Cost of Infrastructure in US (1 Viewer)

[GroveDiesel]

Infrastructure Costs in US

I think this is so extraordinarily important to get figured out/under control. I don’t think there’s any question that our infrastructure is aging and badly in need to repairs/upgrades/expansions.

But the problem is that our costs seem to be 3-5 times higher than almost anywhere else in the world. That seems to be creating a negative cycle where we don’t do more projects because they’re so expensive, but one of the reasons they are so expensive is that they’re poorly managed because there is a lack of expertise in doing these projects and that ends up increasing costs.

 

[worrierking]

Here's one for you that fits this thread: https://reason.com/2022/01/05/st-louis-taxpayers-paid-a-lot-to-run-a-money-losing-streetcar-it-could-cost-them-even-more-to-shut-it-down/

 

[The General]

This and health care costs seem to be problematic.

 

[Boston]

Excellent article...with all the talk about infrastructure I'm surprised this post isn't getting more discussion...I'm glad this article discussed projects in Massachusetts because they are almost always a debacle...anything involving the MBTA is always a complete disaster, and they didn't even discuss the Big Dig which was a Hall-of-Fame boondoggle...whenever you get the initial cost of one of these projects (which you know is pretty much a lie) you ask yourself are the politicians that are giving us that price inept or corrupt and unfortunately the answer is usually both...the big winners are always the Unions whose members just print $ during these projects...I know some guys who worked on the Big Dig and they made ungodly amounts of money and it was commonplace to get paid OT to literally just be on-site and do nothing...everyone knew it was going on but there was no oversight...infrastructure is something that should be politics-free and should have very substantial public support but as this article points out we are just flushing money down the toilet instead of reaping what should be the benefits...focus on accountability, delivering projects on-time and removing corruption, political favoritism and/or ineptness and this is an area that could get dramatically better but unfortunately the powers-that-be don't seem to have a big appetite for that part of infrastructure...but they do love saying that infrastructure word and asking for money for it, don't they.

 

[Stealthycat]

Here's one for you that fits this thread: https://reason.com/2022/01/05/st-louis-taxpayers-paid-a-lot-to-run-a-money-losing-streetcar-it-could-cost-them-even-more-to-shut-it-down/

here too

https://katv.com/news/local/if-little-rock-streetcar-riders-arent-paying-who-is

those street cars lose millions every year - at any point, any time of the day I can take pictures of them and they might have 2 or 4 people on them and often are empty