The environmental review process is also horribly broken in the US. In practice it does relatively little to protect the environment and adds enormous cost and complexity to projects. Important needed infrastructure is held up for years, sometimes decades, in lengthy court battles that frequently don’t meaningfully alter the proposals. In the end the same project is built but at 2-3x the cost.
We should, of course, protect the environment but we’ve gotta find a way to do that which is efficient and doesn’t waste public funds (where that current waste ironically could then be diverted into meaningful projects to protect the environment!).
Environmental review isn’t just about the hippie-greenie meaning of environment, but the actual built-environment. Questions asked include: how does the proposed plan interface with existing infrastructure? How will humans interact with it? What kind of traffic volumes are proposed?
It isn’t just about protecting and engineering our way around natural features. It’s about engineering around the built-environment as well.
I have first-hand experience being required to do an environmental impact study and an archaeological study to fill a pothole in an existing road. These laws are beyond unreasonable. Same with catering to the people that think building out mobile networks alters their bodily fluids or some such.
We've ceded the entire process of deciding what can be built to the fevered imaginations of the most hyper-sensitive among us that have nothing better to do with their time.
And yet despite that transit projects in the US almost universally fail at most of these aspects. Or play into the existing status quo that is supposed to be changed.
And really these questions were already asked and explored in the design phase. By the time this has to be done all these things have already been threw many iterations.
Sometimes its better to just do a project, because you can always change a lot of things and iterate on a lot of aspects of a transit project.
The EIS process in New York amounts to little more than legally mandated graft and a blocking function for preventing new housing from being built. A residential project on the edge of Downtown Brooklyn nearly died because it cast a shadow on a tiny community garden used by fewer than 20 people. The compromise was to shorted then building which eliminated 20 or so units of affordable housing.
At this point in history, I think we really need to stop building in green-fields, farmland, etc. and only concentrate on redevelopment. We are past the point of ecological sustainability.
This is exactly true. In all honesty the US should never again build a new road or highway. There is already more then enough of both. Its not even close, in fact a huge amount of road needs to be removed, just reclaimed by nature.
To give an example, the city of Indianapolis is 'commited' to maintain a road that could go from Indianapolis to Alaska. Like seriously, even if 100% of government revenue was focused on just road maintenance, this wouldn't be possible. Lots of cities have the same situation, way to much infrastructure.
Within existing limits of the bay area cities you could easily build like 2 million new houses. Without a single new road, water pipe or anything.
100s of Billions are needed to just upgrade existing rail to being electric and reliable. Even just upgrading the speed slightly and making rail reliable would be helpful.
Most roads, and highways, can be retrofitted with some type of passenger rail. To run alongside cars. No need to build in a greenfield.
It's amazing the environmentalists don't report how many new miles of road are put down every year.
The best time to electrify the railroads was 100 years ago, the second best time is now.
I'm not usually for full public, but in terms of the railroads the government just has to buy all the tracks and operate as an infrastructure provider.
Maybe on of the single best choices in Swiss history is the commitment to 100% electrified rail. I honestly didn't even know non electrified rail existed. In my mind it was just 'steam' and then 'electric'. I was pretty old until I for the first time read something about a diesel locomotive and I was totally confused.
I went to school and they changed zoning along this big road where I lived. When I can back from winter break it was unrecognizable and the stores were open.
Now in CA - voted for high speed rail and was absolutely promised it would not go over budget. The first contractor quit in disgust SNCF and started doing projects in Africa saying they were less dysfunctional :)
Most recent audit committee reports are that everything is on track. We will see
One argument on ballot was 10 years of planning went into project before ballot - so starting 1998 or so - 24 years later now
It's a little bit different than building a McDonalds - they're building an underground rail line in my city, and just the acoustic sheds and site offices (before they could start even digging a shaft to drop in a tunnel boring machine) on one of the six or so major sites is like building a dozen McDonald restaurants in itself! Not to mention water treatment, spoil handling and treatment, ventilation systems, moving utilities etc. etc.
In the old days, the New York subway systems were mostly built by cut and cover, where they more or less dig up the street, build the tunnels and stations,throw dirt back on top, and pave the road again.
Is that always possible? No. But when it is, it's almost certainly going to be much cheaper and faster.
For bonus points, throw all the ancient utility lines in conduit so the next infrastructure project isn't a disaster.
Nowadays we get the DC Metro, where a mostly above ground extension in a highway median was delayed for years because....I'm not sure exactly.
The DC metro is ridiculous. I'm cynical enough to think that the only way the Silver Line would have been done faster would have been to shutdown DCA so politicians would be forced to use Dulles. Even then they would probably just have drivers.
IIRC, there are issues with the concrete used on the new platforms too.
they're doing cut and cover on some fraction (maybe 1/3) of the purple line subway extension here in LA. it's still a bloated, expensive, late mess of a project, so technique matters little relative to incentive structure on total cost.
If you travel internationally you quickly realize all the excuses for why things take so long are just that. Be curious how long Tesla would take to build a huge full factory in China. In ca the permitting alone is on the order of years.
They built their factory in China in less than a year [0]. Tesla pushes equally hard everywhere which you can see in Germany where they pulled out every stop they could to build quickly and still took about 2 years [1].
Seems like in the US Tesla can get something up and running within a couple years.
May 2020, a selection process was underway by Tesla
July 2020, Tesla selected Austin as the site
July 2020, Construction began
end of 2021, limited production of Model Y starts
April 2022, initial deliveries of vehicles built at the factory took place at an opening party called “Cyber Rodeo”
Most states and municipalities are pro business so they will move mountains for jobs but not for housing. This is a big problem because there are a lot of jobs in Silicon Valley but not enough houses (despite the layoffs).
It's not an excuse, and I am looking internationally (i.e. this is a project not in the US). Just explaining why the kind of solution proposed (ask McDonalds or someone similar how they build a small building reasonably quickly) is not going to help work out how to build major infrastructure quicker or cheaper!
They have a lot bigger budget than a single McDonald's as well.
What you say sounds good until you look around the world snd discover lots of other places have built similar in harder environments for much less and much faster. If all you know is McDonald's this might seem complex, but if you learn about other rail projects you discover this isn't that complex.
Thing is, because of property tax systems, these large companies build these box stores and fast food joints in the cheapest way possible so they can basically not pay property taxes and basically write it off after 10 years.
The tax system and the infrastructure fees insensitive totally the wrong way of development.
I think the US don't deserve high speed trains. This can be revisited in a few decades when the population becomes less hostile towards rails. (Cf this : https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=33502387)
Building a nerwork in Africa, however, is a great idea !
I voted against high speed rail because it it wouldn't be serving anywhere near my area - I get it, the majority of the population lives on the coast between the Bay Area and San Diego, but why increase the tax burden on the people who live in the other 90% of the state who will likely never ride it? - and because I knew it would go over-budget and over-schedule.
Unsurprisingly, I got outvoted. And unsurprisingly, however many years and billions of dollars later, there are still no high speed trains running.
This doesn't really make sense. The whole point of high speed rail is to reliably and effectively connect the northern and southern existing transit regions that are currently separated.
Its like saying the US should never have built rail across the US because most people don't use it.
Of course if you just do high speed rail, you don't have much, what you actually need is to extend and expand your regional rail and transit network. Then high speed rail benefits both regional transit networks.
Given how much money is invested in highways and how much it cost to build the absurd highway system, rail just makes way more sense.
Its pretty funny to me that what is supposed to be 4 largest economy in the world can't manage a half way decent train network. When there are multiple cities with 500k to millions people are between SF and LA.
There is easily enough population to have a really successful high speed rail if its correctly connected to a larger regional network.
Thank you for proving my point. Please look at a map of California and notice that the SF Bay Area is not directly south of the Oregon border; there's a huge space there. That's where I lived. It takes about as long to drive from my parents' place to San Francisco as it does to drive from San Francisco to LA.
> Its like saying the US should never have built rail across the US because most people don't use it.
Initialization of rail across the US was a greenfield project with little in the way of previous context and self-funded by land grants. The comparison is specious since about the only thing HSW and historic rail have in common is their use of rails.
To call it 'self-funded' is a bit of a stretch. Most rail financing went bankrupt and had to have been bailed up by the government at some point.
Even though rail was a greenfield project, native treaty rights were trampled, that should also be remembered.
Technology wise, it was WWI that killed rail, unintentionally. All the trucks, post war, were dumped and sold for cheap. Companies bought them up and started hauling goods to market, without having to buy real-estate, or a factory, near a rail line.
"self-funded": sure, lets say "intended as self-funded"; "native treaty rights": yes, relatively greenfield compared to today
WWI and rail: another aspect was nepotistic political control (which might not have been a bad thing but definitely has an odor). [0] I wonder if dumping the Liberty trucks a conceptual/capacity jump start more than a physical one. The 1917 rolling stock was 2,250,000 freight cars [0], and roughly 10k Liberty Trucks were produced [1].
On March 21, 1918, the Railway Administration Act became law, and Wilson's 1917 nationalization order was affirmed. Wilson appointed his son-in-law, Secretary of the Treasury William Gibbs McAdoo, as Director General of the newly formed USRA.
It's hard to think about how much technological change, and economies of scale played a part in our history.
In the 1920s suburbs became possible because of telephones, light bulbs,and radio, as much as they became possible because of cheap Model-T's. Lumber could be trucked in, instead of using horses to bring the wood to trains, or floated down river, dropping the cost of housing materials.
Real Estate was expensive along rail lines, but cheaper even a couple of miles away. So now developers could build diagonally out from rail lines.
In the 1920 most suburbs were still street car suburbs. Where street car company developed the land around the station.
Then the street cars went way and suburbs became ever larger and less dense.
Also zoning started essentially forcing suburbs and never let these areas develop out of the state of being suburbs.
What was built in the 1920 is mostly just fine. It really gets bad in the 1960s where everything started to be build for the car only.
But it gets even worse, if you look at classic US suburbs in the 1960s they look almost reasonable. Thin roads, houses reasonably close together. Then they started enforcing ever crazier requirements for the streets and ever crazier requirements for lots sizes and stuff like that.
This results in the already low density of 1960s suburb looking like Paris. Now you have suburbs that have literal highway highways between houses (where you can literally have 4 F-150 next to each other), with lots of distance between houses in all 4 direction, small houses not allowed, no duplex or anything else. Because of zoning literally ever commercial transaction requires a short car trip.
If there was no change, would there be history? Here is Foucault from Archaeology of Knowledge:
The notion of discontinuity is a paradoxical one: because it is both an instrument and an object of research; because it divides up the fields of which it is the effect; because it enables the historian to individualize different domains but can be established only by comparing those domains.
That is a bad assumption. Because if you have other public transport and regional rail, that connects to the high speed rail backbone. All of sudden somebody that wants to go to LA of SF would take the regional rail to the next high speed train station. Thus those persons wouldn't drive.
California has done a lot since the 1990 in terms of regional rail and things like electrification of Caltrain are no brainers. But they need to do a lot more.
High speed rail is successful when its integrated into lots of regional rails.
I voted against it and lived where it would be useful because I didn't think it would be on time or on budget, because no infrastructure project is in the US.
THis is disastrously unproductive thinking. perfect is the enemy of good enough and if we don't build infrastructure, there's no incentive to create the supply chains that bring costs down overtime in the first place.
Personally, this is why I vote against schools. No child of mine goes to public school. Big waste of money. Wish I could do that with universities but that's mostly federal and state. Fortunately, can just vote against property tax and bonds to stop local schools.
Education is incredibly important… but I'm not confident US schools actually provide it. It's better than nothing, sure, but if you can do better than schools, why send your child to one?
I went to a public school in one of the 10 poorest counties in the US. I lived well below the poverty line with food insecurity. Socially it was somewhat hellish & there were definitely more than enough teachers that gave zero fucks about anything, but also teachers who cared more than you could ever imagine.
I came out of it with full ride scholarships for mechanical engineering, to a University ranked something within the top 20 of whatever with regards to their engineering programs in general, & of their various fields, their MechE & ElecE were regarded as the best (within the engineering college, realized my poor wording could be interpreted in another way). I also received - actually, was harassed with - endless offers from military recruiters to go down a navy nuke/Air Force officer path, w/a $30k-$40k enlistment bonus, just for being in the top percentile of the ASVAB test - offered by my public school, that I reluctantly took.
Public schools, administration wise, are in general part of the problem. But cunts of parents raising shitty little cockgargling douchecunts of kids that inhabit the public schools are the larger problem.
I don’t know the best solution to the problem, but burning down public schools even more is definitely not it. I think giving a baseline pay of $70k/yr, a $20k or so one time “bonus”, as well as a “if you hate being a teacher, here’s $15k-$30k severance to quit, but you can never be in any position dealing with public education systems again” to every teacher may be a decent start.
Sorry for the poor articulation & vocabulary in this comment, quite tired after a long day & in a good amount of physical pain.
I was a nuke for the 'normal minimum' 6 years. It's a depressing place, as normal person will typically get out as soon as possible since they survived that trial by fire there are tons of 'shoe in' jobs around that pay more. This of course means the people left behind to become leaders are afraid of civilian life or trapped there for other reasons (military medical benefits for a family member being a prime example). Also a social situation where nukes hate other nukes (while serving), and the social obnoxiousness of nukes causing nonnukes to hate them as well.
Ultimately that leads to a situation where nuke commands will have the lowest morale out of all branches. Though there was an exception for a while where drone pilot commands had lower morale.
Out of curiosity, what makes the nukes hate each other while serving? Something along the lines of having to hold each other accountable for every tiny little tedious thing on endlessly long checklists or something?
The funny thing for me was that, though it wasn’t obvious just by looking at me & at the time nobody would’ve known unless I’d told them, I medically couldn’t have done anything military because of some internal physical medical conditions & being on some arguably heavy medication to deal with associated nerve pain.
Or at least I presumed that would’ve disqualified me, & things only gradually got worse.
There was one other path the Navy dude mentioned they were pretty desperately in need of intelligent people for, willing to put up with the slog that it entailed & had the same enlistment bonus. Can’t remember what. Had a friend end up in communications on a sub though… definitely said it sucked the life out of him & gtfo as soon as he could.
No, absolutely, burning down public schools is not the answer. Public schools are, in theory, one of the best things in the world, and I (with parents who couldn't have done a better job, since my nearest library was the school's library) benefited a lot. But I hated lots of the school experience, and it would have been strictly better for me if I had not been forced through those parts. I mean things like:
• being forced to execute algorithms on paper for literally hundreds of hours when I understood them better than the textbook author… or worse, being forced to execute algorithms on paper when I didn't understand them, rather than having time to play around enough to understand them. (Mathematics)
• having linguistic prescriptivists telling me my writing was incorrect, even though I was only doing things that were done in the set texts. My writing was bad, sure, but my grammar was good; I've only been called out on an actual grammatical mistake once since the age of 10, and it's not like anyone told me why it was wrong.¹ (English)
• being forced to do sports I had no interest in, and that involved being grabbed and pushed around, rather than being allowed to just play. (Physical Education)
• having to memorise insignificant, isolated minutiae (like the dates of events that, actually, could've happened a week either side and it have made no difference), and being punished if I wrote something incorrect by mistake. (History)
• having to memorise and recite actually incorrect stuff, and being punished if I wrote something correct by mistake. (Computer Science)
• being told to memorise and recite blatantly incorrect stuff ("Liberal Christians believe that everyone goes to heaven after they die; and also that heaven is just a metaphor for a state of mind and there isn't actually an afterlife.") in a strictly-structured format, despite it actually being fine to write correct stuff in free verse in the exam. Heck, I bet even iambic pentameter or double dactyl would've been allowed. (Religion)
• having to memorise a specific set of details about specific case studies, or be punished with the inability to demonstrate entire classes of understanding about the subject. (Geography)
• having my work constantly judged and marked based on whether the teacher thought they could do better (and then having that mark written on the work), basically killing my passion stone cold dead. (Art)
(I also disliked Music, but I don't think there was anything wrong with it. I just wasn't very good. I guess I enjoyed it enough to not be chafed too much by being forced to do it.)
And I'm not even from the US. Everything I've heard about the US public school system says that it's even worse.
> But cunts of parents raising shitty little cockgargling douchecunts of kids that inhabit the public schools are the larger problem.
Schools have to do double-duty as daycare and places of learning, and they don't do a brilliant job of either. Perhaps only admitting children who want to learn might help? But then, that would force kids who would benefit from being there to not attend, allows bullies to make "bully the target out of school" a success criterion…
> Sorry for the poor articulation & vocabulary in this comment,
My English teacher would've marked you down for it ("ElectE isn't a real word", "Don't use &"², "dashes are lazy punctuation"), but I can't see a single actual problem with it. Two potential comma splices where I'd've used a semicolon, but that's pretty minor.
---
¹: It was an issue with tense in reported speech; if the narration is past-tense and the speech is future-tense, you use the conditional tense. I managed to figure it out, about five years later, while reading a fanfic – yes, from the internet!
²: Even though it was considered a letter of the alphabet back in the 11th century, way before the I/J and U/V distinction was made. (The very name "ampersand" comes from "W, X, Y, Z, and per se 'and'"…) It's not a text-speak abbreviation thankyouverymuch, and even if it were, that wouldn't stop it being a legitimate part of the language.
I mean most people don’t realize that as a country we spend $14.5k per student (top 5 globally). With average class sizes at ~20 students, we spend ~$290k per class per year.
The average teacher’s salary is $55k that leaving ~$235k.
Avg office leases are $35/sqft per year and classrooms are ~1k sqft so that’s only $35k.
Making the core cost of teacher + classroom $90k/yr
So somehow we’re burning $200k per class per year on administration, transportation, facility management, curriculums, and extracurriculars.
I can see not wanting to expand the current wasteful system.
The person upthread said they "vote against schools" I assume the intent it to have the children raise themselves on the street while their parents work in sweat shops like a Dickensian novel.
A teacher's salary might be 55k but you have not accounted for pension, FICA and health care.
A more interesting question is what should it cost to run an education system? A quick search indicates the U.S. "spends about 4.96% of its GDP on education, compared to the 5.59% average of other developed nations" So maybe things just cost more in the U.S.
That can only be properly determined with a free market, where the supply-side and demand-side participants voluntarily come to an agreement about what services will be offered, and what will be paid in exchange for those services.
What we'd find is that there isn't one specific amount. It would vary significantly, depending on the unique situations of the various participants.
I thought your numbers sounded high, but they're actually too low in CA:
> The total overall funding (federal, state, and local) for all K–12 education programs is $124.3 billion, with per-pupil spending of $21,596 in 2021–22. For 2020–21, per-pupil funding increased from $16,881 in the 2020–21 Budget Act to $23,089 in the 2021–22 Budget Act.
I believe Ray Dallio's most recent book talks about this a bit. Essentially the idea that more developed countries have slow downs in productivity related to waste.
A year or two ago I read the book The Power Broker about a guy who was responsible for a lot of the construction in new york city in fairly corrupt ways. You get the idea in the book that they were just figuring out the earliest versions of ballooning costs and slowing projects down in those days.
In the same way private contractors benefit from the military industrial complex and are incentivized to keep it alive and even promote conflict, We have a sort of bullshit industrial complex too of consultants and other nonsense jobs that come in and make projects take longer.
It seems like there must be a way to go back to building stuff as fast as we could 100 years ago in the US.
In China they can still build that way today[0][1] in a way I find embarrassing and annoying.
Patrick Collison explores this idea some on this page[2]. I consider it to be one of the most important problems of the modern age.
How different would the world be if in 3 months SF build 19 giant skyscrapers full of apartments you would want to live in?
Some of these problems are exacerbated by the fact that even if you could do it now, capital isn't as cheap as it used to be. Which makes it even more frustrating that we went through that period without massive infrastructure updates and improvements.
>We have a sort of bullshit industrial complex too of consultants and other nonsense jobs that come in and make projects take longer.
Forego those "bullshit industrial complex" studies, and there'll be some environmental, safety or cost fuck-up. Outside observers will then get to comment derisively on lack of foresight or planning, so it's really a win-win for us.
>It seems like there must be a way to go back to building stuff as fast as we could 100 years ago in the US.
There is. Forego a lot of the building/safety code, cut corners, and optimize speed over all else.
>In China they can still build that way today[0][1] in a way I find embarrassing and annoying.
Imagine how embarrassing and annoying it must be for Chinese people to see the relatively sub-par quality of the end result.
>How different would the world be if in 3 months SF build 19 giant skyscrapers full of apartments you would want to live in?
I can almost guarantee it would not happen. They can build it, but it's not likely to be an apartment I would want to live in, at least long term.
Don't get me wrong, there's certainly a middle-ground somewhere between the extremes you're talking about. However, when it comes to, say, transit, I'd much rather aim for a first-world country that builds "less slowly" and cheaper without compromising safety or quality, like Spain or the Netherlands, over a place like China, which may set the record for speed but won't be setting any records for quality or longevity of its infrastructure. (And I'd even say that's okay for China, they need it deployed quickly because they, until recently, were growing fast from a very low baseline.)
> Imagine how embarrassing and annoying it must be for Chinese people to see the relatively sub-par quality of the end result.
That’s honestly just cope. China has the best rail network in the world by far and there’s really nothing even close to what they’ve accomplished in about 15 years.
In the time the US has been twiddling their thumbs planning and throwing billions at contractors to consider high speed rail and scams like hyper loop, China went from 0 miles of high speed rail to thousands.
There’s a lot of cruft in construction in the US and it’s impossible to deny. I lived near a highway that was being repaired for years. It was ongoing before I moved to that city and apparently only finished after I moved out 5 years later. Thorough environmental checks for building dams, okay. But just build a goddamn road—especially when all you’re doing is fixing what’s there. Quit selling it out to your biggest donor/lowest bidder. Pay someone who delivers results with a record to back it up even if the initial budget looks higher.
Infrastructure is like a pair of boots. Pay a little extra now and you’ll quickly realize why it’s good you didn’t cheap out.
I agree. I feel like a lot of people's perception of China was formed in 1995 and has not been revised since. I hear it all the time online. Their buildings suck and are liable to collapse at any second. Their infrastructure sucks. They can only manufacture junk, and can only do it poorly. They have zero initiative and can only rip off western tech and innovation, etc... It's just not true anymore.
Indeed. The Chinese high-speed rail network transports nearly 2 billion passengers a year. There have been two fatal accidents in its entire history, in 2011 and 2022, with a total of 48 deaths.
That safety record is equivalent to commercial aviation in the US.
> Imagine how embarrassing and annoying it must be for Chinese people to see the relatively sub-par quality of the end result
there's no evidence that infrastructure projects in china, built for 1/3 of the price of what it would cost in the US, is any less quality. In fact, things like highspeed rail is much higher quality, due to leap-frogging of technology!
This is anecdotal, but back when I was working in architecture (10ish years ago), I visited the principal of our Chinese sister firm in Beijing, and we walked around and talked about his experience as a native Chinese architect with experience working in the US.
His greatest frustration was the lack of quality in the finished buildings he'd design. As he put it, the designs that Chinese firms were putting out were just as high quality as anything in the rest of the world, but the end result was always worse. It was largely procedural -- in the US, the architect is involved not only during the initial design phases, but throughout the project, and is responsible approving any changes and for certifying that the result matches the intent. In China, that's not the case -- they make a design, bundle it up, and then hand everything over the contractor. The contractor then makes whatever changes they want during the construction process, without any input from the architects. This means materials may get changed, the wrong construction methods may be used, etc, and no-one knows. From a distance, the building will look amazing, but the details will have been skimped on.
not keeping architects in the loop doesn't sound like that big of a problem, if it just affects the quality of the finish as noted. it'd be much more concerning if engineers weren't signing off on construction changes (which can happen here in the US, even with our bloated procedures).
The Architect of Record isn't just signing off on paint colors and finish quality, but on things like the seals around windows, flashing on roofing elements, fireproofing on the structural elements, and many more aspects of the building process. In the US, the vast majority of lawsuits around buildings are due to water infiltration, which is affected by these sorts of issues. The building may not collapse if the architect isn't reviewing it, but the walls and roof might.
That said, I'm not certain that engineers are in a different situation. Judging by videos I've seen of collapsing buildings and other issues, I wouldn't be surprised if structural, electrical, plumbing, and other engineers also hand over their designs in the beginning, and then leave it to the developer / contractor to interpret them and 'value-engineer' as they see fit.
i think my critique is more about the idea the process differences have led to materially different outcomes between chinese and american building projects. i've seen some projects in my neighborhood being made with cheap materials and relatively unskilled labor, that lead to water issues too. i spent 9 months with habitat for humanity building an apartment complex and was surprised at how tolerant the process was to completely inexperienced volunteers showing up for a couple hours and doing all kinds of shoddy work.
when i visited beijing about 10 years ago, i was astonished at how much construction was going on, and i could see that the sheer amount of construction happening would make it seem like there were more issues than here in the US. without more concrete data, i'd be skeptical of that kind of anecdote simply playing into our own biases.
Let me explain a bit more of the procedures, and it may explain why I think this is at least one factor (though I agree that more buildings also means there will be more shoddy buildings in absolute terms, even if the percentage of shoddy buildings stays the same).
In the US architectural process, an architect specifies a particular material (say a roof sealant) that has certain characteristics. During construction, the contractor will look at the material, check its price, and then use their suppliers to see what the best available deal is. The contractor identifies another roof sealant that's half the price. Because they've bid on the project for a fixed price, if they can use that other product and cut their costs, they'll increase their profit margin. So they put in a change request and submit the new product with its data. The architect may review it, see that it is functionally the same as their specified product, and approve it. Or they may look at it and determine that while they're both roof sealants, the specified one has a 10 year lifespan, and the proposed alternate has a 2 year lifespan. They reject it, and the builder uses the specified material.
Without the architect verifying that the material is comparable, the contractor (intentionally or not) will use a lower-quality material that will lessen the quality of the building, because there are no checks in place.
what you're saying makes sense (that this process difference could lead to differences in outcome) but i'd still hesitate against extrapolating to industry-wide conclusions from it. there may be other ways that checks & balanaces are incorporated into the chinese system that we're not seeing or hearing about. and you could as easily flip it around and note how amazing it is that there are so few extra buildings being reported as exhibiting problems despite this missing review process. without survey data, it's hard to know for sure how impactful the review process is (relative to cost in both time and money).
> Forego those "bullshit industrial complex" studies, and there'll be some environmental, safety or cost fuck-up. Outside observers will then get to comment derisively on lack of foresight or planning, so it's really a win-win for us.
I mean, just look at any other developed country like France and look at how they can still build things at a reasonable pace while doing environmental studies. Everyone knows that environmental studies in the US are insane, you just have to read one to be convinced of it.
The way different countries deal with Eminent Domain is a big reason here. Imagine all the subways that have to snuck into existing commercial and residential spaces in a way that doesn't disturb the existing tenants?
> Imagine how embarrassing and annoying it must be for Chinese people to see the relatively sub-par quality of the end result.
While this may be true for many shady developer-led real estate projects, it's absolutely not the case for the country's major infrastructure projects like airports, subways, high speed rail, highways, bridges, dams, etc. They rival or surpass anything you will see in the west in scope and quality, and built in a fraction of the time.
> . They can build it, but it's not likely to be an apartment I would want to live in, at least long term.
So what? Are you the only person that matters? How about the intern at tech company. How about the guy that cleans the offices.
Should the have to rent a house 2h away and then be forced to buy an old shitty polluting car, wasting 5h of their life and polluting the whole area instead? Is that a better result.
And of course if you do it correct and you don't just build dumb towers, you can pretty easly build nice high density neighborhoods where people wont need a car and you can get density not unlike huge skyscrapers.
>So what? Are you the only person that matters? How about the intern at tech company. How about the guy that cleans the offices.
Yes, they too deserve safe accommodations.
>Should the have to rent a house 2h away and then be forced to buy an old shitty polluting car, wasting 5h of their life and polluting the whole area instead?
The issue in California is not at all that apartment buildings take too long to construct due to pesky safety and building codes. The issue is that NIMBYs prevent them from being constructed at all.
>And of course if you do it correct and you don't just build dumb towers, you can pretty easly build nice high density neighborhoods where people wont need a car and you can get density not unlike huge skyscrapers.
So you agree with me. Didn't sound like it at first, so it's a bit confusing.
I also highly recommend "The Collapse of Complex Societies" by Joseph Tainter which also talks about the economic diminishing returns of any activity in societies as they become more complex. Uses the roman empire as its main example for his hypothesis but some other societies as well, it's worth a read.
> How different would the world be if in 3 months SF build 19 giant skyscrapers full of apartments you would want to live in?
I mean, considering how the Millennium Tower is tilting so badly, I'd give such blitzed construction a hard pass. And anything in the collapse zones too.
Well 'The Power Broker' is of course a really famous book and person. He is basically responsible behind the US having the brilliantly self destructive idea to build gigantic high ways threw every city in the US and destroying the city
centers, lowering property values and facilitating suberiba and urban sprawl.
What has to be understood about the situation back then is that he was responsible for a totally undemocratic infrastructure companies. If he built a bridge, he could collect tolls, and then build more infrastructure with those tolls. So in effect, he was operating basically an infrastructure business. And not just any old infrastructure business, he basically controlled access to one of the world major cities. He was more powerful then the major or any elected official.
Today the process just incredibly different. Today there are about 500 steps of 'public engagement' that have to be cleared. Funding has to be pulled together from lots of source, federal, state, local, private and so on. This basically leads to a situation where no city can really do anything for itself, it always requires far more. And on all levels a project needs to be agree on. When the federal government was pushing highways based on the Moses template, there was a top town push, the states bought in and the cities happy plowed over their cities to build highways.
Today for most of these policies there is no clear aliened solution. For a while the Obama administration was pushing 'light rail' and a few such systems got built by cities tried to hook into that subsidy. But then not really much expand unfriendly beyond that. And instead of looking at 'what is the right public transit solution' cities instead will just check what subsidies does the federal or state government provide that we can use to invest in public transit. State DoT meanwhile have been historically created to build highways, and that is really what they are good at and focus on, so if you build a highway, state will likely give you money, if you build a bikelane the state wont. Even worse the state DoT will just plan a highway threw your city and you can't stop it.
And then of course there is the environment piece. Almost any tram line will be better for the environment then using the car. But the horrible bad for the environment existing infrastructure, the 20-lane highway doesn't have to clear 'environment' review. It might have to clear some if you want to extend an existing highway, but that's much easier. So the burden put on new infrastructure projects, is far larger then the burden put on existing systems.
But the problem is really even deeper then those first other problems. The whole land use polices the US has done for 60 years is hurting the country when it comes to public transport (trains, trams and so on). Because of the sprawl style of development cities are broke and can't even fix or maintain existing road and water infrastructure. The city center and the poor parts of the city are systematically subsidizing the sub-burbs. The politically influential suburb of course do not want to finance city center public transit because are not well connected. But they do support another lane of highway that they use to get into the city. A transit line into the suburbs never makes money because you simply can not connect suburbs because there is just to much sprawl, not enough density for it to make sense.
When you do, your train station just ends up being a gigantic parking lot, see for example Torronto Go network. Granted this is better then not having rail at all, but far from ideal.
So, to even start to fix this, and start to make sensible public project choices and investments a lot has to change. First of all the tax system has to change to reflect reality (example being a land tax rather then a property tax). Shitty parking lots and cheap warehouse building shouldn't get better taxes then nice mixed-use apartments. Your infrastructure cost and income have to be realigned, suburbs need to be systematically pay more in fees for utilities to reflect the much higher infrastructure costs. Then you have to reform the zoning code so that you allow mixed use and higher density almost everywhere. Your environmental review process has to acknowledge some fundamental truths about the current system and what it replaces. Then you have to start building your transit together with redevelopment of areas to get higher ridership and higher (property/land) tax from those lines.
At that point these infrastructure projects will still be expensive and over budget, but at least you will get results were people 5 years later say 'well at least we got this amazing infrastructure' and don't remember how much it cost. Because at least you overpaid for right project, an not another lane on the highway that you would have also overpaid for, just with worse result.
Here is the thing, in countries like Switzerland, infrastructure often goes over budget as well. And so did high speed trains in most countries. But if you do it correctly, it still ends up being a good deal. If California does this right, and starts also connecting local rail and builds a true integrated rail system across of all of California, with a high speed back bone, these high cost will be more then worth it.
I strongly recommend 'urban3' check on youtube or their website. They do real data analysis of cities and show in data visualization where your city is losing money and where its making money. You can also see where public transit increases property taxes. Cities need to take that into account and focus their limited funds on places where they are making money (very often the poor districts actually should be more of the budget).
Singapore is not a great comparison, because construction is largely done by armies of migrant workers paid starvation wages, who are sent back home at the slightest hint of complaint (example: https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/nine-men-public-as...).
But Japan and Europe don't, and they still manage to deliver public transport for much less.
This is one line in a subway network of many, handling 3x more people than the entire MUNI network from opening day (of the full line). The Singapore MRT as a whole already has a daily ridership of 3,400,000.
One major difference is Singapore and Japan’s stops are profit centers and not cost centers - they rent massive amounts of property on them, meaning they’re not as dependent on debt or fare collection.
Having rail operators also act as real estate companies is pure genius IMO -- it creates a profit motive for dense, transit oriented development, without any need for onerous top-down planning.
US cities are committed to prioritizing transit improvements for the same poor and marginalized communities where they are also committed to slowing gentrification by preventing development.
If it’s a place where development would be welcome then it’s an inequitable use of transit dollars. Meanwhile a transit project does not get off the ground without assurances that it will not change the places being connected.
This is actually what drove the streetcar development process in LA, but instead of renting it out, the developers/car operators just sold it and peaced out. This left the trams to atrophy, separated from the land value they drove until the car companies bought them to put a nail in the coffin.
> One major difference is Singapore and Japan’s stops are profit centers and not cost centers…meaning they’re not as dependent on debt or fare collection
Singapore is a bit different. SMRT is operated by a group of private transit operators that don’t really do real estate on the same scale that e.g. JR does in Tokyo, so fares are still their primary revenue source.
Hong Kong is a better corollary to Japan. The HK MTR is responsible for a bunch of large real estate projects in the city, including the ICC (the tallest skyscraper in town and one of the two iconic buildings that flank the entrance to the harbor).
Either that or they put in their own retail. It's no coincidence that Tokyu, Keio and Hankyu all operate their own supermarkets and stores throughout Japan's rail network.
So many issues which all come back to culture and how you both set and incentivize it in the workers. Not many humans are going to bite the hand that feeds them so if they can pretend they have a full-time job as a "dropped nail collector" or something for $100K/year, many people will.
Definitely need to do something about Political interference, the bane of many countries. People who have the power to sign checks/cheques but have no actual skin in the game if they change things, screw things up, promise their buddy some lucrative contract etc.
The transparency has got to be one of the best ways of forcing things into the open though. Instead of a large contractor hiding a tonne of profit (or contingency) into their price, they specify it all - that should be the cost of earning public money. It helps both ways too. If the Project goes awry and needs the contractor to do more, they need to be paid more based on their rates.
It sounds like NY is especially disfunctional though. I would love to see a decent (and long!) documentary on this sort of thing :-)
Bring back small time corruption. It’s reserved for the super wealthy in the US but if foremans could grease the wheels every now and again things go a lot faster.
You used to get this for free in NYC as you had to bribe someone to avoid concrete delivery delays and rejected mixes. They made sure all the little guys with a tiny bit of power stayed out of your way.
The industry is now known as expediters and depending on the city is useless.
As a country I think we forgot how to do business. It’s clear people aren’t happy with their wages..
It doesn't have to be corruption, which tends to reward the people in the know far more than those who aren't!
There is already the concept of an expedited payment. You want the concrete on the agreed schedule, it's $3000 but if you need it express because you screwed something up, you can pay $500 and we'll get another driver in etc.
Ugh. That just makes it worse as more money disappears into the cracks and there is less accountability.
The issue is the folks paying for it don’t demand results, they usually prefer it get drug out. It means more fees to the folks involved, a longer time in the cushy job overseeing it, etc.
It’s usually the taxpayer or some large entity where the leaders are political and can get in on the graft, or are easily fooled.
Once the planning authorities get out of the way, just look at most private construction - anything where it’s not a giant megacorp or entity paying for it.
It’s done in 1/5th the time of equivalent public works,
and at a fraction of the cost too.
In most of these places, the politicians/leaders know how to control the captive base, and the captive base just shrugs and pays their taxes without demanding better.
So as long as the graft isn’t too obvious, ‘everyone wins’ - except the end user of course.
But they usually don’t actually need it (as in someone dies or an economy collapses or whatever), so they just putter along bitching about it without doing anything or looking closer. I guess that’s also part of the issue with having something that ‘mostly works’ already, no rush to replace it.
IMHO often the purpose of these projects isn’t to deliver transportation, it’s to keep people employed in the project.
That means draw it out, maximize the budget, spend every penny, etc., whereas the actual infrastructure is the excuse to keep it going.
Put another way, conflicts of interest tend to arise from the bureaucracy inherent in these projects. The researcher here identifies the symptoms of this but seems to see this more as an accident.
IMHO often the purpose of these projects isn’t to deliver transportation, it’s to keep people employed in the project.
Not even that, it's a corrupt racket. It's purpose is to make money for powerful people. Sometimes employing people helps but notice "Andrew Cuomo launched a “transformation plan” created by a consulting firm to “simplify a complex and inefficient organization,” the MTA (still) says on its website. The most noteworthy “accomplishment” was hiring six-figure executives who promptly left with golden parachutes; once Cuomo was gone the transformation team was shut down."
The researcher here identifies the symptoms of this but seems to see this more as an accident.
Yeah, that's kind of standard for reports like this. A sophisticated reader can easily discern a steam mass of corrupt interests involved with situations like this but the report writer doesn't like to burn their bridges so they don't connect the dots and X many other apologists merrily misapply Hanlon's razor to the situations as well.
> The most noteworthy “accomplishment” was hiring six-figure executives who promptly left with golden parachutes; once Cuomo was gone the transformation team was shut down."
This happens everywhere, all the time. People work their entire lives to pay taxes that fund these temporary, do-nothing, expensive exercises.
This happens everywhere, all the time. People work their entire lives to pay taxes that fund these temporary, do-nothing, expensive exercises.
Hey, the money one pays for various good things, like Internet service or movies, also funds a lot of bureaucratic cruft too.
The particular American private-enterprise-ideology justification of corruption and public-private collusion has this weird tendency to provoke a certain type of person to repeat this same ideology when confronted with example of the corruption.
Politician: "Look how inefficient and corrupt the state is, let's do it like private enterprise - competition, for-profit, unregulated" (uses this to shovel money to well-connected friend).
Semi-libertarian American, notices this: "Wow! Look how inefficient and corrupt the state is, why can't we do things like private enterprise - competition, for-profit, unregulated..." (the scams continue as normal).
It's the elephant in the room. City level government in pretty much every large U.S. city is a one party state. And like any monopoly it ends up as some combination of inefficient and corrupt.
A lot of it comes down to how we do elections. Ultimately, Adams became mayor of a 8.5 million city by getting 290k votes in the Democratic primary. Which is just crazy when you think about it.
The unions and little people working for them are also part of the corrupt racket. It is at all levels, don't focus on one, the others will find ways to protect that, or at least buy them off so they don't point at something else
I agree there's corruption throughout, but there's some especially wrong about the top elected official being corrupt in this way that's especially bad.
Very visible role. Nominally in charge of keeping the city prosperous and functional. Someone who citizens pretty directly select for the role.
I don't doubt there's corruption at every level, but when the leader of the organization is enriching themselves and their buddies it's hard to expect anyone else to do anything else.
I don't think corruption can be addressed bottom up
It has to be addressed at all levels. The unions are the supporting the corrupt politicians who support too many workers on the job. So long as everyone goes "my corruption is small/worth it - what about" we will never get anywhere. People need to be willing to bite the hand that feeds them.
> IMHO often the purpose of these projects isn’t to deliver transportation, it’s to keep people employed in the project.
Bingo!
Another element of this is to use such projects to buy the votes of the large unions.
Just a couple of months ago these crews came through our street. They ripped-up the PERFECTLY GOOD sidewalks and rebuilt them. This street is 24 years old. In other words, it's new. Oh, yes, they repaved it once about a year ago.
The guys ripping-up the sidewalk told me they are going to rip-up the street and repave it next year.
The part that irks me more than the self-serving "not technically graft" you are describing is the jerks who will find some reason to defend the actions as "necessary" as if there aren't plenty of 100yo original sidewalks in places.
Literally any other "big faceless organization" would not be cut slack to this extent.
That's the irony/tragedy of this, isn't it. The misallocation of funds is staggering.
I'll give you another example. There's a stop sign not far from my home that gets knocked down with such alarming frequency that the neighborhood knows it at "Kenny" (the South Park character that always got killed). I would say it lasts two to six weeks. I would not be surprised if, in the last ten years, Kenny was replaced 100 to 200 times. I lost count.
The reason this happens is that semi trucks exiting the freeway at night can't see it, make a tighter than usual turn and run it over. There really isn't anything wrong with the turn, they have plenty of room. The sign is simply in the wrong place.
Guess what they do? Every time the sign is taken down they return and install a new sign in exactly the same spot. Brand new sign. I would not be surprised if the aggregate cost of replacing this sign, between hardware, labor and organizational costs is in the order of $10K to $20K. Which means we have likely spent between a million and four million dollars, if not more, replacing this sign.
It's Einstein's definition of madness: Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting different results. And we pay for the madness.
That explanation doesn’t really seem to explain why there is such a huge difference between the US and other countries with an arguably larger administrative state and higher union participation.
The exact shape of the bureaucracy is the problem. The US lacks in-house capacity and relies on outside consultants and contractors who are more than happy to overbill if not audited properly.
The California HSR project was at one point using a staff of less than a hundred full-time staff to monitor over a thousand consultants which led to a lot of cost blowouts.
Yes and this is corruption by design, to allow the top to profit "off the books" legally.
Consultants shower the brass lavishly with creative methods of legal bribery, like inviting them for talks and paying them huge fees or promising comfy positions after their retirement from public office.
To earn that back, they overcharge through the nose for projects.
> The US lacks in-house capacity and relies on outside consultants and contractors
This trope needs to be taken out back and shot. All the big early and mid 20th century projects were done by contractors as was the bulk of the design work. The difference is that the government and by proxy the people didn't just bend over and take it when their money got wasted. And everything was a lot less codified and process-ified so there was more room for competition (and also real graft).
> Today, these consultants manage nearly every aspect of the job: They direct day-to-day construction work in the Central Valley and negotiate with farmers to buy land. They assess the geological conditions in the San Gabriel Mountains and estimate how many people will ride the future system. They produce tens of thousands of pages of reports and attend community meetings. They even oversee other consultants.
> But significant portions of this work have been flawed or mismanaged, according to records reviewed by The Times and interviews with dozens of people involved in the project. Despite repeated warnings since 2010 about weaknesses in its staffing, the rail authority believed it could reduce overall costs by relying on consultants and avoiding a large permanent workforce. But that strategy has failed to keep project costs from soaring. Ten years after voters approved it, the project is $44 billion over budget and 13 years behind schedule.
> When state rail authority employees go to their Sacramento headquarters, they work in offices rented by a consultant. When they turn on their computers, much of their data is stored on servers owned by consultants. The software they use to help manage the project is the property of a consultant.
> Given the enormity of building a 520-mile rail system, the 10-member rail authority team that existed in the early years amounted to a “cheer squad,” Kopp said.
> Several rail authority employees said in interviews that the audit correctly identified the confused relationship between state employees and consultants. In some cases, they said, state employees report to consultants, rather than the other way around.
---
Private public partnerships (PPPs or P3s) are also similarly overhyped. Done correctly they can shift financial risk, but investors are actually sophisticated and not dumb idiots, so they'll either raise their prices to deal with additional risk, or they'll walk away from a deal that turns really sour. https://www.constructiondive.com/news/joint-venture-walks-aw...
The US is just that.. a union of states that enjoy a much higher level of independence than in other countries and at the same time have to deal with their own counties. The states all have differing levels of competence, enforcement and leadership. The federal government has limited oversight, except for cases of particular types of criminal corruption.
In my mind what screwed a lot of states up was the financial collapse of 2007, many did not adjust their spending forecasts and reconsider these projects appropriately in the face of the decade that came after. Finally, add in the pandemic and remote work, and it really undercut the rationale and scope of many of these projects that were never adjusted in the face of this.
The US states are no more autonomous than the analogous regions in many countries.
For example, Madrid's transport system is controlled regionally in a way that involves region, city, and private entities and is far better than anything in the US (NYC included).
The US has institutionalized and legalized practices that are viewed as corruption in most countries and this becomes very evident in regards to public contracts and public works.
This isn't really universally true. In Switzerand we have cantons that manage their own school system, regional rail, social security and the list goes on and on. Some of those cantons have something like 200k people.
California itself is larger and richer then most of the world. There is no excuse not to be able to do it.
Because in the US (except NYC), all public transporation is seen as something for poor people where as in most other countries public transportation is for everyone.
Eh, Boston, Chicago, DC, et al. The large metropolitan areas of the US rely heavily on public transit. The areas that adopt that “only for poor people” are generally the mid-tier cities in places like the Midwest or central plains were everything is built around the car.
I always avoid public transport if possible. If you ever work retail, you'll know dealing with the public is generally not fun. Lots of people looking to pick fights by being obnoxious on purpose and no authority to turn to (at least none that will do anything meaningful).
I'm generally introverted, so having the peace and comfort of a car beats holding a pole surrounded by strangers. I also have lots of "emergency" supplies in my car. Has nothing to do with "class." It's not uncommon to see all types riding the metro in DC. For some people, public transport just isn't as appealing.
I'm also introverted, but I love riding the train. Sit down, with headphones, a book, take a nap, finish up some work.
But I guess if I had to be on some shitty US urban bus I would feel differently.
“A developed country is not a place where the poor have cars. It’s where the rich use public transportation” – Gustavo Petro, Mayor of Bogotá
Rich people are the people that complain when things are dirty or late. In Switzerland if a train is late nobody will be like 'well you should have planned for that'. Because its only late so few times that its actually quite exceptional for this to happen.
The trains are full with people in suits working on laptops, having business meetings and so on. There is First Class even on the S-Bahn.
I’ve never taken a bus, always a metro. It’s not “bad” but again, so many reasons I just prefer a car.
All my stuff is in it, I can eat in peace, cool in the summer and warm in the winter. Of course, with the drawback of you have to operate it all yourself.
> Rich people are the people that complain when things are dirty or late
Why do you have to be rich to have standards? I’ve been a broke college kid and would be mad if the car was dirty or late.
A lady here was recently assaulted while riding the bus. I don’t think she was rich. She just asked a group of teens to stop yelling.
If people want to take a train, that’s awesome. Less traffic for me :) it’s just preference.
I mean not sure what you would need that doesn't fit into a standard backpack.
And a train is cool in the summer and war in the winter. And far more comfortable then a car. You can eat in peace as well.
> Why do you have to be rich to have standards?
That's not what I am saying. If you don't have other options, you will use the bus no matter what, so the bus companies don't lose anybody when their service is bad.
However, if there are rich people using your bus, they have option, so if you don't want lots of your costumers to leave, you better make sure its exactable.
If you really prefer a car that's fine, but cities and intensive structure should be fundamentally remodeled to not favor people in cars. As you say, this is actually better for drivers as well. Many people say driving in the Netherlands is better and safer, and that's partly possible because so many people are on bikes or public transport.
I always carry some extra clothes, water, dry food and a first aid kit. I also have a dolly and other “big items” which have come in useful, but ofc not really as needed as the other stuff.
Backpack for laptop and other things, sure.
At least where I am, the stations and cars are not really adjusted well for the climates and you cannot eat or drink on them.
And thankfully I don’t have to commute at all anymore, anyways :) so I don’t have to pick my “lesser of two evils.”
Cities can do whatever they want, all I have said is I prefer the privacy and comfort of a car as an introvert, if I have to visit a city.
The bigger the project is, the more backers it needs. Many of these have to be bought. The people initiating the project don't have money to buy them, but the project budget does, or can. Adding that to the budget would make it a bigger project, needing more backing.
So, projects are under-budgeted, and overruns pay off backers. Nobody involved wants that money flow ever to end, so it goes over schedule.
Some projects avoid this fate. Solar and wind farms have transparent costs (N units x $M per unit), and start producing revenue almost immediately. Nukes suffer it most, because nobody knows how much any of it ought to cost, it takes forever, and it produces nothing until it is finished several changes of administration later.
Ok, then the problem with such projects in the US is obviously the lack of plannability. New York has now (finally, after decades of planning) built 3 stations of the Second Avenue Subway. Wether it will ever be expanded is currently unsure. Compare that to Munich, where between 1965 and 2010 there was always a subway under construction. Even without the inherent interests of the companies and workers involved, it should be obvious that when you build more, the cost per mile will be much lower.
It seems like the lesson is that if the company and its workers know that there’s always another project to work on next, then there’s no incentive to drag out this one.
Maybe the incentives could be changed by not employing those people as long as it takes but by a fixed amount of time and instead making the project scope flexible. Once the main project is finished they can work towards some optional goals and get a bonus or something.
In addition to the factors mentioned in the article, I boil it down in my mind to 2 factors, one legitimate, one dumb.
1) Here in the US and other now built-up countries, it's extremely expensive to displace existing interests and structures (both physical and legal, etc). People have built their lives, bought property, created interests, that have to be compensated to be moved out of the way. Even if a relatively neutral 3rd party could balance one interest against another, we simply have so many legal protections for people's interests that you now have to pay them heavily to make anything possible. Good for some reasons, bad for others, but that's a large part of makes it expensive. Just look at the ridiculous attempts to work around this at LaGuardia Airport. Never going to happen. Unless the government/state was forethinking enough to have reserved rights to some property to develop it, you now have to pay for the value it has accrued.
2) The other large part is that we almost now go looking for liability to protect ourselves against, whether real or perceived. This leads to endless environmental reviews, opportunities to object, lots of consultants required, conservative (read, high) costs, over engineering and over spec-ing. It has become an industry for everyone to get their cut, at the expense of the general welfare, but urged on by some small consituency, and they're all happy to stay employed to do so.
It's good for some things that property rights are being respected and the environment / issues are known before building something. But it has swung too far to that side I think.
And as sad as I am to say it, sometimes you wish that Elon Musk would do for local infrastructure what he did for government understanding of reasonable rocket costs. But this one is a lot harder to fix than offering for sale an alternative.
The U.S.A. also went through rapid de-industrialization for the last 30 years. Look at what is called the 'rust belt' in the North-East.
Does the U.S.A., need all the bridges and roads it once built. Detroit is contracting.
Some towns might even be better off economically if they removed all their old bridges and replaced access to a town with a small ferry. If a town has transformed into a retirement community, becoming more bucolic and scenic would attract retirees and tourists. It would be less of a burden with up keep, more of a tourist draw.
> Does the U.S.A., need all the bridges and roads it once built. Detroit is contracting.
Detroit's population has been more or less stable for almost 10 years now. And one of the most important infrastructure projects in North America is going on now in Detroit:
One of the most convincing analyses I read, and I may dig up the link someday, is that the US sucks compared to Europe because every project is treated as a one-off unique effort, and there are so few of them, while Europe just builds transit the way the US builds houses: ongoing, repeated, standardized.
It's easy to compare this with an aspect of software development, something most HN readers are no doubt familiar with: If something is hard, do it more frequently, until you get good at it.
Nobody masters a skill by planning and thinking really hard about how to do the skill, then suddenly doing the skill perfectly. No, you start out with a goal and a general idea of the method, begin with the basics, try, fail, learn, try again. For days, weeks, months, years, until you master the skill.
Deceptive title. No answer, just magical thinking about people ignoring their incentives.
Here’s an idea, not a great one, but something: torts and bonds. Regulators specify public-interest outcomes and associated monetary values, which are the bonding requirements. Then public interest lawyers sue for a maximum of the existing bond on the grounds of any violation of the public interest outcomes. The plaintiff would be required to pay the the non-refundable public cost of the court case. It is important these court cases would not be based on intent or following standards, or technical merit; they are strictly about outcomes defined and valued by the bond.
This would push technical standards and project evaluation into the insurance industry, and the finance industry would select their tolerable level of innovation and risk in each bonding pool. It is important here that the bonds be actual dollars held in trust, and not just letters of credit, and additionally, that no government agency provides finance or insurance in any form.
It would have the obvious side-effect of requiring a lot of up-front capital to do anything, and tying up a lot of capital, which would have a huge range of risk, and therefore interest rates, as a project amortizes out its tort risk over time. The bonds would only be recoverable by torts, successful decommission of the project, or more realistically, subsidizing renewal of the project.
The macroeconomic effect would be deflationary as the bonds would basically be a burn pit for dollars, but this would open up opportunities for more efficient public funding through central bank bond purchases and the elimination of tax burden. It would also massively reduce the public burden of regulation and administration, especially as the tort fees would pay for it. I think it would also promote localization of investment, as the bonding capital would be a high-yield investable asset most appropriately held or rejected by the people knowledgeable and/or responsible for the quality of the result, which is the community itself.
Okay, this is Hacker News, so, please go ahead and tear it apart.
I am always surprised when I learn that administrative/business advancement seems to be based on how much money was spent. I get it; it's much much easier to quantify spending than value per dollar. But in academia, I notice that there is a tremendous incentive to build new buildings and start new schools/departments, rather than improve existing infrastructure. Part of it is the donors, but I think there is an incentive to be able to say "I did this ...", where this involves a large budget. I suspect it is the same for public works projects -- career advancement depends more on spending money that producing value.
Part of the problem is that people in the US are hostile to the government actually doing anything using government employees instead of external contractors or consultants.
The thing is that money is not being "wasted" at all. It's profit for someone.
Just like healthcare & education, building big infrastructure projects lines the pockets of everyone even tangentially involved, so there is no incentive to change anything. People are literally making millions of dollars.
Transparency is the solution to that. For some reason, you also left out one of the largest government contracting sectors in the USA, i.e. military and intelligence procurement and contracting - where the waste is more extreme, as it can be hidden behind classification on 'national security grounds'.
Of course it's wasted. If you paid for a service and received no service in return you typically call that fraud. Why would it be different in this case, because someone received "profit" for doing nothing it's all ok?
Well, yes, of course. That is specifically how many systems are run in the USA. Healthcare, Education, Prisons, Infrastructure, military, government contracts.
They're designed to suck money and resources away from the good of society to line the pockets of a few. They do a very good job of it.
The entire point of these projects is to waste money. Or, rather, waste money from the perspective of those whom are paying. Those receiving certainly aren't wasting it.
The idea that we can do better and save money by ignoring context is utterly and shamefully stupid. This piece highlights the Second Avenue subway. That line was first proposed roughly a hundred years ago. It was decided then that the level of complication from utilities and other subway lines made it unreasonably expensive to build. Over the years the Second Avenue line was repeatedly proposed and the conclusion was always the same. The level of complication made it completely impractical. The costs of construction would be astronomical.
So then it was decided that new tunnel boring technology would make the project pencil out. So the project moved forward. Sure enough, the complications caused costs to explode. If only someone had consulted the extensive literature on the subject that had accumulated over the last hundred years.
Now researchers look at what went wrong and have decided that more careful control of contractors would fix things. That is false. The Second Avenue subway has always been impractical. Basic research shows that has been demonstrated at length many times. Making generalizations about transit construction based on a project that was ruled out repeatedly over a period of a hundred years makes no sense. The Second Avenue subway did not break records with its expense because we don't know how to build. The Second Avenue subway cost a phenomenal amount because it is an impractical project with a huge amount of complications. No amount of clever design or management could possibly make the Second Avenue subway cost a reasonable amount. And this has been solidly understood for a hundred years.
>That line was first proposed roughly a hundred years ago. It was decided then that the level of complication from utilities and other subway lines made it unreasonably expensive to build.
The utility density under Second Avenue is not any higher than any other avenue. There are very few other neighboring subway lines to contend with (especially when the line was first proposed). In fact, the only other subway tunnels that the actually completed portion of the Second Avenue Subway contends with already had built-in provisions to connect to a future SAS tunnel (63rd Street tunnel, finished in the late 80s).
>Over the years the Second Avenue line was repeatedly proposed and the conclusion was always the same. The level of complication made it completely impractical. The costs of construction would be astronomical.
Other cities with equally complex underground infrastructure (e.g. Paris) manage to complete cut-and-cover subway construction at a fraction of the cost.
>So then it was decided that new tunnel boring technology would make the project pencil out. So the project moved forward. Sure enough, the complications caused costs to explode.
Again, other cities manage to construct deep bore tunnels at a fraction of the cost. For example, Korea is building a deep bore (50m underground) high speed rail line under Seoul (GTX A) with several underground stations at a fraction of the cost of the SAS. This line will carry heavy rail trains at 180 km/h, so it is a considerably more complex undertaking than a regular subway tunnel.
(It’s not just the SAS, by the way; insane construction costs are rampant in the NYC Metropolitan Transit Authority. For example, it cost $30M and took 3 years to build a single staircase: https://www.amny.com/transit/30-million-subway-stairs-times-...)
> Other cities with equally complex underground infrastructure (e.g. Paris) manage to complete cut-and-cover subway construction at a fraction of the cost.
No offense to New York and New Yorkers, but Paris is surely much more complex underground. The area has been continuously inhabited for more than 2000 years, and has seen a lot of change. There are centuries old buildings and underground Infrastructure that need to be worked around.
Absolutely! Pretty much any European city will have underground infrastructure at least as complex as NYC, yet they still manage to build subways far more cheaply than New York.
Alon Levy has written extensively on reasons why the MTA builds at roughly 10× the rest of the world in subway construction costs. (The short answer is that, when you have cost premiums in that ballpark, everything is going wrong to some degree). I could go into detail, but I'll focus on one particular detail to show why your following quote is wrong:
> No amount of clever design or management could possibly make the Second Avenue subway cost a reasonable amount.
Roughly half of the cost of the 2nd Avenue subway phase 2 is in the station costs. (I don't have the most recent precise cost breakdown in front of me to give you precise numbers). If you want to cut the cost down considerably, looking for any inefficiencies in station construction costs is a good place to start, then... and it turns out there are glaring inefficiencies. One of the most obvious contenders is the use of full-length mezzanines, which are unusual, unnecessary, and extremely expensive in a mined station design (as opposed to cut-and-cover, where the volume needs to be excavated anyways).
That's one design change that can give cost savings on the order of at least 10%, and it's not even particularly clever design. Ultimately, the main reason why it's so expensive is that people like you, who are completely incurious about why anything may be expensive, are in charge of these projects.
Completely incurious? NYC has a lot of subway miles. This particular subway was repeatedly proposed and rejected as being too costly. And when it was finally built it turned out to be hugely expensive just as predicted. And now this unusually expensive line is being used as an example of all subway construction. That is kind of like trying to explain the cost of food by reviewing the menu at a top rated restaurant or calculating the cost of driving by focusing on luxury sport vehicles. Anyone who actually cares about calculating and comprehending costs needs to be careful with outliers.
And what is with this "people like you" remark? If I had input into the NYC subway system then I would focus on deferred maintenance instead of building a fabulously expensive new line that will never produce a return on the money spent on it. The verifiable fact is that the Second Avenue subway line was known to be hugely expensive from the start. Cut and cover construction was not an option in this case. I make a point about there being a hundred years of detailed analysis describing why the Second Avenue subway could not be constructed for a reasonable cost and that makes me completely incurious? Have you ever bothered to investigate the previous proposals which were rejected? Not even realizing that you are committing to a "It's different this time" strategy creates problems.
The irony here is that this comment isn't even curious about the comment it immediately replied to, which found a 10%(!) savings simply by changing the style of station being built.
London’s subway work has to stop for freaking Roman ruins. The Second Avenue subway is cake in comparison. It’s just that Americans, specifically New Yorkers, are incompetent at projects that require collective action. More disorganized than the French! There should be some sort of award for that.
Seattle delivered rail infrastructure on time and under budget, and now it has a ridership in the millions. People want trains. People use trains. Build more goddamn trains.
I'll be taking the Shinkansen to Tokyo this week. Watching the bullet trains depart from Tokyo Station every seven and a half minutes on just the Tokaido line alone, carrying around a thousand people each... it's hard not to be a little envious. The productivity gains must be immense, and JR is practically printing money with the ticket revenue alone.
It did? I’m from Seattle, and the plans for a light rail were perennially stalled since I was a kid. What they’ve built so far is nice, but they’re expanding it at a glacial pace. They could build more and faster.
Yep, we talked about it for a long time, but it did in fact complete on time and under budget. It's expanding slowly because there's a lot of pushback to adding more, which is a bummer.
We need like 8x the amount of rail here, at least.
They’re wrong. The project was delayed several years and was several billion over budget.
>The Central Link project was originally planned to open in 2006 and projected to cost $1.9 billion (equivalent to $2.95 billion in 2020 dollars), but the estimates were found to be unrealistic by auditors in November 2000. New executives, hired by Sound Transit to replace previous program directors, presented a revised plan with an opening date pushed back three years to 2009, costing $3.8 billion (equivalent to $5.53 billion in 2020 dollars).
The money spent was more than what the voters approved. Making a new estimate that is much higher and spending less than that isn't coming in "under budget".
Voters approved a $3.91B tax to cover the light rail, minor improvements to bus onramps, and some commuter rail improvements.
The initial light rail was given an estimate of 1.8B of that 3.9B that voters approved, and year of expenditure costs were roughly 20% higher then that, but federal studies by the dept of transportation have evaluated the costs and believe that there was a period of unpredictable and unusual inflation. If you control for that, the project would have completed under it's original budget. Additionally, they did come under their revised budget and the Ulink extension has come in under budget too.
I guess I don't fault a transit authority for making a 10+ plan that makes reasonable assumptions about inflation given the information they have, and then deliver only slightly above budget after being impacted by said inflation.
It doesn’t matter how much you like light rail or how little you care about the estimates being wrong, the project was significantly over budget, delayed several years, and was reduced in scope from what was originally promised to the voters. These are objective facts.
The Ulink extension was part of the original proposal, so it should be counted against the original budget and timeline as well. The U-district station didn’t open until 2016, 20 years after being voted on and 10 years behind schedule. The extension also cost $1.8 billion on its own.
From the same wiki page I cited earlier:
> The ballot measure failed to pass on March 14, 1995, and the light rail line was shortened to 25 miles (40 km), between the University District and Sea-Tac Airport. Voters approved the $3.9 billion package on November 5, 1996
> The initial segment identified and approved by Sound Transit later that year shortened the line to 14 miles (23 km), between Downtown Seattle and a southern Tukwila station near Sea-Tac Airport. The remaining routes to the airport and University District were sent back to the planning stage, and re-organized into separate light rail projects.
> Planning of the Portage Bay tunnel between Capitol Hill and the University District was suspended due to higher than expected contractor bids, attributed to difficult soil conditions.
> The line was extended north to University of Washington station, via Capitol Hill station, on March 19, 2016, via a $1.8 billion, 3.15-mile (5.07 km) tunnel.
Point still stands though, as meager as it is. The link is the only major public works project in recent memory that largely succeeded AND under budget
Do you think the first rail built in Germany was a failure because it wasn't 10x the size? We get to a big rail network by building more rail. Seattle went from 0 to 1 rail line, which now has millions of riders per month. We're about to complete our second line, and we've approved funding for more. These things take time.
Oh that's totally fine. I understand that its a success for the city. But in terms of an overall transit network its not a success yet. So really there should be 10 follow up network increases already planned and as far as I know they are not really that aggressive.
They have two additional lines being constructed or planned at the moment, to bring the rail out to the surrounding population centers, and they are extending the central line significantly.
Pretty soon we'll have three large lines, and there's discussions about what to build next. The rail is fairly popular out here.
The light rail doesn't cover most of the population of Seattle, instead a slow train meanders far out into the suburbs. Pretend we all agreed to start taking public transit. We couldn't, even the population today couldn't use the system getting planned out to 2055, let alone account for growth.
Imagine if instead of using teslas where a person is driving you (lol), they could just do what cities have been doing for centuries and put in a super fast and high capacity metro. I've never understood this idea of "let's go underground, get into a car, buckle up, and let a guy drive me to a place not that far from me and not that fast"
Have you considered that you are overly sensitive to this, and that you might have been conditioned to be by the manufactured controversy currently being stoked by the right? There are exactly two uses of the word "they" as a pronoun, both in regard to Alon Levy, who presumably prefers this pronoun. It's a big world out there - learn to live with it.
Fantastic response -- D.C.'s flagged initial comment reads as someone who tries to use a blinkered interpretation of language to avoid respecting non-binary peoples' pronouns, while failing to acknowledge the historical use of singular 'they.'
The article features frequent usage of Alon's name, to avoid using they/then as much, just as you would with he/she.
The briefest of searches for Alon's name shows their Twitter profile[1] with "(they/them)" as part of their account name -- which also includes their Mastodon profile[2], itself showing a pronoun box listing "They/them."
It's a shame someone so educated appears to be getting riled up over something so small and trivial -- respecting Alon's pronouns neither harms anyone, nor makes the article any more difficult to read.
"Nonbinary" [sic] people should not be doing "cultural appropriation" of the plural pronouns the rest of us know; if they insist on not being referred to as "he" or "she," then they should come up with their own.
That's literally not what cultural appropriation is.
The fact that you try and use that term when you clearly don't even know the definition, shows you to be nothing more than ignorant and bigoted. Good job.
I'm an intellectual-property lawyer; I'm well aware of what "cultural appropriation" supposedly is — and what it isn't.
(That's why I put the term in quotes. In part, it's to tweak the noses of people who rail against something that the law doesn't recognize as "a thing." What those folks call "cultural appropriation," the law calls "laudably propagating good ideas and practices, subject to any applicable restrictions that have been duly enacted into law.")
Apparently not, since you think that "plural pronouns" are a cultural element that can be appropriated, which isn't the case when aforementioned pronoun has centuries-old singular usage -- notwithstanding the significantly greater usage and acceptance in modern times -- with the extreme minority being the bigots who attempt to deny both grammatical and historical fact, and language evolution -- because of their own bigoted, hateful views.
Being an IP lawyer won't win you any points, especially when you're ignorantly refusing basic facts of language even with empirical evidence.
Hard no on that one — just because someone declares "I have no gender" doesn't make it so, any more than if I were to declare that I have no eye color.
> is longer and harder to say than the more inclusive variant!
Agreed — but in formal writing, confusing readers by appropriating the plural is not the way to fix it.
"Hard no" because of your personal beliefs and bigotry, rather than fact.
Gender is a social construct, and people are free do identify as they please. If someone decides they don't identify as binary male or female, that's their choice. It doesn't mean they declare "I have no gender," it means they don't declare to be "male" or "female."
The fact that you foolishly and arrogantly try to equate an irrefutable, immutable physical attribute like iris pigmentation, with something as ill-defined, fluid, and personal as gender, shows you're neither engaging in good faith, nor able to get past your own bigotry to even make an intelligent argument.
Once again, you're the only one being confused here, so the fake outrage and trumped-up claims of confused readership don't fly.
Really glad your original post has been flagged, it was incredibly toxic. Becoming so irritated that you "quit reading after a couple of paragraphs" suggests you either struggle to keep up when there isn't a defined he/she pronoun, or that you take some issue with they/them pronouns specifically.
Modern readers are taught from childhood that gender isn't binary, and that singular 'they' is a perfectly acceptable way to refer to someone, and has the historical precedent to back it up.
It's confusing you as a reader, but the arbitrary claim that it confuses "the reader" is a baseless and inaccurate one. It's 2022 D.C., contemporary usage of singular 'they' isn't rare or unheard of in any way, and its frequent usage without complaint -- except from certain groups who take umbrage with non-cisgender peoples' existence, of course.
Surely a fellow as learned as yourself should be able to grasp the concept of singular they? -- it's been around for centuries... The fact that you're demanding a writer invents and starts using a new gender-neutral pronoun is ridiculous.
Firstly, singular 'they' is perfectly suited to this purpose, and has been used historically without an issue. Secondly, if you can't grasp the concept of singular they, you're clearly not going to be any less antagonistic about a newly-created alternative. Finally, your use of "Ms." seems to conflate pronouns and titles -- FYI, the gender-neutral title "Mx." has been adopted for many years, but (a) isn't used by every non-binary or gender-non-conforming person, and (b) is a title, not a pronoun -- so cannot be used interchangeably as such.
Since the author of the article uses they/them pronouns, your claimed solution of "he or she" wouldn't apply. At all.
Perhaps some reading could go some way to alleviating your irritation?
If you'd like to read a bit more about its usage for both non-binary people, and to refer to people of unknown or unspecified gender -- as well as style guides -- there's always the Wikipedia article:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Singular_they
It's quite telling that you complain of people "...demanding that the rest of us go along with their throwing sand in the gears of the reading process" when (a) singular they isn't new, and has been widely adopted for these purposes -- in this case to refer to the non-binary author of the piece, and (b) you're effectively demanding people create a new singular pronoun because you refuse to adapt to a usage you personally disagree with -- regardless of it being grammatically and historically correct.
There are much bigger things to worry about than getting yourself worked up over someone's choice of pronoun, and your apparent refusal to respect that.
Alon Levy (the author)'s work is rather good. It's a shame you abandoned reading their article because of your own bigoted and blinkered views about language.
> Modern readers are taught from childhood that gender isn't binary
Is that a fact? Repeating another comment I made on this thread: If we take "gender" as meaning "biological sex," then it IS binary;* I can no more declare, "I have no gender" than "I have no eye color" or "I can fly by willing myself to defy gravity."
* Modulo those exceedingly-rare people who are born hermaphrodites
> Finally, your use of "Ms." seems to conflate pronouns and titles
Um, no — in my education, I learned about the use of analogies, comparisons, and precedents to illustrate a point. Here, the precedent is the coinage of a new title; there's no reason similar coinage shouldn't happen for a gender-neutral singular pronoun (which I'd be fine with using, BTW).
> you're effectively demanding people create a new singular pronoun because you refuse to adapt to a usage you personally disagree with -- regardless of it being grammatically and historically correct.
I'm only partly surprised that — in a forum where so many people complain about subpar software UIs, hard-to-read code, and the like — there are those who think it's perfectly fine to demand that the rest of us accede to "nonbinary" people's confusing language preferences for written communication.
>"If we take "gender" as meaning "biological sex,""
-- but "we" don't, because they are two entirely different words with entirely different meanings. Gender is a social construct. Your supposed arguments are fallacies which fail to even get off the ground.
There is no need to create a new singular gender-neutral pronoun to appease your bitter, bigoted self, when a perfectly adequate one exists, and has both historical and contemporary use. Your refusal to acknowledge or accept history, new or old, does not invalidate grammatically correct usage that you personally disagree with.
Love how you're using scare quotes again -- do you deny those identities existing? -- or, despite the empirical evidence, and the majority of the world having no issue with it, are you just set on being hateful bigoted, and exclusionary?
The only one "confused" by singular 'they' in this context is you, old boy -- everyone else is managing to read the article without getting their proverbial panties in a bunch... so why aren't you?
Nobody "demanded" anything. It's a matter of education, and a matter of respect.
1. You refuse to acknowledge history or even the OED, the principal historical dictionary of the English language.
2. You refuse to educate yourself when your ignorance and bigotry is challenged.
3. You refuse to offer the article's author (or anyone like them) the simple common courtesy and basic respect of acknowledging and respecting their pronouns.
These are simple acts of learning and courtesy, taken by intelligent and reasonable, polite people. The fact that you make baseless accusatory claims of "demanding" when none have been made, just show further that you're engaging in ad hominems and fallacies out of bigotry and hatred, rather than any reasoned point of logic or fact.
Keep cleaning it's "confusing" all you want, but non-binary and gender non-conforming people existed long before you, outnumber those with such blinkered, exclusionary views, and will outlive you. Oh, and that goes for the existence and usage of singular 'they' too ;)
Your immaturity really is quite astounding, Sir. I'm neither "chanting" anything, nor making empty arguments. The fact that you refuse to accept empirical evidence or history isn't my fault, that's your own blinkered view and hatred -- and if you don't like being accused of ignorance and bigotry, perhaps you could try being less ignorant and bigoted.
As for respect, the fact that you're seemingly triggered by the mere concept of offering it to people, shows how little your puerile and vitriolic take matters.
Deflection and fake outrage are the bastions of angry conservatives clutching at the final straws -- then running away while deliberately avoiding the empirical facts of the matter, that you find personally inconvenient.
GP has the typical delusion that language cannot change and that words can only have a singular meaning. Any dictionary will confirm this. There was obviously no ambiguity at they knew immediately what the intent was.
Precisely, it's a transparent attempt to hide bigotry and hate behind (false) claims of grammatical correctness, while deliberately refusing to acknowledge usage of singular 'they' -- which has existed for centuries -- because it inconveniences their hate.
> You forgot to put two spaces after each full stop (or period, if you prefer).
No, I didn't forget — browsers strip out the extra space, and I wasn't going to take the time to type in the HTML code ( ) to get an extra space (and HN seems to escape such codes in any case).
Yes, I'm a two-spaces person, because:
A. These days, readers are busy; they tend to scan text instead of leisurely contemplating and savoring each word.
B. The extra space after the period (or the full stop, if you prefer) helps the scanning reader to discern more quickly where one sentence ends and the next begins.
The Two-Space Rule is merely one corollary of The Cardinal Rule of Writing, which is: Serve The Reader.
(Another such corollary is: Short, Single-Subject Paragraphs.)
Let's say the USA builds out rail infrastructure at the same scale as found in Europe, Japan, and China.
What's that going to do to domestic fossil fuel sales? How about domestic vehicle sales? Airplane traffic and airplane fuel sales?
It's very notable that the countries with the most sophisticated train networks - Japan, China, Europe - are also importers of fossil fuels. Since the USA is an exporter of fossil fuels, a collapse in domestic demand due to an efficient nationwide train system is not something the ruling oligarchs are interested in financing, it's as simple as that.
Texas would be great for high speed rail and we all know it.
Texans hate the idea of the government using its power over them, especially when it comes to a train line in their yard.
A lot of the hostility in the US is probably historically based. I worked in rail engineering a few years ago and the rail companies are…powerful.
As in “Mrs or Mr Mayor/Governor go fuck yourself” level powerful. The legacy of rail is full of powerful assholes. It’s an awful industry for anybody with a decent education and understanding of the planet. Honestly if you are a big ox of a person and a flat earth advocate, a track gang is a good spot for you.
Rail is not liked in the US because the railroads have acted like assholes for more than 100 years here. Just ask the Chinese.
My unpopular opinion is simple: public transit works well for standard humans witch means meat-based self-reproducible robots, any dictatorship want, because they do not almost have "individual" needs, they are just tools to be moved around in batch, public transport for them is like containers for shipping industry.
Humans, Citizens instead tend to have effectively overlapping needs, but they essentially never overlap 100% so or public transports waste money in big under-used infra of make them moving nearly empty 24/7/365 to satisfy Citizens needs and desires.
In dense cities cars are a nightmare so public transport is the only remaining solution behind nuking the city itself. But that's not a cheap AND effective solution in essentially all cases, as a result or we admit that the real "future society" target is the one pictured by the WEF years ago https://youtu.be/Hx3DhoLFO4s with the meat-based robots stuffed in modern chicken coops named "smart cities" where the dumb is the human (well depicted by the facial mimic of the main actor of the aforementioned video) and the Humans/Citizens (or oppressors, cleptocrats, depending on your POV) remain outside or no country in the world can stop wasting billion on crappy public transit project if not deciding to de-urbanize creating a new distributed society where we do have aggregation centers (like schools, unis, etc) and some districts for some kind of manufacturing activities we can't do otherwise, create a hybrid far more remote and ALSO far more social IRL society or...
Note that public transports moving nearly empty doesn't waste much money: it's a common misconception.
Rail is mostly capex with little opex, and fare is set above opex anyway. Tracks are already built and trains are already bought. You need to pay back capex with fare, so every little ridership helps, and people's transportation choice is very sensitive to how often trains run (therefore how long they need to wait), so often the optimal choice is to run trains as much and as often as possible, even if they are nearly empty. Absolute ridership number is much more important than how full trains are.
Incidentally, running frequent services is something the US is really bad at. I doubt there's another country where a line with one (1) train in the morning and one (1) in the evening on weekdays, and none at all on weekends, would dare to call itself a commuter service.
> Note that public transports moving nearly empty doesn't waste much money: it's a common misconception.
Even if trains are VERY efficient they do not move at zero energy, nor they do not degrade while moving, nor their stations remains operational at no costs... Yes the capex is extreme BUT opex aren't better.
- with climate change cast urbanized areas need to change, perhaps not that drastically in the short term, but more and more frequently flooded areas need to be relocated and doing so in dense cities (let's say just NY with it's anti-floods protections skyrocketing costs) it's next to impossible. Given that infra needs to change, that's why we start pushing wireless satellite networks, small modular nuclear reactors, air short-range mobilities etc they are NOT economically sound, they are NOT safer, better than anything else, but once they exists they can operate in a changing world;
- with the green new deal it's clear that all existing buildings need to be demolished and rebuilt or abandoned, again not tomorrow, but let's say in 25 years terms. Rebuild a single-family home it's reasonably quick, cheap and easy. Rebuild a skyscraper it's another story;
- one thing it's clear: there is no real room for air-mobility in cities. AT MAXIMUM I can imaging intermodal stations where people arrive from outside and descend into a city public transport network witch leave a question open: those who live inside how can own something to go outside with their own means?
Try just to see advertisements: for instance here I see many about heat-pumps for heating homes typically depicted in snowy natural place, or to be fresh in summer, again in natural places. Even cars ads are in nature, even for most city-cars. Again that's means: artist can't imaging something nice in a modern city environment.
These are just few small breadcrumbs of examples why I'm convinced that in the future worlds cities will be sold as https://youtu.be/p-9X8Z2kJt8 while really be like https://www.theguardian.com/world/2021/sep/19/why-greeces-ex... to be used as factories/work camps for modern slaves where the development is done not for the well-being but just for moving workforce as needed, meat-based robots.
As a result: public transport is the sole option in dense cities and it's not done because it's nice but just a way to keep humans there to employ them.
Wow this is so incredibly wrong that its almost hurts.
As a Swiss person I find it so fucking funny when people in the US who drive over their totally broken streets, constantly stuck in this huge traffic jams, build ridicules 20-lane highways and add a single line to a highway for like 5 billion $ want to talk about how public transit is expensive and unpractical.
Partly this believes comes from the fact that the US is one of the few countries that has made highway building into directly government funded activity (not even a real gas tax) while transit project have no such luxury.
Roads and highways are supposed to be free, and government just pays for it. But somehow public transit has to pay for itself.
But here is the thing, true individualism and choice comes from great public transit. In Switerland, you can pay nothing (except some of your taxes) for the public transport and then just decide at any random morning decide, I'm going to go to the other side of the country, cross a lake, go up a mountain and then back home in the evening. You pike up your phones, walk out of your place of living and most likely within 5-10min walk you have some kind of public transit that will reliably bring you to the place you want to be and back.
This is for 8 million people, that is less then in some US metro areas and it has to contend with mountains. The US mostly has much better geography.
So it turns out what almost all individuals want in terms of transit is about 5-10min walk away from a public transit station. Building such a system is far more cost effective then building a car network that achieves the same thing. And it also frees up the existing car network not to be totally overflowing and in constant need of expansion.
It also is about 100x better for the environment because almost all of that network runs on green electricity, its saves a huge amount of money because people don't breath tail pipe emissions, and it saves the population a huge amount of money because a car is 100% optional for a huge part of the population.
Not to mention its incredibly for the independence of kids and young adults. Kids in the mountains have reliable way to get to school and its very often the case that young people take the train to school as early as 14. I did international travel without parents when I was 16. This allows that the schools don't have to pay for inconvenient separate bus systems like they have to do in the US.
In cities this is even more important. Transit in cities is cheap and effective if you consider the per person cost, and it results in a comfortable quite likeable city if done correctly. You don't need 'smart cities', all you have to do is ban idiots in their dumb polluting load cars, and design the city for walking, cycling and transit.
And if you do that, the property values and property taxes will pay for the transit with much left over. In the US the few places that exists that are like that fetch absurdly high prices and make the cities huge amounts of money.
The idea that you advocate 'distributed society' is nonsense. Its incredibly harmful in terms of emissions, energy use, infrastructure cost. Its literally the opposite of how all human advancement has worked over the last 500 years.
And again, this is not theory, this can be backed up with data. Suburban sprawl car dependency is literally the worst and most costly way to live and that's why all the US cities are broke. I strongly suggest you go check out 'urban3' they collect real data from real cities and the universal patterns is that dense city centers with transit are supporting the urban sprawl these cities have built around. And even worse that even with the economically profitable core, they will never be able to maintain all the sprawl they have build. And that's why in so much of the US they can't fix the roads. That's why so many cities in the US have horrible problems with their water systems.
You are literally 100% wrong. And its not even up for debate. Data of real existing cities shows this in an incredibly clear way if you just look at it. Rather then come up with your own ideas like 'distributed society'. As if such a world didn't require huge road networks, huge water networks, huge amounts of cars, huge amount of truck driven logistic centers and so on and so on.
Actually I'm Italian, living in France, so while I have had experience in USA where yes, I found very lacking and poorly maintained infra, with also a bit of complicate design, I'm curious if:
- you have tried to see how much Swiss invest in it's rails and other transport means
- are you, in person, able to live WITHOUT cars since you get so much public service
- you did consider that cars are used not only for private travels and trips but also for services, like a plumber with it's vast and not so light nor small tools, or ambulances etc so PURE public transport is not possible, while the inverse is pretty obviously possible if density it not too high
- how dense area like many Italian, France and Swiss cities can evolve, for instance in Green New Deal terms given that there is no room to demolish and rebuild and no way to really upgrade existent constructions
- have you see how costs of services skyrocketed here and there after being cheap for a long time, in the same lane of those who own who keep saying "do not own anything, it's cheaper and efficient rent than buy", with examples from tele-heating services to public transports
Long-story short: the USA have made bad infra probably because of short-term private economic interests, Swiss is on the opposite side of the spectrum but BOTH can't really evolve. Meanwhile we see talks like https://www.easa.europa.eu/sites/default/files/dfu/uam-full-... who clearly state a thing: we know the actual situation is messy and without a solution. Those who understand should go a bit far, divest from cities, already-made buildings etc BEFORE most realize the same...
Oh, BTW the distribute society was the human society for most of our history because before massive and quick logistics we all eat local food produced mostly at a short kilometric distance, we live with stuff mostly made locally. Commerce give a big push in human development but cities was always just used for concentrate workforce. Even in ancient Rome the rich was a bit "outside" to live better descending to the center only to work. Economy of scale works for economy, human on scales work to find fellow cohort but not more than that.
> - you have tried to see how much Swiss invest in it's rails and other transport means
Good that investment more then pays off.
> - are you, in person, able to live WITHOUT cars since you get so much public service
Yes. I did so even when I lived in a village of 5k people.
> - you did consider that cars are used not only for private travels and trips but also for services, like a plumber with it's vast and not so light nor small tools, or ambulances etc so PURE public transport is not possible, while the inverse is pretty obviously possible if density it not too high
Sure and if we get as many other cars as possible of the road things like Ambulances and necessary commercial vehicles will have a far better time.
> for instance in Green New Deal terms given that there is no room to demolish and rebuild and no way to really upgrade existent constructions
There is tons of room in American cities to add infrastructure and density
> - have you see how costs of services skyrocketed here and there after being cheap for a long time, in the same lane of those who own who keep saying "do not own anything, it's cheaper and efficient rent than buy", with examples from tele-heating services to public transports
I'm not sure what you are referring to. There is no evidence that nations that have higher % of home ownership are richer or have a higher standard of living.
> Long-story short: the USA have made bad infra probably because of short-term private economic interests, Swiss is on the opposite side of the spectrum but BOTH can't really evolve.
I'm sorry this is just wrong. Switzerland could easily go in the other direction. And US could change direction as well. Look at Amsterdam in the 1970 and look at it now. There are even some decent example in the US that are making positive changes.
> we know the actual situation is messy and without a solution
I not sure what you are referring to and I'm not gone read that huge report. The solution is quite clear in my opinion. Remove and slow cars, make the city better for walking and biking, improve public transport.
> Oh, BTW the distribute society was the human society for most of our history because before massive and quick logistics we all eat local food produced mostly at a short kilometric distance, we live with stuff mostly made locally. Commerce give a big push in human development but cities was always just used for concentrate workforce. Even in ancient Rome the rich was a bit "outside" to live better descending to the center only to work. Economy of scale works for economy, human on scales work to find fellow cohort but not more than that.
Sure if you want to go back to subsistence farming. But even then cities is where culture and innovation happens. There is a reason why most high cultures are built around a few major cities like Babylon, Rome and so on.
Yes cities had problems with health in the past and so on, but they also attract people, not just for economic reasons. Cities are the reason we have civilization.
And with 'modern' technology like bicycle and the train, we can also make them amazing places to live.
Your distributed idea simply isn't viable. Every single statics will show that distributed living performs worse in terms of water, in terms of CO2, energy use, transportation options and basically everything else. Any society that tried this would bankrupt itself. Its the city centers that are subsidizing this suburban sprawl.
Are you really sure? I mean did you really try and see the material costs in terms of fragility, environment, freedom to move etc? AND of course the mere money spent in such services for just few big companies profits? You are able to move ONLY when anything works, witch yes that means most of the time, but most is far from all the time. Let's say a bit of rime that block some trains trolley and a line between Lugano and Bellinzona is out of service for hours (happened few times to me), a strike and you are on your own, without backup, ... For the whole country means being tied to the actual rail network, who might be ok for actual needs and tech but things change. A classically safe important passages might be endangered by climate change, a new tech might demand a new infra and ANYTHING is damn expensive and slow to adapt. Actually most new-dealist without explicitly telling that are pushing air and see instead of roads and rails exactly because of their flexibility, you just need A and B, not a network between them to be kept up and evolved.
> Yes. I did so even when I lived in a village of 5k people.
Ok, so allow me a little game: let's say you want to go outside the village/city for a trip. Did you lease a car or accept to being bound to public transport covered areas (witch means not much in nature)? Let's say a rail strike make you locked somewhere or another technical or "political" issue create a service mishap, it's ok for you being there powerless hoping for someone else to fix things for you? It's ok being unable to buy batch quantity of foods, and so having stock at home like this stupid example https://www.admin.ch/gov/it/pagina-iniziale/documentazione/c... while at home you can buy groceries just once a month and being autonomous for such timeframe, reducing also packing stuff and number of people traveling on trucks just to resupply small shops? Did you ever experienced small blackouts in a city while you have to climb 12+ floors or the metro suddenly stop and you need to go by feet in long tunnels and uncomfortable passages?
Long story short: in resilience terms, in freedom terms, in Green New Deal terms living on public transport means a significant vulnerability, a significant limitation of freedom, a way to stop the Green New Deal since in practical terms we can't rebuild towns to be "renewable" while we can do that for single-family homes. All to feel being "less consuming" because you run on third party stuff at a short distance.
> Sure and if we get as many other cars as possible of the road things like Ambulances and necessary commercial vehicles will have a far better time.
That's much a matter of density not public transports per se: where I live now it's far faster get from A to B than in a town, with or without public transit, in most cases, I do anything quicker than back in a big city and without much stress. For instance just to buy groceries on Drive I regularly have no waiting time, there is always a free slot to park and someone who came in a minute or less. Just on the shore a Drive means often 10-15' minimum before get served OR if you just buy ready to use food for any meal well... You waste FAR MORE time in shop than me. Ambulances tend to be quicker in dense areas, but in some cases, like during peak hours they are quicker here and here a chopper can arrive just in front of your home. Witch is a marginal thing since in most case no one ever need such service in their life BUT it's relevant in a near future in terms of drone delivery and future mobility by air. Just try to compute how much time you spent waiting at supermarket checkout to pay if you go shopping daily vs go shopping rarely with a car. Just see how much sociability exists in low density areas than in cities where you do not know your neighbor.
> There is tons of room in American cities to add infrastructure and density
For instance they fail high-speed rails in the est cost because of actual density: was and is essentially impossible find a path for rails in such so dense areas. Oh, and that not counting the sky-high costs of works in such setups... Not talking about the cost of climate change protections like see barriers in NY etc since they can't simply easy relocate at an a bit higher altitude...
> I'm not sure what you are referring to. There is no evidence that nations that have higher % of home ownership are richer or have a higher standard of living.
At nation scale perhaps not, but INSIDE a nation most big cities are just black holes who eat all national resources and that's valid for poor countries like Kazakhstan or richer like Japan. In cities all eat, obviously, but food is not local, so you can move just with bus and bikes but many others have to move on diesel to bring you food, goods of any kind since also most factories are not in cities and so on. In the past cities was needed just to meet people, but such model is not true anymore. With remote work and non-abandoned less dense area (see France as an example) the advantages of the cities are waning while their issues skyrocketing, not only services availability and quality now tend to be higher in less dense areas, let's only take online retail as a model: in a dense area delivery is a problem, in a less dense one... Well... Those how delivery to me just leave packages in a room in front of my garage. No fancy remote lock needed since a thief here can't steal for long. Connections? Now it's far more complex posing fiber in dense area than in less dense one. And so on.
> I not sure what you are referring to and I'm not gone read that huge report. The solution is quite clear in my opinion. Remove and slow cars, make the city better for walking and biking, improve public transport.
The juice of the report is "do will people accept living on public transit and bike in WEF future cities like https://youtu.be/Hx3DhoLFO4s while us 'the rich' came and go by air?" and the conclusion are "perhaps"... Witch means to me, not explicitly written, "we going to separate the poor and the wealthy, the first in dense towns who happen to be like modern Chinese ones, and the latter outside.
> Sure if you want to go back to subsistence farming. But even then cities is where culture and innovation happens. There is a reason why most high cultures are built around a few major cities like Babylon, Rome and so on.
Sure, in the past where to meet people to fertilize ideas we need to be physically together, where TLCs means sending letters who will be delivered at horse speed and so on. We still need having some aggregation because especially for skilled people such cohorts are rare and so meeting it's hard. But IME nowadays it's easier to reach skilled people on-line and than after choose a place to meet casually as needed and wanted. Physical presence is needed for young and for teaching and do not need such density anyway. Economy of scale and mind power of cities now is dead. Not because of substantial changes but because cities have evolved to something dead.
Oh, BTW in terms of waters I get water at 3km from it's source, the nearest city get the same water, with km-long pipes... And small but sufficient sources are anywhere in the territory while serving enough waters to cities is a nightmare. In terms of energy my old apartment who was half my actual home not counting garages and terraces consume twice the new home and nothing can change that. Here I have added p.v. at first I choose to avoid it since the low electricity price. In a dense city you can't. Here I can charge my car at home from p.v. I can't in a dense city and I have no reason to be there WFH. Most people in low density area buys things from time to time in batches witch means LESS logistic, not more so ALL you've read about cities being eco-friendly and efficient is probably false. Really. Try the game yourself.
Yes. It has a huge amount of support from the population. So pretty much everybody agrees on this.
Trying to go away from this model would be such a big disruption that the impact could not even be calculated. There is so much complex commuting, that simply wouldn't be possible in a car based model, people would have to migrate.
> I mean did you really try and see the material costs in terms of fragility, environment, freedom to move etc?
Yes. Pretty much everybody in any country that studies this comes the to same conclusion. Trains are efficiency in terms of space, energy and air quality.
> AND of course the mere money spent in such services for just few big companies profits?
The SBB and BLS are mostly govenrment companies and they get most of the money. Sure some money goes to private builders and producers of trains. But of course we also export trains so its not a total lose. Private companies are gone make some money and that is fine. There are few big train scandals.
For big projects like 'Gotthard Base Tunnel' are voted on democratically, and generally 'only profits big companies' is not even a point the opposition makes.
> Let's say a bit of rime that block some trains trolley and a line between Lugano and Bellinzona is out of service for hours (happened few times to me)
In pretty much every case this happened over the last 20 years provide backup trains (on other routes) or buses.
The delays you experience are not really worse then what you can have on a road network. Having both trains and roads makes the most sense.
But having trains allows you road infrastructure to stay reasonably small.
> A classically safe important passages might be endangered by climate change, a new tech might demand a new infra and ANYTHING is damn expensive and slow to adapt.
Rail has survived for a few 100 years now and sometimes you have to invest, like electrification but all of those investments paid off. If upgrades have to be made because of climate change then that not inherently a problem.
> Ok, so allow me a little game: let's say you want to go outside the village/city for a trip. Did you lease a car or accept to being bound to public transport covered areas (witch means not much in nature)?
I think you have a hilariously idea of public transport. With public transport in Switzerland you can reach all kinds of place in nature that are simply not available by car.
My great-grandfather built a tiny house in the mountains during WW1, guess how I usually go there. By train, and then with a gondola. This is a village with a fixed population of less then 100 people.
In fact, if everybody has to take a car to go to 'nature' it often ends up destroying nature.
There were hiking trails that started in my village, and nature is all around. Literally hike by walking out of your door. By bicycle you can easily go much further, you can take your bicycle in the train if you want to.
> Let's say a rail strike make you locked somewhere or another technical or "political" issue create a service mishap, it's ok for you being there powerless hoping for someone else to fix things for you?
Ok what if a war in the middle east makes driving to expensive for you? Do you just hope this fixes things for you? What if the police strike and block the roads? What if another country makes a naval blockade. We can spin theories and theories about literally everything.
The reality is in society you relay on others, you are not sell sufficient because you have a car. Oil needs infrastructure, if power goes out then you can't pump oil in gas-stations anymore. The idea that whole countries transport infrastructure is safer from infrastructure disruption because its based on cars and oil is simply inaccurate both historically and theoretically.
Do you have any series evidence that rail strikes are so incredibly dangerous and common that it me personally and my whole society should totally change its green and safe transport infrastructure?
Sorry most people don't live their lives base on some doom's day paranoia but how to practically live with the actually real challenges of today.
> For instance just to buy groceries on Drive I regularly have no waiting time, there is always a free slot to park and someone who came in a minute or less. Just on the shore a Drive means often 10-15' minimum before get served OR if you just buy ready to use food for any meal well... You waste FAR MORE time in shop than me.
This is pretty hilarious. Wow you can destroy the planet by driving every-time you have to go shopping and you get free parking spot. Wow.
I just walk out of my house, and within literally 3min I'm at the shop, buy things and then walk home. Often I just walk past the shop on my way home and pick up what I need. But I'm sure its much better for the world when everybody gets into a car, drives to a huge parking lot and then drives home.
Yes food needs to be transported to cities (and you can do that by electric train just fine btw). From there you can use small electric trucks and even smaller electric bikes to distribute it to shops as is already done quite often in places like Amsterdam. But the same is true for suburbs but the distances are just far wider.
The simply fact is food will mostly be produced far away and people are simply not gone move to Iowa to live in cornfields. So it will need to be transported even if people live more distributed.
Your point about remote work is also far from reality. Most people, specially poor people, simply do not jobs that can be remote. You overestimate the impact of remote work by a waste amounts.
Your ideal of everybody living in small towns surrounded by farmland that can feed people locally and water sources that are local is simply a fantasy. In the real world not building actually dense cities is building suburbs. They have all the disadvantages of cities, with non of the advantages.
People who actually do live rural (who have a decent standard of living) have actually much higher energy consumption and require larger more environmentally damaging global infrastructure.
Everything you have suggest is literally the single worst thing for the climate I can imagine.
> As a Swiss person I find it so fucking funny when people in the US who drive over their totally broken streets, constantly stuck in this huge traffic jams, build ridicules 20-lane highways and add a single line to a highway for like 5 billion $ want to talk about how public transit is expensive and unpractical.
The outskirts of cities have better roads & less traffic. I regularly travel cross country & find traffic jams to be rare. There are slowdown in construction areas & traffic jams in the cities during rush hour, but for the most part, the highways more than match capacity. You might not be able to drive as fast as the autobahn, but given there are many traffic fatalities, that's not a good idea here.
> So it turns out what almost all individuals want in terms of transit is about 5-10min walk away from a public transit station. Building such a system is far more cost effective then building a car network that achieves the same thing. And it also frees up the existing car network not to be totally overflowing and in constant need of expansion.
Many people here want to purchase land with few neighbors. Though prices are rising, there's still plenty of land available to buy at a reasonable price without needing a loan...if one is willing to build their home.
> Not to mention its incredibly for the independence of kids and young adults. Kids in the mountains have reliable way to get to school and its very often the case that young people take the train to school as early as 14. I did international travel without parents when I was 16. This allows that the schools don't have to pay for inconvenient separate bus systems like they have to do in the US.
There's a rising home schooling network...spurned on by the spirit of independence, political conditions, technology, covid, work from home, etc.
> And if you do that, the property values and property taxes will pay for the transit with much left over. In the US the few places that exists that are like that fetch absurdly high prices and make the cities huge amounts of money.
Many people do not want nor can afford rising property taxes. The property values are largely fueled by the now ending long cycle of inexpensive credit. There's plenty of land here, much of it is unavailable due to large institutions & government owning it. This also drives the prices & taxes up. As a result, many independent-minded people are fleeing densely populated areas to be able to own a home in a safe & friendly area.
> The idea that you advocate 'distributed society' is nonsense. Its incredibly harmful in terms of emissions, energy use, infrastructure cost. Its literally the opposite of how all human advancement has worked over the last 500 years.
The US has been continuously reducing emissions for decades due to technological advancement. Centralization means long supply chain networks of finished goods, which increases emissions. Distributed production means less transport usage, costs, emissions, better local food with more variety (since food does not need to be selected for transportability), etc.
> Suburban sprawl car dependency is literally the worst and most costly way to live and that's why all the US cities are broke
The US cities are broke for spending. Transportation is one line item & any improvement will help. However, there is also manipulated credit-heavy markets coupled with political grift which seems to account for the majority of the spending.
> And that's why in so much of the US they can't fix the roads
Again, I have not experienced many bad roads...except in some secluded areas & in some inner cities that don't seem to function very well on a whole. Note that these inner cities learn toward a decades long trend of heavy centralization as a "solution" to the problems...yet the problems keep on getting worse...due to centralized corruption.
> You are literally 100% wrong
That doesn't sound like an accurate statement. Given that you are not American & from your statements, I doubt you have the broad & nuanced context of the American experience. I invite you to learn more about the different aspects of this country before making a hard line stance. There's many foreign interests who want to influence & in cases degrade American life, largely through corporitization, closing of small & local businesses, credit markets, & buying up land that they don't live on.
> The outskirts of cities have better roads & less traffic. I regularly travel cross country & find traffic jams to be rare. There are slowdown in construction areas & traffic jams in the cities during rush hour, but for the most part, the highways more than match capacity. You might not be able to drive as fast as the autobahn, but given there are many traffic fatalities, that's not a good idea here.
Yes of course the 20-lane highway is mostly empty. And your experience is fine, but in terms of actual statistics, of how long actual people are stuck in traffic it is actually very relevant. There is constant political demand and pressure to expand capacity, to add more lanes and so on. Because when most people see the roads they are full.
The problem is that you are forcing poor workers, who need to go to the city, in order to live the have to go to ever further sub-developments and travel ever further, forcing them to have a car and to spend a lot of money on gas.
This is why the Living&Transport share of peoples income is ever rising. You have land that is worth insane amounts with the best companies in the world having office close buy, but many that work there have to do a 1-2h commute to get there.
> There's a rising home schooling network...spurned on by the spirit of independence, political conditions, technology, covid, work from home, etc.
Maybe in the US, not in most of the world. And even if you do school at home, I think childhood where you are in car depended suburb and you never get to leave sounds horrible. There is a reason so many movies get made in the US about teenagers stuck in suberibia, and only hoping to get a car so they can finally do something.
If in general its a good idea is questionable, most countries in the world don't want this. Kids actually walking to school is also health. Of course getting dropped up in your moms 5t SUV isn't as healthy.
> Many people do not want nor can afford rising property taxes. The property values are largely fueled by the now ending long cycle of inexpensive credit. There's plenty of land here, much of it is unavailable due to large institutions & government owning it. This also drives the prices & taxes up. As a result, many independent-minded people are fleeing densely populated areas to be able to own a home in a safe & friendly area.
This analysis is just totally wrong. Sorry, its just factually wrong. Property values might influenced a little by credit but the relative prices are mostly fine.
And the idea that most land is owned by large institutions and government is wrong. Unless you mean like McDonald and Walmart. But they do pay property taxes and the reason its not available is because of bad zoning laws.
Those people that are fleeing these areas for their own home are not actually paying for the infrastructure that they need to support it. This is crystal clear in the data, these 1-family home subburbs are economic kills for their cities, they are getting subsidies massively by the poor and the city center. The taxes of a typical Cul'de'sak parley even finance the road replacements, not to mention everything else.
> The US cities are broke for spending. Transportation is one line item & any improvement will help. However, there is also manipulated credit-heavy markets coupled with political grift which seems to account for the majority of the spending.
You seem obsessed with credit markets. Short term credit market changes have nothing to do with it, these are systematic problems built in the pattern of development.
The cities are broke because they simply don't have enough income to maintain all their commitments. Its not just transport, its water, policing and so on. I have shown the data on this. You can listen to talks by Urban3 and Strong Towns on yt, they present this data in a very clear way.
> Again, I have not experienced many bad roads...except in some secluded areas & in some inner cities that don't seem to function very well on a whole. Note that these inner cities learn toward a decades long trend of heavy centralization as a "solution" to the problems...yet the problems keep on getting worse...due to centralized corruption.
Because you normally don't drive in all those suburb unless you live there. And partly why inner cities are so bad, is because while they make money they use that money to fix roads in the suburbs.
I'm not American, but given the constant complaints about road quality I hear everywhere I not sure this is up for debate. When I watch videos like Tesla Self Driving videos I regularly shocked about the state of the roads, and those videos are from a pretty broad amount of places. Many of those videos remind me of Ukraine more then Switzerland.
> Given that you are not American & from your statements, I doubt you have the broad & nuanced context of the American experience.
I have been to the US multiple times both on the East and the West coast.I read about US history for a long time. I listen to a lot of experts and city planners on this topic. And most important its based on data.
Some friends of mine that are not as well informed just came back from San Fransisco and they were absolutely shocked by the state of the city, the homelessness and so on.
There is simply no arguing with some of these facts:
1. Suburbs are economically terrible for cities and are subsidized
2. Property tax system gives intensive for low value building
2. The US road network is pretty unsafe
3. The US has incredibly low numbers of pedestrians and cyclists
4. The US has an incredibly badly develop public transit network
5. Suburbs measure badly when it comes to environmental factors, people that live like that have incredibly high rates of driving. With many trips being less then 5 miles.
6. US roads on avg are not as well maintained as countries with comparable GDP, Switzerland, Germany, Netherlands.
7. US zoning codes with functional separation and overwhelming amounts of single family zoning, is a huge part of the homelessness crisis.
Witch of these facts would you disagree with?
> There's many foreign interests who want to influence & in cases degrade American life, largely through corporitization, closing of small & local businesses, credit markets, & buying up land that they don't live on.
Here is an idea. If to have a continent store you need to buy a full block, have minimum parking for 200 people attached to 6-lane strode, your not gone get many 'small & local business' operating those stores.
If to buy a coffee you have to go into a huge parking lot and then wait at the Starbucks drive threw for 10 min, then you are not gone have many 'small & medium' business operating those business.
If your commercial zoning plots are 80x80m and your not allowed to develop it in a mixed use way, your not gone get many local and small business.
Land use where you have single family homes with absolutely no local economy connected with 6 lane strodes to commercial districts with big box stores and big box fast food joints simply simply isn't environment where small and local business do well.
Stop blaming foreign considerations, credit markets, those are all things directly related land use policy. Many cities in the US have 80% single family non-commercial zoning, but yet you believe that its foreign cooperation and big institutions that buy up all the land that is the problem?
> There's many foreign interests who want to influence & in cases degrade American life
These are choices made by Americans, by American planners and American governments. Foreign interest didn't do any of those things, and foreign interest are not trying to destroy America.
I would actually like to visit the US more, as I like the US, but in most places without a car is simply not very practical and I can't drive.
Suburbs do not work because are too dense and they are totally separate from workspace. A distributed economy is like French riviera witch happen to be very well also today. You live and work here and there at short distance, so you do not need to travel for 30' to buy something, nor to go to school, but you are also not stuck in traffic nor being tied to public transports.
A small personal example: back when I was living in a dense city a 4km trip means half an hour in many hours of the day, here a 40km trips means the same amount of time. In such timeframe I have access to similar set of services (from groceries to theater to hospitals and leisure etc) of a big city, with the notable difference that here there is no parking issues, no traffic, far less waiting times for anything etc AND more important being spread there is room for renewables. Actually my main car witch is now an EV eat MUCH LESS energy from the grid that the same in a city since there I have room for p.v. and most people WFH being the tertiary sector the most common set of works in the developed world. Not only: poor peoples exists both in cities and outside, but in low dense area they tend to live far better, it's easier to give them some small jobs and they are not too much to assist. As a result here crimes are far less then in all dense nearby areas. In the past quality of life was less than now, now quality of life in cities goes down, outside goes up. Just as an example I get a better connection here (2Gbps down, 860Mbps up) here than in a big city.
> Yes of course the 20-lane highway is mostly empty. And your experience is fine, but in terms of actual statistics, of how long actual people are stuck in traffic it is actually very relevant. There is constant political demand and pressure to expand capacity, to add more lanes and so on. Because when most people see the roads they are full.
I've been through many cities including Nashville, Atlanta, NYC, Miami, Chicago, LA, LV, Dallas, Houston, etc. & have not encountered a 20-lane highway...but yes, some are very wide at junctions. I used to live in LA & the traffic was bad during rush hour, which encouraged me to avoid the commute...or any commute for that matter since I now WFH. The main issue re: traffic is with the junctions where people have to change lanes & going into/out of cities.
> The problem is that you are forcing poor workers, who need to go to the city, in order to live the have to go to ever further sub-developments and travel ever further, forcing them to have a car and to spend a lot of money on gas.
I'm not forcing anyone to do that & am in favor of public transportation. I'm not in favor of discouraging car traffic, as the United States is very large, federated, & has varied geography. Many people live in the country & small towns as well. Public transportation is an option in many of these areas but not really used because it is far more practical & cost effective to own a vehicle. Many people in the country also have trucks to haul goods & engage in trade.
> This is why the Living&Transport share of peoples income is ever rising. You have land that is worth insane amounts with the best companies in the world having office close buy, but many that work there have to do a 1-2h commute to get there.
The high prices of housing are largely due to speculation & easily available credit. If there can be a solution to home ownership close to the corporate office & a WFH policy, then less commuting travel would be required.
> Maybe in the US, not in most of the world. And even if you do school at home, I think childhood where you are in car depended suburb and you never get to leave sounds horrible. There is a reason so many movies get made in the US about teenagers stuck in suberibia, and only hoping to get a car so they can finally do something.
I think you are making too much out of suburbia. I for one do not want to live in the burbs as there are building restrictions & it requires large amounts of credit to own a home. Home schooling does not necessarily mean being cloistered in the house. It means freedom to choose the method of schooling, which includes getting together with other children/families of your choosing. I've been through the public school system and it was heavily institutionalized & felt like a prison. I would never subject my child to that psychological torture.
Movies don't necessarily reflect reality for many people. My wife grew up in the country on her grandfather's farm & she loved it. The people were friendly & the air was good. I grew up on Maui. The environment there is very nice & there are things to do outside.
> You seem obsessed with credit markets. Short term credit market changes have nothing to do with it, these are systematic problems built in the pattern of development.
I mention credit often because having easily attainable credit drives up home costs leading to your dreaded suburbs as the only option to afford a home while commuting to work. When I had to do it, I took BART from Oakland to SF & it sucked. There are violent people there, I saw shootings, & was attacked while riding my bike. It was far more economical than driving into SF but it would have been better to WFH.
> And the idea that most land is owned by large institutions and government is wrong.
To clarify, I said most of the unavailable land is owned by large institutions & the government. For example, some states such as Utah have a sizable & of land owned by the government & made into the park system. This land is unavailable for home ownership.
> Because you normally don't drive in all those suburb unless you live there. And partly why inner cities are so bad, is because while they make money they use that money to fix roads in the suburbs.
No...these inner cities have a poorly functioning government & are rife with corruption. If they operated more efficiently, then the facilities would improve. For example, SF has a large tax base, yet has bad roads & a high crime rate. Much of the money is spent on cleaning up poop, handing out needles to drug addicts, high government worker salaries, etc. Seattle has riots & even had an "autonomous zone"...all while crime increased.
The suburbs in the Bay Area were a relatively sane place to live. I went to high school for a couple of years in Pleasanton in the East Bay. Having a car was very beneficial. It had a bus system & I rode on it, but it was not something that was very desirable. I commuted from Stockton, CA to San Jose, CA. I got up early a few times to ride the Ace Train but it was about an hour faster to drive...during rush hour...I could wake up later.
> 1. Suburbs are economically terrible for cities and are subsidized
Suburbs have a large tax base. I'm not aware if they are any more subsidized than cities.
> 2. Property tax system gives intensive for low value building
Low income people in Texas are bitterly complaining about the tax increases from the increases of property value largely caused by the inflow of people coming from states such as California.
> 2. The US road network is pretty unsafe
I agree that the road network is unsafe. On my recent trip with a camper, I had to cut across to make the left turn on a junction a few times. Driving through Atlanta metro reminded me of a video game. It was very intense.
> 3. The US has incredibly low numbers of pedestrians and cyclists
For good reason. The US is very large, people want to own land, & there is plenty of land available. We still hike, ride our bikes, & walk, but it's not to travel places...it's simply to get out into the fresh air.
> 4. The US has an incredibly badly develop public transit network
It does. It can improve. It would be great to have a bullet train network travel the US. I hear that there is an underground network of high speed rail but that's considered "conspiracy theory" at this time. Passenger rail would be great to improve. Amtrak receives federal funding but it's badly managed by the government. I have used Amtrak, the NJ rail, & NYC metro subway system from NJ to NYC. That was probably the the most extensive system I have used in the US. It's not very good, it's dirty, & there's crime, but it worked. It works well in NYC & parts of NJ such as Jersey City, but as you go farther from NYC, you still have to drive to the train station because the transportation network cannot handle the bifurcation of supporting everyone's housing preferences.
> 5. Suburbs measure badly when it comes to environmental factors, people that live like that have incredibly high rates of driving. With many trips being less then 5 miles.
Since WFH, there are days where I don't drive even though I live in a rural area. When I lived in Texas, trips to a decent grocery store (Whole Foods) took over an hour. We stocked up & made the trips as infrequently as possible. Again it mainly comes down to cost. People don't like commuting, but are forced to commute to afford rent or home ownership. Again, credit drives up the price of the housing market.
> 6. US roads on avg are not as well maintained as countries with comparable GDP, Switzerland, Germany, Netherlands.
This is mainly a phenomenon of geography & politics. The USA is a much larger company. Also the US provides military to these countries among other costs of Empire. There also an entrenched bureaucracy which has counterproductive environmental laws (that don't actually help the environment) & other expensive requirements. Once the US Empire declines, it will look inward & focus on improving infrastructure.
> 7. US zoning codes with functional separation and overwhelming amounts of single family zoning, is a huge part of the homelessness crisis.
I disagree. Many homeless people are drug addicts & have psychological issues. Many people cannot afford to leave their situations in the city. Rent is very high in metro areas. There is inexpensive land available, but it's difficult to find & expensive and/or disruptive to change one's life to find the right area to live in.
> Here is an idea. If to have a continent store you need to buy a full block, have minimum parking for 200 people attached to 6-lane strode, your not gone get many 'small & local business' operating those stores.
Small towns have plenty of small businesses & they are great. They have soul & the people are far more pleasant. Also people can operate a business out of their homes. There are regulatory hurdles one must overcome to own a business, especially wrt food. Some states are better than others. California makes it particularly difficult to start a small business for example. Business friendly states such as Texas, Tennessee, Florida enable more small businesses. Also, the cost of rent of a store front, electricity costs, commodity costs also affect the feasibility of a small business.
> If to buy a coffee you have to go into a huge parking lot and then wait at the Starbucks drive threw for 10 min, then you are not gone have many 'small & medium' business operating those business.
There are many cafes that are small businesses. I have not had a Starbucks in years. I prefer organic cafes myself. The large chains tend to not be as healthy or tasty.
I've even bought home cooked meals & meals cooked on a neighborhood grill outside the house. Not legal because there was no commercial kitchen, but it was very tasty & I wish it was legal.
> If your commercial zoning plots are 80x80m and your not allowed to develop it in a mixed use way, your not gone get many local and small business.
I would love more mixed use zoning & I think most people in the USA agree. It would reduce the need to commute. Business friendly states, communities, & unincorporated/low regulatory towns tend to allow more mixed used housing/businesses. There are large interests who don't want such freedom though as it would affect local/regional markets.
> Stop blaming foreign considerations, credit markets, those are all things directly related land use policy.
I don't need a lecture. I'm just stating facts. You may not like them but they are still here whether you want me to acknowledge them or not.
> These are choices made by Americans, by American planners and American governments. Foreign interest didn't do any of those things, and foreign interest are not trying to destroy America.
Not true. There's plenty of money from foreign entities that are influencing the media, politics, land ownership, etc. Large tracts of farmland are bought by Americans & foreigners with no intention of the owners living on the land. BlackRock among other multinational companies own huge swaths of property to rent...leading to an increase in rental prices. People who buy a bunch of AirBnB's & now prices are going astronomical.. This is more of an American phenomenon but there's also foreign capital involved. Much of the rental owneship is leveraged with credit, making it more expensive to rent & to one to own one's own house.
Don't get me wrong, I love people from other countries, but there are high net worth people who influence the state of affairs with their money from all over the world.
This will probably correct in a more favorable direction once the USD stops being the world reserve currency. It is far less expensive to buy property in Italy or India than it is over in the US, but there is still plenty of inexpensive land available which can be bought without credit.
> I would actually like to visit the US more, as I like the US, but in most places without a car is simply not very practical and I can't drive.
You might like NYC. You don't need a car there. Uber/Lyft is available in other areas. The SF Bay Areas has BART & the bus system, though I would steer clear of some parts of Oakland. Downtown LA or Venice, CA are doable without a car. Chicago, parts of Miami, Austin, Nashville, etc. are nice. Smaller towns with a nice downtown area & a college scene tend to also be good. I guess it depends on what you like.
I really like the Asheville NC area...it's magical here in nearby small towns outside of the city. But having a car is nice. I'll need to look more into the public transportation options. Ashland, OR, Shasta, CA, Boulder, CO, or Colorado Springs are really nice & doable without cars if you like nature, good water, & you get to know people there. I know people in those areas & I think you would do well there.
If you like hiking, there are long trails such as the Appalacian trail or the High Sierra tail.
Take a look at Eva Zu Beck, who is a German national. She has a converted Land Rover but has some great stories about traveling up & down North & South America.
We should, of course, protect the environment but we’ve gotta find a way to do that which is efficient and doesn’t waste public funds (where that current waste ironically could then be diverted into meaningful projects to protect the environment!).