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MarquisEXB t1_jb0izqb wrote

Reply to comment by EdgeOrnery6679 in If you’re ever annoyed by service changes because of “Track Repair”, never forget the hard work behind them that keeps our subway alive. by beechcraft10

That's actually not the reason why. If you figure the a average worker gets $50k or even $100k a year it would take hundreds or thousands of them doing nothing to equal to the tens and hundreds of millions lost to huge projects.

A study showed the reason costs overrun more in the US is because different government agencies poach from such an undertaking. For instance they needed a place to store stuff for the 2nd Ave subway, and they wanted to use a local playground for a few months. The parks department charged them an exorbitant amount (tens of millions of IRC) to do so.

In other countries government agencies act in unison. Here in the US city, state, federal are all separate, and hence it makes doing large projects more difficult and costly. Additionally underfunding our government makes them "thirsty" for these opportunities when they arise.

We sold our souls by cutting taxes to corporations and the wealthy and we end up paying for it in taxes, fees, and crumbling infrastructure.

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ChunkofWhat t1_jb2232m wrote

I have read that the use of contractors is also a huge driver of cost. In the early and mid 20th century, NYC had a small army of public planners, engineers, draftspersons, and architects on the payroll for public works. As dedicated staff, they were familiar with their specialized area of work and were well integrated into the bureaucracy. After decades of budget slashing, most of those public servants are gone, and now the city must hire contractors who are not well integrated into the city planning system, who must do research and extra planning for jobs they are less familiar with, and who command a far higher hourly rate.

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Not_FinancialAdvice t1_jb0wtj3 wrote

> A study showed the reason costs overrun more in the US is because different government agencies poach from such an undertaking. For instance they needed a place to store stuff for the 2nd Ave subway, and they wanted to use a local playground for a few months. The parks department charged them an exorbitant amount (tens of millions of IRC) to do so.

I think part of this is due to a management philosophy where every department has to make a profit. As a result, deoartments that are typically cost centers "bill" other departments for their services internally. From one perspective, this makes sense; that means some departments need to keep operations tidy to keep from dumping work on another while walking away with all the proceeds from messy work. Put differently, its basically a method for accounting for all costs of their operations within a sub-organization. Unfortunately, it also means more overhead and can lead to its own issues (as you mentioned).

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