> This gets more important the more complex a project gets. It is possible, for example, to build high-speed rail between Boston and Washington for a cost in the teens of billions and not tens, let alone hundreds, but not a single person involved in any of the present effort can do that
With bold claims of being able to build high-speed rail at fractions of the cost of official estimates, I expected the author to be somehow trained in large-scale construction or other civic issues. From their bio, it appears they are a pure mathematician who took up a side interest in urban issues.
While American (and a handful of other countries) do have unreasonably high construction costs for transit projects, I doubt the cost issue can be reduced to a simple problem with complacent middle management. I also seriously doubt that we can fix it all by simply swapping in new managers who promise to do it cheaper.
If we're going to be serious about this, we need to examine why American costs are so much higher than other countries, rather than simply taking costs out of context from other countries with very different infrastructure, geographical, and regulatory situations.
> If we're going to be serious about this, we need to examine why American costs are so much higher than other countries, rather than simply taking costs out of context from other countries with very different infrastructure, geographical, and regulatory situations.
That is precisely what Alon is doing. They probably have the most comprehensive comparative database of transit project costs, and they have actually drilled down into the line item budgets to figure out why some projects are so bloody expensive.
The author has been looking into this for years. The problem is of course complex.
However in the end there are two possible problems : a fundamental difference, or bad management. New York has more complex rock and slightly higher wages vs Spain, thus fundamentally it should cost about 1.2x more to build in new York, but we have direct comparisons so we.know new York is about 7x more expensive.
> we need to examine why American costs are so much higher than other countries
I read a paper on the cost of building tunnels. I remember two factors. The percentage cost of labor is higher than you might expect. And labor costs more in the US. And the US bids out contracts to place the risk if something goes wrong on the contractor. End result, fewer bids by only the largest contractors. And contractors pad their bids so they won't lose money no matter what goes wrong.
There is a passage in Neal Stephenson’s Quicksilver where a noble describes the absurd cost of moving timber across France to shipyards.
Each petty aristocrat along the route levies a percentage tax on the shipment; the result is that a shipment must always be greater than 100% of itself because that is the effective net tax rate.
With bold claims of being able to build high-speed rail at fractions of the cost of official estimates, I expected the author to be somehow trained in large-scale construction or other civic issues. From their bio, it appears they are a pure mathematician who took up a side interest in urban issues.
While American (and a handful of other countries) do have unreasonably high construction costs for transit projects, I doubt the cost issue can be reduced to a simple problem with complacent middle management. I also seriously doubt that we can fix it all by simply swapping in new managers who promise to do it cheaper.
If we're going to be serious about this, we need to examine why American costs are so much higher than other countries, rather than simply taking costs out of context from other countries with very different infrastructure, geographical, and regulatory situations.