales, maybe even Wales will eventually decide to follow
| Scotland's example. If the British House of Lords was
| more like the Australian and US Senates, and gave the
| smaller constituent countries the ability to block an
| English-dominated majority, then the UK would be more
| likely to survive.
| dosshell wrote:
| I interpret the writer as referring to the democracy index.
| [0]
|
| U.S. is at place 25 and is categorized as a flawed
| democracy, lower than Canada and some European countries
| (but far from all).
|
| [0] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Democracy_Index
| CameronNemo wrote:
| This index does not take into account the way some
| constitutions give certain groups greater say in
| policymaking, adjucation, or execution.
| CameronNemo wrote:
| US Senate (and by extension the federal court system)
|
| Electoral college
| bleepblorp wrote:
| The Canadian constitution is not designed to grossly
| overweight the views of rural areas over those of populated
| areas. Canada doesn't have an institution like the US
| senate, where voters from the least populous state have
| over 80 times more power than those from the most populous
| state.
|
| The spread in riding (electoral district) size in Canada
| only varies by a factor of 4.5 if the (mostly unpopulated)
| northern territories are included (the three territories
| have one MP, each, to represent populations of less than
| 30,000) and a factor of 1.5 among the populated provinces.
|
| Canadian federal governments are generally comprised of
| whichever party received the largest share of votes
| nationally. This is not always the case in the US.
| kcolford wrote:
| > Canadian federal governments are generally comprised of
| whichever party received the largest share of votes
| nationally. This is not always the case in the US.
|
| I'm going to disagree with you on this. In Canada, the
| general votes usually result in 1/3-1/3-1/3 split between
| the Conservatives, Liberals, and NDP. It's our first past
| the post system for MPs that results in the uneven split
| at the final tally. The only reason that the system
| hasn't succumbed to gerrymandering as badly as elsewhere
| is that district changes must be prompted by a change in
| the number of provincial seats from the census. The
| changes themselves are proposed by an unelected third-
| party with members chosen by the judiciary of the
| province and the speaker of the house (who is chosen by
| the MPs through a secret ballot vote). Otherwise, it
| would be all too easy to gerrymander an election in
| Canada and end up in the same situation as the US.
| jbay808 wrote:
| Can you clarify your comment? It reads to me as ambiguous
| whether you're saying that worker pay and protections are
| weaker in Canada or weaker in the US.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| New York used to be a mafia town, and the unions were one of
| their strongholds.
|
| I suspect some of that dynamic lives on.
| mlindner wrote:
| Yes. This is why Americans have so much hatred of labor unions.
| They cause extremely high labor costs.
| question000 wrote:
| Americans love labor unions it's just that you can get fired
| for supporting them so people have to remain silent.
| xav0989 wrote:
| I believe that is probably has something to do with what the
| state provides vs what the labor has to get for themselves.
| Cost of living is also expected to affect the rates that are
| charged.
| an_opabinia wrote:
| If we had an education system like in Germany that tracks kids
| into $30/hr trade jobs, sure.
|
| You could reframe it as, "every German tunneler is paying a
| $40/hr non tax compulsory payment to someone's kids in
| Germany's ownership class."
| SQueeeeeL wrote:
| Aren't subways generally public goods?
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Where on earth do you find someone who's qualified (and
| prepared to take the risk!) of constructing a tunnel that
| people to go in... for $30/hr? Surely a professional like that
| can get a better job anywhere else?
| mtgx wrote:
| How could the rest of the world have possibly managed so far?
| paganel wrote:
| There's lots of downwards pressure on construction wages in
| Europe coming from Eastern European workers.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| Are there really many qualified tunneling engineers coming
| in from Eastern Europe? If there are then good for them,
| but I still don't get why qualified people would accept so
| little. Surely private engineering works pays much more
| than that.
| bleepblorp wrote:
| Good grief.
|
| Parts of Eastern Europe have had an industrial base since
| the 1800s. Indeed, the Czechs have been making cars since
| 1905. _Of course_ Eastern Europe trains qualified
| construction workers.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| But none of these countries are signatories to the
| Washington Accord?
|
| How are they getting accredited to work in the US or UK?
| Gwypaas wrote:
| Haven't even heard of the Washington accord, seems very
| US centric. All of EU except Ireland is missing.
| [deleted]
| paganel wrote:
| > Are there really many qualified tunneling engineers
| coming in from Eastern Europe?
|
| Yes, why wouldn't be there? Speaking strictly for Romania
| (from where I'm from) the Bucharest underground in the
| 1980s and almost all of the big hydro-dams projects
| (which also require extensive tunneling work) were
| carried with Romanian engineers only (we received the
| help of the Soviets in the early 1960s for the hydro
| works, though). And to be honest that question in itself
| is a little "orientalist", but I'll just pass over that
| part of the post.
|
| > If there are then good for them, but I still don't get
| why qualified people would accept so little
|
| Because wages are still pretty low in countries like
| Romania (and I guess in Poland and Bulgaria too, to give
| just a few examples), $30 per hour is more than enough.
| Plus the engineers themselves alone are no good, the
| project is based on the people who actually have to dig
| the stuff out, for them $30 per hour is double more than
| enough.
| chrisseaton wrote:
| > Yes, why wouldn't be there? Speaking strictly for
| Romania (from where I'm from)
|
| Great specific question! Because Romania isn't a
| signatory to the Washington Accord, which is the
| mechanism by which these engineering degrees get
| recognised for chartership by other countries.
|
| https://www.ieagreements.org/accords/washington/signatori
| es/
|
| It's a simple fact that chartered engineering societies
| don't accept many overseas degrees! It's very hard to get
| chartered from overseas unless you've been to a few very
| notable universities. Even being listed on the European
| Engineering Education Database isn't accepted.
|
| https://www.engc.org.uk/glossary-faqs/frequently-asked-
| quest...
| arethuza wrote:
| But not everyone on a construction project needs to be a
| chartered engineer?
| drpgq wrote:
| The people making the wages in the article aren't
| engineers.
| thehappypm wrote:
| That's such an interesting observation. The US has tons of
| poor places full of millions of people -- the Deep South
| comes to mind -- who could fill many lower-skill
| construction jobs, putting downward pressure on the
| industry. But the distance between Mississippi and New York
| City is much larger than the distance between Poland and
| Germany -- both in miles and in ease of transit.
| scythe wrote:
| Not to mention I think these days Poles and Berliners get
| along better than Mississippians and New Yorkers. It's
| depressing to type but it's probably true.
| originalvichy wrote:
| Europe, especially Nordics, are funny like that. Menial jobs
| are costly and they are automated ASAP since human personnel
| costs are too high. On the other hand experts are quite cheap.
| No doubt these two effects feed eachother: easier to hire cheap
| experts to automate expensive menial jobs than to hire
| expensive experts to automate cheap jobs.
| deanCommie wrote:
| Sentences like these are fascinating wedge issues.
|
| A conservative/republican commentator would take this as
| evidence/proof of the indisputable superiority of the American
| system - truly it is a land of opportunity where people can
| make 2-3x more than in supposedly rich Europe.
|
| A progressive/democratic commentator would instead point out
| that the LIFESTYLE a laborer can have in Europe at 30$/hour is
| in many ways superior to that of the equivalent American worker
| - they have full healthcare coverage, a prolific public transit
| system, and free university tuition for their children.
|
| Then the counter-counter argument would be that the American
| worker could have a full house, 3 cars, and the FREEDOM to
| choose to spend money on their healthcare vs something else for
| their lifestyle, whereas the European laborer is in a system
| where a lot of choices are made for them.
|
| Pretty interesting stuff.
| marketingPro wrote:
| There is some European fantasy that exists in the United
| States.
|
| Anyone who travels to Europe is shocked at home, food, and car
| sizes. Sure there is beauty and history, but the standard of
| living seems significantly worse off.
|
| There may be something to be said about safety nets, but it
| sure was a wakeup call for me.
|
| Edit- don't get hung up on the sizes comment, it's merely an
| expression of wealth differences.
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| Yes, depends what you value more. Ford Expeditions and
| Chevrolet Suburbans and F150s or not worrying about your
| family's healthcare.
| claydavisss wrote:
| The average HN reader has company-provided healthcare that
| is substantially superior to Canada, UK etc etc.
|
| There is no argument that it sucks to not have health
| insurance in the USA. For those that have excellent
| insurance, the healthcare infrastructure is the best in the
| world. Go visit a One Medical office and try to find
| something like that in Canada. Our medical clinic looks
| like a five star hotel, we never wait, everything is
| digitized and modern. But not everyone has access, that
| point is ceded.
| closeparen wrote:
| I'd wager that the average HN reader already doesn't worry
| much about healthcare; health insurance at high end tech
| employers tends to be pretty good. Of course many people in
| tech want universal healthcare for the benefit of others,
| but it's not a compelling argument to e.g. personally move
| to Europe.
| dr_dshiv wrote:
| I'm super curious where you live in the USA.
| Gwypaas wrote:
| I find it very American to define living standard by the size
| of the car, size of drink and home size. I much rather do it
| by the quality of entertainment and culture I have easily
| accessible, while choosing to live maybe a little bit smaller
| but much more connected at any time of day.
|
| Signed, tested a year in Dallas.
| Matticus_Rex wrote:
| To be fair, you chose Dallas
| thebradbain wrote:
| To be fair to Dallas[1], the city itself has begun to
| rapidly densify and build up rather than out - it looks
| like a real city in many more parts than it once did (I
| grew up there).
|
| Would I move back there in the near future? No. Is it
| comparable to any first-class European city? Definitely
| not. Is it on par with NYC/SF/DC? Not really. Los Angeles
| (where I currently live)/Seattle/Atlanta? Somewhat.
| Heading in the right direction? Definitely.
|
| [1] Unless you're talking about DFW suburbs. In which
| case, once you cross the city line, try not to lose your
| soul in all the cookie cutter subdivisions.
| Bayart wrote:
| >Anyone who travels to Europe is shocked at home, food, and
| car sizes. Sure there is beauty and history, but the standard
| of living seems significantly worse off
|
| It's not the first time I've talked about it on HN, but from
| an EU point of view making a connection between
| house/car/food size and standards of living is baffling.
| CapricornNoble wrote:
| >>>from an EU point of view making a connection between
| house/car/food size and standards of living is baffling
|
| Humanity has probably spent ~5,000 years with the
| aristocracy upgrading their dwellings to something larger
| and more permanent than a closet-sized hovel. Same for
| possession of personal conveyances larger and more capable
| than one's own two feet. We can debate whether it is
| healthy, or philosophically ideal, but it certainly isn't a
| uniquely American phenomenon, and shouldn't be baffling,
| when viewed in the context of human civilization's habits
| of material acquisitiveness.
| Xenoamorphous wrote:
| Yeah nothing screams high standards of living like driving a
| gigantic 4x4 (hint: those are pretty useless in most European
| cities) and the size of the portions at Taco Bell.
|
| As for the housing... you can buy a cheap big house in
| bumfuck nowhere or a smaller place in the city. I guess just
| like in the US.
| 9HZZRfNlpR wrote:
| I'm euro and I agree, it seems people who never set a foot
| here fetishize it. Americans have insane amount of disposable
| dollars compared to Europeans and they also spend like crazy
| :)
| yokaze wrote:
| > I'm euro and I agree, it seems people who never set a
| foot here fetishize it.
|
| The grass is always greener on the other side of the fence.
|
| > Americans have insane amount of disposable dollars
| compared to Europeans and they also spend like crazy
|
| That's the other side of the fence. Most Americans you
| noticed had insane amount of disposable income, the ones
| you don't register possibly don't. In average the
| disposable income is higher in the US than in Europe, but
| so is the income inequality.
|
| There are up-sides and down-sides to each systems.
| 9HZZRfNlpR wrote:
| Well, the average cpc cost tells a good story of averages
| and who is willing to spend - America is the first by a
| mile.
| cr1895 wrote:
| >Anyone who travels to Europe is shocked at home, food, and
| car sizes. Sure there is beauty and history, but the standard
| of living seems significantly worse off.
|
| Did you live somewhere in Europe, or did you just visit on a
| holiday?
| pwinnski wrote:
| The employees in the US are probably making closer to $30/hr
| than $70/hr, but their time is being _billed_ at the higher
| rate, with the difference going into "overhead."
| nickthemagicman wrote:
| Cha ching. Here's the issue.
|
| That 70$ 'overhead' charge.
| winter_blue wrote:
| That sort of overhead should frankly be illegal. It's
| exorbitant. To pay the worker $30/hr, and charge a $70/hr
| overhead on top of it is daylight robbery.
| nend wrote:
| Is it really? In my experience the overhead for salaried
| software developers working for contract shops is greater
| in both raw amount and percentage that that.
|
| This was 10 years ago but I knew developers making
| $60/hour in salary while being contracted out for 3 times
| that amount.
| winter_blue wrote:
| > making $60/hour in salary while being contracted out
| for 3 times that amount
|
| Those devs should have listened to patio11 (Patrick
| McKenzie)'s advise, and directed built a relationship
| with the companies they were being contracted out to.
| s1artibartfast wrote:
| Unfortunately both California and can the contracting
| companies are opposed to this. Most companies are not
| interested in working with sole proprietorships due to
| the legal liability.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Really? If you're familiar with rate cards, can you read this
| http://www.local14funds.org/forms/NewForms/Wage-
| Scale-082018... and tell me what portion actually makes it to
| the person doing the work?
| yboris wrote:
| Seems like you're familiar. Could you share the answer too?
| renewiltord wrote:
| I'm not. I just use that source for me to determine how
| construction jobs (specifically crane ops) wages are
| priced. I am not especially informed.
| vonmoltke wrote:
| Those wages are what the union members actually receive.
| renewiltord wrote:
| Thanks. What would someone who utilizes this union labour
| actually end up paying? A little more than this? I'm sure
| it varies but I'm curious about ballpark. Like 50% more?
| 250% more?
| burntwater wrote:
| I regular work with and PM projects using union labor in NYC.
| The rates here are about what I would expect for take-home
| pay. I.e. they take home (pre-tax) closer to $70/hr than
| $30/hr. One thing not made clear in the article is if the
| hourly rates they quote are pre or post benefits. When I
| budget out projects, my spreadsheets have two columns, hourly
| wage, and hourly + benefits. Depending on the particular
| union, the benefits can be as high as 60%. So the real cost
| to me, the PM, is $70+$42 = $112/hour straight time.
| pwinnski wrote:
| Wow, seems like I was misinformed, then. That seems
| unsustainable to me, but I guess time will tell.
| burntwater wrote:
| It can certainly be painful from a management standpoint.
| But actually the biggest pain point isn't the hourly
| wages -- we all love to earn money, after all. The
| biggest pain point is labor minimums. If you need to hire
| from Department A, you need to hire a minimum of 3 people
| even when only 1 is needed. Or if you need to hire from
| Departments A and B, then you're required to also hire
| Departments C, D, and E (all with their minimum crew
| requirements).
|
| It makes for accomplishing smaller projects near
| prohibitively expensive. And typically you can't gang
| together multiple projects in order to optimize labor
| usage.
|
| Honestly, I have very mixed feelings about the
| arrangements I have to work with.
| bleepblorp wrote:
| It'd be interesting to see the what percentage of the labor
| billing rate trickles down to the actual workers in the US vs
| elsewhere.
|
| If the trickle down percentage is equal then the problem in the
| US is extractive labor unions; if US workers get a smaller
| percentage of the billing rate then the problem is extractive
| behavior by contractors. These problems require different
| solutions, so any attempts at cost control would need to
| determine which of these possibilities is in force.
|
| US healthcare costs will also almost certainly feed into higher
| employee compensation for American workers. European employers
| will be paying into health care in some form or other (either
| through taxes or private insurance) but overall healthcare
| costs in Europe are far lower than in the US.
| benjohnson wrote:
| If there's Federal money involved, most of it does trickle
| down to the worker.
|
| Each contractor has to report what they paid to each employee
| so that nobody is screwed. The idea was that the government
| didn't want jobs to be done by cheap labor and they set a
| wage floor that corresponds to local union labor rates.
|
| The wage difference can be quite drastic - floggers pay jumps
| from $15 Pernod to about $32 per hour where I live.
|
| More info: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Davis-
| Bacon_Act_of_1931
| csours wrote:
| Pernod?
| anon84598 wrote:
| I assume it should have been "per hour" but autocorrect
| got creative
| kingofpandora wrote:
| per hour
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| When one talks about the percentage of labor costs that
| trickle down to the worker. I include the workers expenses in
| that as well. If you are paying a worker you are also paying
| his rent, health insurance, and transportation costs. Those
| are high by world standards.
|
| Remember a bitch by a VC that tech workers weren't benefiting
| from the high wages he was paying so much as land lords.
|
| That. Financialization and rent seeking in the US acts as a
| privately imposed tax on real economic activity. That shows
| in in things like why my company has moved every five years
| since the early 2000's. Our lease expires. The rent doubles
| and we move.
|
| Want to fix this; prune back the finance and healthcare
| industries.
| Element_ wrote:
| I believe in NYC the underground work is controlled by the
| labor unions, so hourly wages are actually very high. I
| believe getting one of those tunneling jobs is like winning
| the lottery to middle class people in the area.
| croes wrote:
| Germany isn't a high labor rate country, they have one of
| Europes largest low wage sector thanks to the Hartz IV laws
| implemented by the Bertelsmann Stiftung, a Non-profit
| foundation to evade taxes.
| julienchastang wrote:
| I read somewhere, in a reference I cannot find right now, that
| litigation between the government and private contractors is an
| important factor in high US public infrastructure costs. If there
| is a dispute between the government and the private contractor,
| the contractor is much more likely to have the upper hand in US
| courts than elsewhere.
| beastman82 wrote:
| Unions
| mseidl wrote:
| The EU/Germany has much better worker rights.
| hikerclimb wrote:
| Good:)
| maxharris wrote:
| When SpaceX was talking about reusability for years prior to the
| first F9 stage 1 landing and reuse existence proof, industry
| "experts" wrote all sorts of conventional wisdom that was very
| much like this article.
| frankus wrote:
| Interesting that the more expensive ones are all in Common Law
| countries. I wonder if that plays any role.
|
| I understand that was also a commonality in the countries that
| spent the most preparing for y2k.
| ruddct wrote:
| Lots of good data (and a map!) on this subject can be found at
| https://transitcosts.com, much of it compiled by
| https://twitter.com/alon_levy
|
| Also, here in NYC, it isn't just tunneling that's expensive [0],
| we pay dearly for most of our infrastructure. As this article
| points out, the elephant in the room is labor costs.
|
| [0]
| https://twitter.com/marketurbanism/status/118704548054032384...
| tehjoker wrote:
| Lmao:
|
| - Streamline the environmental and approval processes.
|
| - Establish an equitable risk sharing mechanism between the owner
| and contractor and properly implement it.
|
| - Revisit labor laws, rates, and union regulations and establish
| equitable Project Labor Agreements.
|
| These are just typical pro-corporate power talking points weeping
| about costs to the public so they can wreck the environment,
| externalize risk, and pay people that actually do work less.
| jlmorton wrote:
| I care deeply about protecting the environment, but
| environmental protection laws are being weaponized to prevent
| projects that would markedly improve the environment. That's
| rather perverse.
|
| For one recent and on-going example, look at the San Francisco
| Van Ness BRT project. This project merely adds dedicated bus
| lanes and center median boarding/unloading. Along with that
| work, there's some utility relocation, and sidewalk
| improvements.
|
| This route is entirely along an existing major thoroughfare in
| heavily-urbanized San Francisco. The entire route is already
| entirely paved. Anyone can look at this and conclude there is
| no risk to the environment from this project. Yet the CEQA
| process for this project took ten years to complete.
|
| The project would improve public transit, reduce traffic,
| reduce pollution. It's really ironic that laws meant to protect
| the environment are what held up this project for a decade.
|
| There needs to be a way to short-circuit laws like CEQA for
| certain categories of projects, like transit in heavily-
| urbanized areas.
| clairity wrote:
| note that ceqa covers more than just trees and fields. it
| includes views, soundscapes, air quality, and more, which is
| why it's so productive when used to slow or deny development.
| the variety of potential challenges is staggering.
|
| that wouldn't be such a big deal if reviews took days rather
| than years, but bureaucracies aren't designed to handle
| unbounded variety. that makes the process excruciatingly slow
| and expensive (bureaucrats are risk averse so are loathe to
| take responsibility in more than small chunks at a time).
| sroussey wrote:
| Yeah, unfortunately CEQA has become a way for anyone extort.
|
| In LA, housing associations sue to get concessions for their
| neighborhood and usually using the services of the small
| group that is suing.
| tehjoker wrote:
| That's interesting thank you for sharing. However, this is
| just environmental laws being used to serve the same monied
| interests that I was complaining about. Private industry
| doesn't want mass transport, they want to sell cars.
| Landowners will always use their property rights to enrich
| themselves at the public expense.
| clairity wrote:
| this is a submarine piece by industry insiders to pin the blame
| squarely and solely on labor, rather than the myriad corruptions
| that funnel money to executives and shareholders. for instance,
| labor rates are likely high, not because workers are being paid
| so well, but because administrative costs are opaquely tacked
| onto the labor rates.
|
| that's not to say all of the recommendations are bogus (e.g., the
| environmental review process being subverted to inflate costs),
| but rather that that particular conclusion is highly suspect.
|
| the regulatory environment needs to incentivize smaller, leaner,
| more nimble contractors, rather than oligopoly, if we want a
| competitive market that will drive down costs and foster
| innovation.
| redis_mlc wrote:
| The Bay Area (PA and MV) wanted to dig tunnels under Central
| Expwy but were quoted $1 billion each, and can't afford that.
|
| I went to Bali in Dec. and visited 2 identical underpass tunnels
| built there in the past 6 years.
|
| Makes you go hmmm ...
| asdff wrote:
| CA transit agencies should really just bite the political
| bullet and contract mexican agencies to shuttle workers north
| and build transit networks. What they've done in Mexico City
| over the last 50 years is remarkable compared to the last 50
| years in any American city. It's already done for seasonal farm
| labor so the mechanisms for this sort of temporary immigration
| are there.
| ggm wrote:
| The unionisation is being misunderstood. The US seaports were
| unionised, but conversion from stevedore to container was
| achieved, by negotiation. The motivation was high: continuance of
| the work on site demanded it, for a 24/7 function which was
| relocatable (and did, to prove it). This altered negotiation
| positions.
|
| The tunnels are different. its periodic work, not continuing
| (across the years) and there is no "substitution" of moving to
| another place. There is only dig the tunnel or not dig the
| tunnel.
| fennecfoxen wrote:
| The New York Times (known for its hostility to labor unions --
| hahahaha actually known for the opposite) wrote the article
| referenced in this piece:
| https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-...
|
| In this article, they bring in the guy in charge of Crossrail
| (which runs right through Central London, at one point going
| between two existing transit lines with about a meter clearance
| on each side.) His first reaction was, perhaps, much like the
| first reaction of any casual observer would be: "What are all
| these people doing here just standing around?"
|
| NYC union rules still require oilers on cranes (because it's
| still 1930 or something and our cranes all need the constant
| attention of someone resupplying their oil) and the union is
| paid a big fee for every tunnel boring machine, to compensate
| them for all the jobs lost (relative to half a century ago).
|
| Of course, the MTA station design principles (mentioned
| elsewhere in this thread) do not help, excavating large caverns
| via mining, and the MTA doesn't know how to run a large program
| effectively and maintain good relations with its contractors,
| and of course there are a variety of exciting reported cases
| where the MTA doesn't even know why a person on the
| construction site is there or getting paid to begin with, so
| there's plenty of disaster to go around. Either way it works to
| the same result: we can't have nice things in this town.
| ggm wrote:
| I'm not saying your comment is wrong, but you don't seem to
| have understood my point: the unions for the dockside workers
| in new york were strong, but ultimately a rational
| negotiation worked. The huge advantage the shipping companies
| had, was relocation. But, the fact remains a rational
| negotiation worked. This single fact (relocation) does not
| explain why.
|
| For some reason, rational negotiation with the workers in the
| US tunnel boring community doesn't work. Given the amount of
| excess cost, I think it is very likely better negotiating
| could work. The question would be, why there hasn't been a
| rational negotiation. I would argue, the highly intermittent
| nature of tunnelling, and tunnel work, has made the entities
| involved (the employers, the state, the city, the corporates)
| reluctant to do the negotiating.
|
| You talk to consequence: behaviour on the job. That doesn't
| have a lot to do with negotiating. Negotiating is done behind
| closed doors.
| mcguire wrote:
| To a first approximation, the table at the head of the article
| looks like "Why Tunnels in New York Cost Much More Than Anywhere
| Else in The World".
|
| But anyway, what's to be done? According to the article:
|
| * Streamline the environmental and approval processes.
|
| * Establish an equitable risk sharing mechanism between the owner
| and contractor and properly implement it.
|
| * Establish unified contractual terms and conditions for
| underground work similar to the FIDIC Emerald Book.
|
| * Be fair and equitable in dealing with changes, disputes and
| claims.
|
| * Reevaluate the need of all soft costs: Owner, PM/CM, EIS/EA,
| Engineering, etc., lower bonding limits, less litigation, lower
| insurance cost, etc.
|
| * Revisit labor laws, rates, and union regulations and establish
| equitable Project Labor Agreements.
|
| * Pay for public amenities and community and stakeholders'
| provisions through other funds rather than transit funds. There
| is no doubt that community improvements and services are needed,
| but infrastructure projects should not be the vehicles to fund
| such services or improvements.
|
| * Transportation Alternative Program is essential for
| sustainability and environmental benefits, but their costs should
| not be funded through transit project costs.
|
| * Better management of stakeholders' approvals, public
| expectation, ROWs, and utilities owners.
|
| * Remove politics from infrastructure projects.
|
| Where have I heard these before?
| jcranmer wrote:
| There's another factor that's not mentioned here: the US has some
| bonkers expensive station design.
|
| Take the newish Hudson Yards station. Its platform is about twice
| as wide as the original subway station platforms, and it's far
| longer than it needs to be too. On top of that, it has a full-
| length underground mezzanine above the platform, which is
| unnecessary. Overall, the effect when I first used it was "why is
| this so unnecessarily massive?"
|
| Oversized stations are even more problematic when you consider
| that the MTA wants to build all of these by mining rather than
| using cut-and-cover, because cut-and-cover has too much
| disruption to surface tenants. And mining is far more expensive
| than cut-and-cover, so the extra volume you need to dig out for
| excessive station sizes hits your purse even faster. For as high
| as the actual tunneling costs are, it's the station costs that
| truly make the subway extensions stratospherically expensive.
| nerfhammer wrote:
| One thing I've always wondered about was SFMTA's giant
| underground stations that could fit six actual Muni trains on
| the platforms, or the giant Caltrain+BART station at Milbrae
| that could fit about 2.5 times as many trains as it actually
| ever does.
| rhizome wrote:
| My Dad used to like telling a story about how when BART first
| opened, none of the trains had overhead bars because the
| trains were supposed to run so often nobody was going to have
| to stand.
|
| It's kind of wild that that wasted space for MUNI underground
| is not a bigger complaint in the main. My fantasy is that the
| last 20 years of tunnel computerization for MUNI was going to
| result in multiple trains per station, or hooking multiple
| lines together at the entrance of the tunnel (IIRC they did
| this with the Boeing trains until the Meltdown and Bredas) in
| order to utilize the whole station length.
|
| Or shrink and simplify the MUNI parts, there's no (apparent
| to a rube like me) reason MUNI stations have to be the same
| length as BART stations. Make 'em a single block long with
| NYC style foyers: attendant, turnstiles, ticket machines. No
| flowers, no coffee, no Jehovah's Witness tables.
| jeffbee wrote:
| You should see the plans for the BART station in San Jose.
| There will be pointless mezzanine, of course. The excavation
| will be the size of an airport. It's completely ridiculous.
|
| There are S-Bahn stations in Switzerland with 10 times the
| daily riders of BART that are nothing more than a signpost and
| a place to stand. The American obsession with gargantuan
| stations serving a couple thousand daily riders costs a lot of
| money.
|
| https://www.mercurynews.com/2020/03/29/barts-san-jose-extens...
| cossray wrote:
| The obsession is not just with stations;everything is bigger
| over there. My first visit to the US, I was traveling from
| Japan. The difference in size of things in the two countries
| is uncanny. From people to cars to food;my impression was
| Americans like it bigger.
| brigandish wrote:
| Isn't that because of the obvious - Americans generally are
| bigger than Japanese people and America is bigger than
| Japan? I'm not sure it's a preference as much as an
| adjustment.
| megablast wrote:
| Building for the future, rather than the now.
| nerfhammer wrote:
| Except for the train tunnels themselves which are only double
| tracked instead of quad tracked
| skissane wrote:
| In Sydney, Australia's original underground rail system,
| the "City Circle", which began construction in the 1920s,
| they built "stub tunnels" at one of the stations, St James.
| St James station is actually built with two island
| platforms, to support being an interchange between two
| lines. However, only one of those lines was actually built.
| The other line, they covered it over to turn the two
| platforms into one big platform, and that line's tunnels go
| off some distance and then they abruptly end. The idea was,
| when the second line (Eastern Suburbs line) was later
| built, they could do it with minimal disruption to the
| operations of the station.
|
| Great thinking ahead, except plans changed and when
| (decades later) they eventually decided to build the
| Eastern Suburbs line, they chose a completely different
| alignment. So they just had these stub tunnels sitting
| underground, disused. During World War II they were
| converted to being an air raid shelter. They've seen some
| other random uses over the years, such as being used to
| film TV shows, part of them is used as a maintenance train
| siding, etc. Now the government is seeking proposals for
| the private sector to redevelop them into something useful.
|
| When the Eastern Suburbs line was finally built on a
| different alignment in the 1970s, they did something
| similar - it has two underground platforms at Central
| Station, but they actually built four underground
| platforms. Two of them active, the other two with stub
| tunnels not going anywhere. Once again, this was to support
| another planned railway line, the Southern Suburbs line,
| which has never built either. For many years, the never-
| used platforms were used as archival document storage for
| the government rail authority. Now, Sydney is building a
| new metro line. The Metro line is not going to use these
| platforms, it is using newly constructed underground
| platforms. But these never-used platforms are going to be
| converted into utility rooms for the Metro line.
|
| Similarly, at Redfern station, there is a big pit in the
| ground which holds half-constructed platforms for the
| Southern Suburbs line. I doubt those platforms will ever be
| used for that purpose.
|
| So anyway, planning ahead is a great idea, but often it
| just turns into a waste.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| Re-evaluate the future you're building for if it's
| unreasonably expensive to build for it. Sometimes it's
| cheaper to destroy demand or otherwise not build for density
| you don't need. This is way different (massively over budget
| and/or behind schedule public projects) then dropping extra
| fiber in a trench because you're there already ("Dig Once").
|
| For example, Strong Towns [1] seems to champion the whole
| "the suburbs are unsustainable" perspective, but never the
| "public works projects in HCOL metros are too expensive for
| the resulting density" thesis. Market forces will likely work
| it out in this case though (people leaving HCOL locations for
| lower density locations where per dollar quality of life is
| higher, with major cities having to do more with less, or do
| less with less [tax revenue] [2]).
|
| [1] https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme
|
| [2] https://www.nytimes.com/2020/08/27/nyregion/mta-virus-
| budget...
| ardit33 wrote:
| Have you been at the current Penn Station, in NYC? That's
| how a 'build for now' station looks like. It is a total
| shitshow during rush hour, and especially during holidays.
|
| Everyone in NYC hates it and we are currently building an
| extension at the old post office, as it is not fit for
| usage anymore.
|
| The old one (the one that got demolished in the 60s) was
| miles ahead in both space and aesthetics. Also, almost
| nobody hates the Grand Central Station, even though it gets
| overran with tourists as it is a beautiful peace of work.
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| Best comment about the new now old Penn Station.
|
| 'One entered the city like a god; one scuttles in now
| like a rat'
| jcranmer wrote:
| That's not why Penn Station is a shitshow. Penn Station
| basically has three main problems:
|
| 1. Amtrak insists on trying to do an airplane-like
| boarding situation for trains, rather than the
| traditional practice of telling people what track their
| train will be on several minutes in advance and letting
| them wait on the platform. This means you have boarding
| lines and expectant crowds in places that aren't designed
| to handle that kind of capacity.
|
| 2. Each of the services that call at Penn Station has its
| own segregated platforms, mezzanine, and ticketing areas,
| and the connectivity between these is poor and confusing.
| Although, this is probably driven in large part by...
|
| 3. Madison Square Garden was built on top of Penn
| Station, and a substantial portion of the above-ground
| infrastructure is dedicated to supporting that tenant
| rather than the transportation infrastructure.
|
| Penn Station used to have a more normal major-station
| layout when it was still part of the Pennsylvania
| Railroad, but that was ruined by the building of Madison
| Square Garden on top of it.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Everything below ground level is original, save for the
| relatively newer Central and Western corridors.
|
| Penn Station's major issue was that when it was designed
| and built, intercity traffic was a big deal and commuter
| traffic was not, and it was designed accordingly. Today
| the central platforms Amtrak uses are massively oversized
| and the commuter-rail only platforms to the side take 3-5
| full minutes to clear a train.
| [deleted]
| selectodude wrote:
| Station overcrowding can be fixed. Stuff that never gets
| built because it's too expensive can't. It's important to not
| let perfect be the enemy of the good, no more so than public
| infrastructure.
| Schiendelman wrote:
| What way of fixing station overcrowding are you thinking
| of?
| selectodude wrote:
| Running more trains, mostly.
| Schiendelman wrote:
| The 7 is already projected to run at peak frequencies in
| the existing plan; signal upgrades help a bit but not a
| lot at a terminal station. The rest of the 7 isn't
| capable of running trains much more often.
| selectodude wrote:
| the 7 train only runs at 24 trains per hour. Other
| systems, even ones in the US, run upwards of 30 trains
| per hour. For example, the Red Line in Chicago runs every
| two minutes during rush hour and that is capped due to
| the Belmont junction. It has the same terminal station
| layout at 95th street as Hudson Yards.
|
| For 2.5 billion dollars, I bet they could have extended
| the system, not built some insane labyrinth 150 feet
| underground and improved signaling to run 30 trains per
| hour and maybe even built that 2nd station they had to
| cut due to cost.
| Schiendelman wrote:
| They could not have both built a station _and_ extended
| the system for their budget, no.
|
| The new signaling for the 7 will already get them to 30
| trains an hour, and that will not be enough in 30 years,
| much less 100.
| selectodude wrote:
| The NYC Subway had a yearly ridership of over 2 billion
| in 1946, higher than it is today (pre-covid). One could
| say that we should be building a subway that can
| transport 5 billion riders per year and have six tracks
| on every line but that would be silly and there's no
| legitimate reason why that would be the case.
| Schiendelman wrote:
| I'm not sure what you're getting at here. NYC is growing
| steadily, especially around that station.
| spyspy wrote:
| > Station overcrowding can be fixed
|
| Yeah, usually by totally rebuilding the station. Easier
| said than done when you already have a skyscraper built
| over top of you. NYC is trying to revamp a lot of its
| current stations that see magnitudes of traffic more than
| they were designed to on a daily basis, and that's a
| massive undertaking.
| asdff wrote:
| A mezzanine level is expensive and only serves to delay
| people. It doesn't get more people into more trains. Only
| more frequent and longer trains can do that, and that is
| dependent on the length of the platform and how many trains
| can move through a given tunnel an hour, the mezzanine is
| extraneous. It makes people not want to take the train by
| introducing bottlenecks by making you go through another set
| of stairs or escalator. But I'm sure the expenses associated
| with the mezzanine lines a bunch of people's pockets, so I
| wouldn't expect sensible design to come into fold anytime
| soon in our contractor-graft based country.
| Schiendelman wrote:
| Hi there! I started and ran Seattle Subway - I'm a bit of a
| transit nerd, and would love to chat about this.
|
| The MTA is planning on a 100 year horizon. It is ALWAYS cheaper
| to build capacity now than to retrofit later, even inflation
| adjusted. If you'd like to challenge their methodology, first
| go read the planning report!
| malandrew wrote:
| I knew we had light rail in a few places, one monorail and
| lots of buses, but after living here for 1.5 years now, this
| is the first I've heard of Seattle Subway. I don't think I've
| ever heard anyone make reference to it in conversation.
|
| The Seattle has 79% more area than San Francisco and San
| Francisco has 17% more people. How does it make economic
| sense to have a Subway when so much of the city is zoned for
| detached single family homes and there is acknowledged
| seismic and flooding risk?
|
| In 2020, wouldn't it be far more future proof and likely
| cheaper to plan on smart streets with self-driving pods like
| Dubai is doing with its Next platform? The moment autonomous
| on-demand P2P system is viable, it's going to turn subways in
| less densely populated cities into albatrosses.
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kJlQaCIUHTI
| ncallaway wrote:
| I think they're describing it as the "Seattle Subway" for
| the benefit of non-local audiences.
|
| The subway they're referring to is almost certainly the
| Link light rail, which runs through the bus tunnels, and
| has other extended stretches underground. It's probably the
| same light-rail that you're referring to.
| chabons wrote:
| I think he's referring to the Seattle area pro-transit
| volunteer organization "Seattle Subway"
| https://www.seattlesubway.org/
| quacked wrote:
| What are the costs involved in "retrofitting via cut-and-
| cover" as opposed to "building more capacity by mining" that
| makes the second option more palatable for the 100-year
| timeline?
| Schiendelman wrote:
| I don't understand. That's not the tradeoff MTA is making.
| They're building more capacity _now_ rather than having to
| try to do it later.
|
| Later would be nigh-impossible because of the skyscrapers
| going up on every side, and the railyard above. Hudson
| Yards is a massively complex project.
| quacked wrote:
| The parent comment that you responded to:
|
| "... Oversized stations are even more problematic when
| you consider that the MTA wants to build all of these by
| mining rather than using cut-and-cover, because cut-and-
| cover has too much disruption to surface tenants. And
| mining is far more expensive than cut-and-cover..."
|
| Your response:
|
| "... It is ALWAYS cheaper to build capacity now than to
| retrofit later, even inflation adjusted. ..."
|
| The implication of your response is that on a 100-year
| timeline, the way that the modern stations are apparently
| being built (by mining) is cheaper than building them by
| the way the parent commenter says (cut-and-cover).
|
| I was just curious why it's "always" cheaper. Is "mine
| and build big" the cheaper method only when there's a ton
| of density on top like Hudson Yards, or is it also the
| case in places with less surface density?
| Aeolun wrote:
| I think that you're probably _always_ better off building
| bigger if you expect growth in the next 100 years. How
| big you should build is just a matter of how much current
| and future traffic you expect to have.
| soneil wrote:
| I think what they're looking at is over-sizing rather
| than right-sizing. Think of it as cost=size*method.
| Future-proofing increases the size, not the method.
| Etheryte wrote:
| This sounds fairly similar to "Why Many Cities Have No Money"
| [0]. In short, building massive infrastructure for the future
| is worth very little when the promised future never comes and
| you're stuck paying the maintenance cost.
|
| [0] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13370310
| Schiendelman wrote:
| That article is from Strong Towns. Strong Towns' entire
| premise is that growing outward is inefficient. They would
| make the same argument I am about planning for the future
| in a place like Hudson Yards, where millions of square feet
| are under construction.
| dan-robertson wrote:
| It intuitively feels more likely to me that that future may
| come to New York than to other cities.
| mensetmanusman wrote:
| Does that future include >2" of water rise and more
| floods to fill tunnels?
| Schiendelman wrote:
| It's already there. Hudson Yards is the largest
| development currently in progress in NYC (maybe the US),
| and phase 2 will build another million-ish square feet
| next to it. That is the closest subway station to all of
| it.
| aplummer wrote:
| Is a mezzanine considered capacity?
| Schiendelman wrote:
| Absolutely. Mezzanines are critical in flow management
| during peak. You know how if you go to a Disney ride, most
| of the line is inside the structure? Same concept. Get
| people out of the rain/snow/heat and normalize flow.
| asdff wrote:
| But a mezzanine is sort of silly considering no one lines
| up for an hour for a train like they do on a disneyland
| ride. All the stations in LA have these massive
| mezzanines too and they are just dead space. They are
| absolutely empty during rush hour aside from people
| charging through them to get to the actual platform,
| because it might take you several minutes to go from
| above ground, down the escalators, through the mezzanine,
| down a second set of escalators, and to the platform, at
| which point the train might be gone and you will sit
| there twiddling your thumbs for another 10 minutes,
| clogging up the platform for the next train since you
| should have made that first one. It's a huge problem at
| stations like 7th street in downtown LA, where the light
| rail platform is below a mezzanine but above the heavy
| rail platform, which bottlenecks transfers due to a lack
| of thought put into how many stairs and escalators should
| be made. Probably 1/5 days a week commuting in the before
| times would I actually make that transfer, the other
| times you are jammed up by people bottlenecked by the
| limited stairs and escalators and you watch the train go
| away without you.
|
| Take out the elaborate mezzanine and make it a simple
| single level multitrack platform directly under the
| surface, and you might make the first train and be out of
| the station in less time, lowering the needed capacity of
| the station structure in the first place.
| DrBazza wrote:
| In London, it's absolutely the opposite.
|
| London Bridge Station has recently been rebuilt to have a
| mezzanine style area. It's the 4th busiest in the UK with
| 61 million entries and exits.
|
| St Pancras and Kings Cross were similarly rebuilt.
|
| It is a bit complex to describe London Bridge to non-
| Londoners, but simply put, it was 15 or so platforms that
| were about 20ft wide and 12 carriages long, with nowhere
| to queue and trains every few minutes, on every platform
| (and it's a terminus, not a through-station).
|
| A mezzanine in a central city for passengers to wait is
| an absolute necessity. Doubly so if the station is a
| terminus, which all of the major stations in London are
| (I'm not counting Blackfriars or St Pancras).
|
| For the non-English readers, there is only one North-
| South through railway line in London (Thameslink), and
| only one East-West (-ish) (Crossrail) and that hasn't
| opened. All mainline stations in London terminate, and
| then you have to use the tube to connect to another.
| hadlock wrote:
| Can the mezzanine be used to divert foot traffic during
| multi-day repairs
| pratik661 wrote:
| Bookmarking this thread. I'm interested in getting involved
| in transit advocacy in NYC. I think Seattle Subway might be a
| good place for me to start my homework
| Schiendelman wrote:
| Reach out anytime! bensch@gmail.com
| awhitby wrote:
| I haven't been to the Hudson Yards stop, but many NY subway
| platforms are very cramped by modern transit standards
| (compared with even, say the DC metro). I'm sure they're not
| accessible and hard to make so, and some sections are so narrow
| as to be positively dangerous.
|
| Building new platforms that were just "as wide as the original
| subway platforms" would be the bonkers thing.
|
| Sure it's more expensive to build it big, but I bet its more
| expensive still (if not totally impossible) to build it small
| then _re_build it big a few decades later.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Hudson Yards is Manhattan's newest office submarket and
| probably best-in-class modern office space in town. There were
| estimates that Hudson Yards would become the largest station by
| entries and exits. (MTA's station usage stats do not count
| transfers within a station's paid area.)
| jcranmer wrote:
| You have to include transfer density to account for platform
| load factors, and Times Square's situation of having 5 of the
| 7 Midtown Manhattan lines transferring there, all of them
| having both express and local platforms, on top of the
| massive local draws for boarding, and the location of the
| Port Authority's bus terminal virtually guarantees that it's
| going to the busiest station complex in perpetuity.
|
| By contrast, the Hudson Yards station is a terminus station
| of a single line. That means traffic is largely going to be
| directly from the single platform entrance (there's only one
| bank of escalators to the surface) to the waiting train, or
| vice versa. Even if it's potentially going to be busy, there
| is very little need for platform loitering, and certainly not
| for the massive overbuild of platform and mezzanine that
| exists today.
| Schiendelman wrote:
| It's only going to be a terminus station for a few decades.
| That line will end up in Chelsea.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| The argument for Hudson Yards (I don't actually agree) is
| that while Times Square is certainly a very busy station,
| most of the movement that happens there is transferring.
| And Times Square has nearby stations that other people also
| use for exiting and entering; Hudson Yards is a long hike
| from the next closest subway station, and 34th St is not a
| particularly great walk, with all the Lincoln tunnel
| traffic and whatnot.
|
| Hudson Yards is also the only station next to the Javits
| Center, so it has the massive traffic from large convention
| events like the Auto Show and NYCC.
| singhrac wrote:
| For what it's worth, I briefly looked into why we don't construct
| more above-grade track. There's actually quite a lot in the outer
| boroughs of New York (and of course one such mostly-freight track
| was converted in the High Line). It's cheaper to upkeep, and
| actually possibly cheaper to buy (compared to cost of drilling),
| and of course gets built much faster. The problem is essentially
| noise. Light is also a concern but not quite as large.
|
| I wonder if anyone is working on making these trains more silent.
| It seems hard but might be quite valuable.
| asdff wrote:
| The elevated portion of the expo line in LA is remarkably
| quiet. Imo it's far quieter than a highway or even an arterial
| road. The problem is concrete supports are a lot more expensive
| and take more time to build than cheap creaky squeaky steel
| girders that you see in chicago and nyc. Plus, somehow, people
| were still pissed as hell about that train in LA and managed to
| dilute the plan from being a fully grade separated line into a
| mixed grade mess, where it might take you 15 minutes to travel
| through certain 2 mile stretches (on a train capable of 75mph).
| Maarten88 wrote:
| > After 16 months in July 2019, a report was produced but it did
| not provide the comparisons requested by Congress. Rather, the
| GAO in its report said making the comparisons was too difficult
| to obtain meaningful results [...]
|
| As an outsider from Europe, let me try.
|
| 1. It always seemed to me that the litigious nature of doing
| business in the US must be costly to society. The thinking of "If
| anything ever happens to you, someone owes you money". Lawyers
| are needed in anything of consequence, and it leads to lots of
| overhead, distraction and unnecessary work to avoid the
| possibility of being liable for anything.
|
| 2. Then there is corruption. The US ranks lower than most
| european countries on corruption
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corruption_Perceptions_Index). The
| article hints at that, mentioning "politicizing" of
| infrastructure projects. That also costs money to society.
|
| 3. Then there is lack of competition. Because antitrust laws have
| not been enforced for decades in the US (not anywhere else too
| btw), I suspect that big infrastructure projects are getting
| distributed among a few large companies, who don't actually
| compete; they'll all make good money and pay their C-level execs
| well.
|
| There may be other factors like healthcare costs, and unions
| adding to costs, etc, but those seem to be a result of the above,
| rather than a root cause.
| nickpp wrote:
| 0. Unions. And that implies the others: litigious, corrupted
| and lacking competition.
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Is this mentioned? It's crazy complicated underground in large
| old American cities. Been putting pipes etc under there for a
| couple hundred years. A Seattle tunnel got stalled for months
| when they hit an old service main iron pipe that'd been put there
| a century before and forgotten.
|
| My sister worked for a pump company, been in business for 150
| years. Got calls all the time for replacement pumps that had
| failed after a century etc. One was 6 stories underground in NYC.
| Had to dig a tunnel down through a maze of services (electrical,
| tunnels, drains, water, gas) to get to it. Then had to have
| exactly the same pump to fit exactly into the geometry it used to
| have (no problem; they still had the drawing for the pump in a
| drawer and made an exact copy). Pulled the old one up, dropped
| the new one down, hooked it up _and then buried it for maybe
| another century_.
| [deleted]
| peteey wrote:
| No. What you say seems true, but this is a comparison. I would
| expect other nations to also have pipe etc underground for a
| hundred years too (probably longer).
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Yes. The rapid growth of American cities (zero to millions in
| a single century) is different from European growth.
| zepearl wrote:
| Mh, many other non-american cities are older => I don't think
| that "age" matters directly in the context of the cost-
| comparison shown by the article.
|
| If complications caused by conflicting stuff that you mention
| is one of the factors that drive up the cost, then I guess that
| general panning for all kind of infrastructure is just
| constantly done better (for whichever reasons) in non-amerian
| cities?
| JoeAltmaier wrote:
| Its the frantic rebuilding and updating that makes it
| complicated. The largest industrial centers in the world (at
| the time) were built and rebuild countless times, each adding
| another layer of services. City centers are particularly
| complex, and everything seems to go through there.
|
| NYC went from 125000 in 1820, to 5.5M in 1920.
| Ichthypresbyter wrote:
| Compare to large old European cities, which have many of the
| same issues plus unexploded WW2 bombs, archaeological sites,
| and plague pits.
| nova22033 wrote:
| https://www.nydailynews.com/opinion/subway-anger-aim-unions-...
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-...
|
| _There are "nippers" to watch material being moved around and
| "hog house tenders" to supervise the break room. Each crane must
| have an "oiler," a relic of a time when they needed frequent
| lubrication. Standby electricians and plumbers are to be on hand
| at all times, as is at least one "master mechanic." Generators
| and elevators must have their own operators, even though they are
| automatic. An extra person is required to be present for all
| concrete pumping, steam fitting, sheet metal work and other
| tasks.
|
| In New York, "underground construction employs approximately four
| times the number of personnel as in similar jobs in Asia,
| Australia, or Europe," according to an internal report by Arup, a
| consulting firm that worked on the Second Avenue subway and many
| similar projects around the world._
| rjkennedy98 wrote:
| well we can't just build good public infrastructure - it also
| has to be a jobs program also /s
| blakesterz wrote:
| Interesting read. The cost in New York of $1.5 - $2.5B per mile
| is just amazing. They ask "What Can Be Done to Manage Underground
| Construction Cost?" and list a bunch of recommendations. The
| conclusion?
|
| "If these recommendations are implemented, would the U.S. costs
| match the European tunneling project costs? Unlikely."
|
| The reasons make sense, at least to me, someone who knows very
| little of this subject.
| greatpatton wrote:
| Come on freaking Switzerland where the minimum wage is around
| 4000$ per month was able to construct the longest tunnels (one
| for each direction) in the world for 1/10 of this cost. Even in
| my small city they are building an extension to a train tunnel
| in the middle of the city 1.4km -> 150M$.
|
| There is really a big problem here.
| throwaway0a5e wrote:
| And the "unlikely" is followed up with a couple sentences that
| are basically a polite way of saying "even if we do everything
| else right the cost of NYC union labor is just too damn high".
| ponker wrote:
| Well it is, because Europe is able to get their labor much
| cheaper, and those guys ain't starving.
| dboreham wrote:
| But that needs "socialism".
| zrail wrote:
| Those guys have socialized health care and government
| sponsored pensions.
| nicoburns wrote:
| I wonder if tunnel working is dangerous enough that the
| healthcare costs become extra significant.
| 1123581321 wrote:
| Those healthcare costs would be covered from worker's
| comp in the US (I am aware of the caveats here.)
| zrail wrote:
| Not sure, but I wouldn't be surprised if life and
| disability insurance through the tunnel workers union is
| extraordinarily expensive.
| PeterisP wrote:
| It's paid out of the taxes on wages of laborers like
| these engineers working on tunnel construction; when you
| estimate the expenses for building a tunnel, that's
| included in the list price - it's just that in USA
| invoice that line might be labeled "union-agreed
| benefits" and in Switzerland invoice the same thing might
| be labeled "government-mandated social security tax"
| which covers things like "government sponsored" (i.e.
| taxpayer-paid) pensions.
| gok wrote:
| > In 2018, Congress asked the Government Accountability Office
| (GAO) to report within 9 months on the cost of rail - transit
| infrastructure projects across the United States compared to
| similar projects worldwide. After 16 months in July 2019, a
| report was produced but it did not provide the comparisons
| requested by Congress. Rather, the GAO in its report said making
| the comparisons was too difficult to obtain meaningful results
| and instead reported on improvements to be made by the FTA for
| better cost estimation. It appears even the GAO did not have the
| ability to identify measures for cost reduction of transit
| tunnels that have impacted the taxpayers by billions of dollars
| over the years.
|
| Alon Levy has more in depth reporting of this failed report:
| https://pedestrianobservations.com/2019/07/22/new-report-on-...
|
| And Matthew Yglesias has a good article on the congressional
| inference which is preventing this from being meaningfully
| analyzed https://www.vox.com/policy-and-
| politics/2017/5/24/15681560/g...
| erulabs wrote:
| It's an ownership problem primarily - cities can blame states and
| states can blame the fed and the fed can blame the contractors.
| By the time anyone can figure out who's really at fault it's
| election time again.
|
| Swiss cantons have virtually complete authority over their
| territories - it's not surprising to me their large projects go
| much more smoothly: there are a single entity in charge and at
| blame.
|
| In American society we deal constantly with our division of
| power: funding comes from all levels and therefore a single
| hiccup can break the entire chain. Suggesting that a city or
| state have authority over its own systems makes one persona-non-
| grata in most conversations - even in SF where our Mayor doesn't
| have the authority to even replace the MTA director. The failure
| of American politics isn't that we're all federal or all local -
| it's that the buck stops nowhere. Fascism and confederacy have
| their obvious issues: but inability to build a subway is not one
| of them.
| aeturnum wrote:
| >Although environmental regulations and requirements in most
| European countries are as elaborate as U.S. regulations, the
| environmental review processes are generally better streamlined,
| and approval is obtained faster than in the United States.
|
| The idea that U.S. regulations are simply administered more
| poorly than European ones reminds me of the U.S. tax system. For
| years, anti-tax people in the U.S. (and the tax prep industry)
| have blocked changes that would simplify filing taxes. They think
| (correctly imo) people will like taxes less if they're hellishly
| complicated to file. Is something similar has been happening with
| other regulatory requirements?
|
| I would be interested to read about it if anyone has any sources.
| nostromo wrote:
| > They think (correctly imo) people will like taxes less if
| they're hellishly complicated to file.
|
| Their actual argument is that we should simplify the code
| itself, not try and hide its complexity from the payers using
| some computer system only available to the IRS.
|
| They do think that you should have to file every year though,
| that is correct. That forces a bit of visibility and
| accountability on the government in that it shows people just
| how much they're working for the government before working for
| themselves.
|
| This is similar to how the US makes sales tax visible to the
| payer, rather than hiding them behind an invisible VAT. It's
| about transparency.
| girvo wrote:
| There is zero difference in transparency between my
| calculating what taxes will be added to the sticker price, or
| my calculating what taxes were added to the sticker price
| (here in Aus). In fact the latter is easier.
| vkou wrote:
| > They do think that you should have to file every year
| though, that is correct. That forces a bit of visibility and
| accountability on the government in that it shows people just
| how much they're working for the government before working
| for themselves.
|
| People would know this if they'd just get a tax bill sent to
| them.
|
| Believe me, people who live in countries where filing your
| taxes occupies ~5-minutes of brainspace per year aren't
| ignorant children. They know how much they are paying.
| wiml wrote:
| I know nothing about the tunnel boring industry in particular,
| but in some cases this is a form of regulatory capture. A large
| established industry player can afford to navigate the
| difficult regulations (either through scale, expertise,
| backdoor connections, etc), but a smaller upstart competitor
| can't.
| asdff wrote:
| I had a conversation with someone professionally familiar
| with the planning process for metro transit in LA and this is
| pretty much what they told me. The process is so complicated
| that even if metro themselves wanted to hire labor in house
| and save due to being able to run things at cost rather than
| for profit, there wouldn't be any talent available that is
| able to navigate the regulatory process as those brains have
| long since been hired by companies like Tutor Perini. Even if
| metro wanted to do things in house, they wouldn't even know
| where to start with what is necessary for regulatory approval
| as that ground has been covered by private contractors for
| two decades.
|
| It's such a screwed up situation and is perfectly designed to
| enrich shareholders at the expense of the public purse, just
| a perfectly oiled machine. Metro doesn't even accept the
| cheapest bids, they continually turn to Tutor Perini because
| that is the only contractor with people familiar with the
| regulatory process. I'm not sure how you ever right the ship
| in this case. Pretty depressing.
| cksquare wrote:
| I don't follow why South Korea is lumped in with Southeast Asia
| repeatedly in this piece.
| syspec wrote:
| Why is that surprising, because of its geographical region?
| samschooler wrote:
| I'm wondering if it has to do with being in a similar labor
| market? It may be easy to get cheap labor from cheaper
| countries. But this is a guess.
| pchristensen wrote:
| Anyone interested in this topic can learn much more at Alon
| Levy's blog at https://pedestrianobservations.com/.
|
| One of the points he makes is that Anglosphere countries (and the
| USA is worse than others) refuse to learn from other countries
| that have better cost and performance. He has a lot more to say -
| it's good reading.
| lbriner wrote:
| Is it really "refusing to learn" or is it that things are
| always far more complicated than you would like?
|
| In the UK, planning rules are often blamed for large project
| delays but you can't easily just throw the rules out of the
| window without causing concern that you will end up with a
| different problem.
|
| The Shinkansen was/is a successful project but it had certain
| "costs" involving not just the demolition of lots of property
| but also the "eyesore" of above-ground railways. If you want to
| import that success, you import all of the problems at the same
| time.
|
| I think perhaps governments would spend better quality time
| really asking and answering "what do we want this country to be
| about", then maybe they could start knocking the old walls
| down.
| fennecfoxen wrote:
| Second Avenue Sagas -- http://secondavenuesagas.com/ -- is also
| a good one dedicated to NYC transit and has extensive coverage
| of this project specifically at
| http://secondavenuesagas.com/category/second-avenue-subway/
| johngalt wrote:
| +1 Pedestrian Observations is great reading for infrastructure
| nerds. Really digs into the details and trade-offs related to
| city transportation and regional transportation design.
| cco wrote:
| > Understanding the extreme tunnel costs in New York compared
| with other places in the United States is an enigma that is
| difficult to comprehend and cannot be controlled without major
| industry and government practice changes.
|
| Is this their way of saying corruption is an X factor they didn't
| account for?
| fastball wrote:
| No mention of all the bedrock underneath Manhattan? Really?
|
| EDIT: specifically metamorphic bedrock
| jcranmer wrote:
| The geologic nature of Manhattan probably adds a small amount
| of cost premium to Manhattan versus more geological uniform
| countries. However, bedrock isn't the hardest thing to tunnel
| through I believe (I think it's soft-soil landfill, since the
| ground has far less inherent rigidity).
| vidanay wrote:
| I'm pretty sure there's bedrock in the rest of the world that
| gets tunneled through. It's not unique to Manhattan.
| fastball wrote:
| As far as I'm aware, it actually kinda is (at least compared
| to other major cities with lots of tunneling).
|
| London for instance is built on sedimentary rock (mostly
| limestone?). The metamorphic bedrock (mostly mica?) Manhattan
| is on top of is obviously much harder than that.
| vidanay wrote:
| If you are referring to the actual Manhattan Schist type of
| rock, then yes that can have an effect on the cost of
| tunneling, but that wasn't really what your original post
| said - you just said "all the bedrock".
|
| Switzerland recently completed the Gotthard Base tunnel
| which is almost all hard rock mining.
| fastball wrote:
| I'm no geologist, but I was under the impression that
| "bedrock" generally refers to this harder type of rock.
| It is not just a word for any rock that things are built
| on. Maybe I'm wrong though.
|
| I've never heard London referred to as being built on top
| of bedrock in the same way I've heard it of NYC.
| vidanay wrote:
| Bedrock is a generic term for the hard(er) layer of rock
| underneath the softer stuff.
|
| Manhattan has very tough bedrock (schist) London has very
| soft bedrock (chalk and London Clay) - and it's also
| deeper
| lbriner wrote:
| Sure, bedrock would slow a project down but it wouldn't
| explain the higher level of labour. If you are moving more
| slowly, you need less people to keep the supply chain moving,
| not more.
|
| I saw a TV show with a standard Tunnel Boring Machine and it
| was about 5 men operating it (plus the automated materials
| feed). Even if they were paid $1M a year, it would still be
| loads cheaper than these tunnels are costing New York.
| mannykannot wrote:
| That is a resasonable question, but I think it would have been
| mentioned if it is a significant issue.
|
| Tunnelling through the Alps is also bedrock tunnelling, and not
| near-surface bedrock, either. The Gothard Base Tunnel,
| completed in 2016, cost $12 bn and is 35.5 miles long [1].
|
| The London Crossrail tunnels are not in bedrock, but there was
| some significant engineering in threading around and between
| existing infrastructure, and in protecting it. For all I know,
| bedrock tunnelling may be easier.
|
| [1] https://www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-switzerland-rail-
| tunnel-...
| fastball wrote:
| Presumably tunneling through a mountain is much easier than
| underground because either end is just open. Very easy to get
| your boring machine into position / service it when needed
| (by just pulling it back out into the open air). Also
| probably less issues with damp, etc.
| mauvehaus wrote:
| Tunnel boring machines (TBMs) bore a gross diameter hole
| that's then lined (often with concrete segments) for
| support. The net diameter of the hole behind the TBM is
| less than the diameter of the TBM, particularly the shield,
| which is the business end. Maintenance is done in place.
|
| Fun Chunnel fact: when the TBMs driving from England and
| France met, they drove one below the other and abandoned it
| in place. The other was dismantled and removed in pieces.
| temp667 wrote:
| One point (I'm a dual citizen BTW).
|
| Europe has pretty strict environment rules, but they are not
| normally abused to stop a project by just delaying and litigating
| it forever.
|
| In the US, the actual care for environment is lower I think BUT
| you can just drag out a project forever on enviro issues.
|
| SF bike path was sued for not doing enough of an enviro study,
| took another $1M, maybe 1-2 years to get it going again.
|
| This is one (small) factor.
|
| Another - in the EU most folks are part of unions, but the unions
| are not such a political machine. So in the US you can get total
| nonsense in staffing, no show / low work jobs - the EU puts up
| with a lot less of that from casual observation (at least
| germany, maybe Italy / Greece have more of an issue here). Unions
| seems reasonably productive in Germany - does someone have more
| data here? I don't know the details, just my impression.
| lbriner wrote:
| In Europe, I think people know that you are unlikely to stop a
| project due to environmental reasons, but you might get a Judge
| to rule that the contractor has to move some wildlife or put
| tunnels where there was just going to be a cutting. It costs
| more money sure but in the scheme of it, probably not much in
| terms of %.
| nicolashahn wrote:
| tl;dr: American tunneling labor is 3-4x as expensive as Europe.
| There are other factors but this is the big one.
|
| Also, this sentence stood out:
|
| > [for Europe] Infrastructure projects are evaluated and funded
| based on needs and economic benefits rather than political
| interests.
|
| Basically saying Europe's not corrupt, America is.
| ben_w wrote:
| While I wouldn't be surprised if the average corruption was
| higher in the USA, I would be _very_ surprised if the standard
| deviation of corruption was lower in Europe.
|
| For all that Americans say how diverse a nation the USA is, the
| EU alone [0] is a mixture of Common Law states and Roman Law
| states, where the laws are written in 24 languages that
| collectively use 3 character sets. Heck, despite the Euro it
| still has 10 non-Euro currencies in use.
|
| [0] I've seen "Europe" used to mean "the EU" in the same way
| I've seen "America" used to mean "the USA"; and while the EU is
| definitely not a country, it is about the same size as the USA.
| Bayart wrote:
| >Basically saying Europe's not corrupt, America is.
|
| The construction business is prime real estate for corruption
| in Europe just as it is anywhere. And it's especially bad in
| some countries (Italy, Hungary, Bulgaria, all of the Balkans).
| baggy_trough wrote:
| Really wondering how much organized crime has to do with this.
| fennecfoxen wrote:
| The relationship in question is mostly not criminal, but
| rather involves the unions in question supporting the
| political career of their people in Albany. For instance,
| when the governor suddenly changed the plan for the
| L-Pocalypse tunnel repair over the holidays, after chatting
| with some of his buddies, undermining the MTA chief (who, if
| I recall correctly, first heard about it from the press
| conference?) The new plan involves fewer outside contractors
| and more union labor.
|
| (Yes, Albany, because the MTA is run by the state instead of
| the city, mostly to limit accountability.)
| baggy_trough wrote:
| Why not both? Is it truly known not to have anything to do
| with organized crime?
| k__ wrote:
| Interesting.
|
| In Stuttgart, Germany, we have rather big subway tunnels.
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