You can thank Obamacare.
You can thank Obamacare.
How many G.C.'s have the competence and financial wherewithal (including the ability to bond such a project) to pull off $1 billion plus bridge/road project? Not many. In combination with the risk of these projects, the returns on these projects should be very large. They are almost always over budget and take longer than expected. As a customer, the GC will try to change order you to death. If you aren't experienced, you will leak more dollars...
First of all, to HardLoper: you're a bore. If you bothered to read the DOT website you'd see that the 4.65 billion is funding a lot more than just the bridge; that's just one component of a larger infrastructure improvement project. But thanks for no doubt cutting and pasting your indignation from some equally predictable and jejeune anti-government hate site.
Second, to the GC: I don't get it. Your examples illustrate perfectly how the profit motive and the public good are incompatible concepts. I mean, you're admitting to fleecing government clients, and thus the taxpayers who fund them: I don't see how this is an indictment of the public bidding process so much as an admission of exploitation by you and folks like you. Is your post meant to make us feel angry at government or the private enterprises that take advantage of all of us?
And what's doubly frustrating is that you're just as predictable as HL. For you, as for him no doubt, the incompetence is all on the government side, never on the industry's, despite evidence that the company building this bridge has made mistakes and cost-cutting decisions (so, errors of omission and commission) that could result in massive failure and fatality. I have to ask: Does your neck get tired from constantly turning away from actual, observable facts?
Total bridge width including pontoons is 240 feet, vs. 60 ft for the old bridge.
By my calculations, that is 4x as wide.
The next Paul Ryan will have to inherit his money from somewhere.
Unless you been caught in traffic on that bridge you can't hope to appreciate the need for a more modern structure.
Bell View wrote:
36 times more Union waste and fraud.
Except that union membership has dropped precipitously between 1963 and now. Union membership in Washington State was 44.5% in 1964 and was just 17.1% in 2014. But yeah, sure, the unions are more powerful and more corrupt now and that's what's driving up cost.
http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/02/23/385843576/50-years-of-shrinking-union-membership-in-one-mapAccording to this wrote:
jjjjj wrote:If you read about it, you'll see that the new bridge is much larger (4x as wide), has two extra HOV lanes, plus bike paths, and can accommodate light rail in the future.
http://www.wsdot.wa.gov/Projects/SR520Bridge/About/BridgeFacts.htmIt is only 1.86 times as wide - 60 feet to 112 feet, from 4 lanes to 6.
Way to fail maths.
The original bridge costs a billion dollars in real dollars. Not only that, they are building a larger bridge, built to modern standards, for about the same price.
You should probably learn a little about calculating area too.
Good work rushing to another false conclusion.
luv2run wrote:
Does that factor in the cost of environmental impact studies?
Material cost has greatly increased along with labor costs (what is the law that requires union level pay).
I guarantee that the environmental document, even if an EIS, costs a fraction of the overall $4.65 billion construction cost.
TKTKTK wrote:
First of all, to HardLoper: you're a bore. If you bothered to read the DOT website you'd see that the 4.65 billion is funding a lot more than just the bridge; that's just one component of a larger infrastructure improvement project. But thanks for no doubt cutting and pasting your indignation from some equally predictable and jejeune anti-government hate site.
Second, to the GC: I don't get it. Your examples illustrate perfectly how the profit motive and the public good are incompatible concepts. I mean, you're admitting to fleecing government clients, and thus the taxpayers who fund them: I don't see how this is an indictment of the public bidding process so much as an admission of exploitation by you and folks like you. Is your post meant to make us feel angry at government or the private enterprises that take advantage of all of us?
And what's doubly frustrating is that you're just as predictable as HL. For you, as for him no doubt, the incompetence is all on the government side, never on the industry's, despite evidence that the company building this bridge has made mistakes and cost-cutting decisions (so, errors of omission and commission) that could result in massive failure and fatality. I have to ask: Does your neck get tired from constantly turning away from actual, observable facts?
Not all Government projects are ridiculous boondoggles and not every government contractor makes their living off of change orders. For every Big Dig in Boston there are projects like T-Rex in Denver, Colorado that come in ahead of schedule and under budget.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transportation_Expansion_ProjectIn general "design-build" projects like T-Rex deliver more practical and cost effective solutions. In Design-build the owner is not directly responsible for the engineering of the project. Instead developer/owner issues a Request For Proposal (RFP) with a Gross Maximum Price (GMP) and delivery date.
For ex: military maintenance and administration complex with 150,000 sq ft office space, 100,000 sq ft warehouse space, 16 bay heavy truck repair shop. Building and site must be current code compliant, secure, LEED Silver, smart Wifi throughout, and southwestern style appearance. Actual RFPs are obviously a lot more complicated than this but in general modern RFPs focus on functionality rather than exact technical requirements.
General Contractors and engineering firms partner up and submit proposal to Owner. Owner reviews proposals and selects most attractive proposal. From then on GC and engineer are jointly responsible for delivering project under GMP. If price goes over GMP because engineer left something out of the plans that is for the GC and Engineer to argue over, not the owner.
In Design-Build the Owner is still responsible for MAJOR changes like adding 50,000 sq feet of office space. But if a door needs to get moved to meet fire code or p'king lot concrete has to be thickened because civil engineering calcs were off then that is on GC-engineer not the owner.
For bridge and highway projects its worth noting that it is generally much simpler, cheaper, quicker to build a bridge/ highway from scratch than it is to expand/ repair an existing traffic structure. (Necessary demolition, staging, and traffic control costs add serious cost and time delays to expansion project as compared to blow and go linear progression of green field project.)
Yeah, sure wrote:
Bell View wrote:36 times more Union waste and fraud.
Except that union membership has dropped precipitously between 1963 and now. Union membership in Washington State was 44.5% in 1964 and was just 17.1% in 2014. But yeah, sure, the unions are more powerful and more corrupt now and that's what's driving up cost.
http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/02/23/385843576/50-years-of-shrinking-union-membership-in-one-map
100% of people working on the bridge are union members.
What happened to inflate costs? Alaskan Way Viaduct fiasco Bertha + sink hole. Fund that one somehow, Emerald City.
http://grist.org/cities/seattles-unbelievable-transportation-megaproject-fustercluck/
Except... wrote:
Yeah, sure wrote:Except that union membership has dropped precipitously between 1963 and now. Union membership in Washington State was 44.5% in 1964 and was just 17.1% in 2014. But yeah, sure, the unions are more powerful and more corrupt now and that's what's driving up cost.
http://www.npr.org/sections/money/2015/02/23/385843576/50-years-of-shrinking-union-membership-in-one-map100% of people working on the bridge are union members.
Building a larger bridge for slightly more than the cost of the original bridge in 2016 dollars. Yeah, those bad old unions.
sayer of you mad bro wrote:
Building a larger bridge for slightly more than the cost of the original bridge in 2016 dollars. Yeah, those bad old unions.
It's not slightly more dude. It's 36.6 times as much, that's why I started the topic.
wejo wrote:
A GC wrote:As someone who has worked as a PM for a general contractor and done government project here's my experience.
A lot of our government projects we pretty much knew we were going to get the job. Different groups have their preferred contractors and this hurts them as far as getting competitive bids. We definitely would have bid at lower prices for commercial customers. Also the government groups have so many ridiculous rules and specifications that drive up prices.
Also the government people I've worked with as a group were the most unknowledgeable incompetent group of people I've ever worked with, few exceptions. Projects always dragged on and had delays, all of which adds cost. Despite their massive spec books they always missed things or you could exclude things in the contract and they wouldn't notice. Then you charge them change orders that are marked up because they don't know better. And they don't put up the same fight financially since its the government whereas a company looking at its bottomline fights waste much harder.
For the construction industry things also just cost more now. Some of this has to do with over engineering and increased building code. A lot more administrative costs. Also increased safety and workplace condition standards make things take longer and more expensive.
And I'm sure with a government project that large there was some "deals with friends" that cost the government more.
Someone like this has to be bid out right? How would you know you're going to get the contract?
Or with this do most of the bidder know they'll get some part of it so they bod high.
I've privately railed against the cost of a lot of road projects so I'm glad to see this thread. Huge overpasses barely existested twenty years ago and now they are everywhere.
Our work was not road construction, a different construction field. But different government groups at both state and federal levels have preferred contractors. If you are one you know it and you can adjust your bid accordingly. The lowest bid doesn't always win a contract even in the private sector. There are a lot of other things to consider.
I've worked both sides of the game. I've been a PM for materials testing/geotech projects in the DC area, and now work on the government side as the client.
A) Regulations are 100x worse than they were in mid century 1900s. Everything. Environmental, Safety, Quality of work and products, all the QA/QC. A project that once needed five companies all together, now needs three dozen.
B) Government projects generally use the belts and suspenders approach. Use a factory of safety of 15. Make that s**t nukeproof.
C) You can't get by with chinese immigrants on projects anymore. Labor unions and prevailing wages exist.
As a structural engineer who works 90% in the private sector and 10% on government projects here are a few observations for why government projects cost so much. I should note that I work on buildings, not bridges.
1. Private sector work typically has two phases of design documents, a permit set and a construction set. Government work typically has five, a 15% set, a 50% set, an 85% set, a 95% set and a 100% set. After the design team gives each set to the government, the government then takes a minimum of 3 weeks to review the set and make comments. It normally takes more than 3 weeks. Not until all of this is done can construction start. In the private sector as soon as the city grants a permit the contractor is typically getting ready to break ground. As is often said, time is money.
2. The paper work for government projects is at least twice as bad as private projects. I say at least because there is probably more like 10x the amount of paper work.
3. RFP's (request for proposals) for small government projects (like a small two story office) will typically be about 1200 pages. Most of the RFP is worthless and no one knows what all is in it. Sometimes the contractor can take advantage of this and screw the government, sometimes the government can take advantage of this and screw the contractor. What it does, no matter what, is take time to filter through and try to understand. It also introduces extra risk, because again no one knows what all is in it,and risk costs money.
4. In the private sector if I have a question as a structural engineer I can either ask the architect or contractor who often has the authority to make the decision directly or they can go to the owner and get an answer quickly. Decisions are never made quickly by the government. There is a process to asking the question and a process for the government to respond to the question, and the time between asking the question and the response is never quick.
5. The excess time for decisions to be made by the government is due in large part to there being too many people involved in the decision making process. Not only do questions often have to filter up and down a chain of command, there are often just too many people who are allowed to put their two cents in.
6. The people working for the government are typically not the best and the brightest. It is too difficult to fire anyone from a governmental position meaning that not only do you have incompetent people who should have been fired long ago, but the best employees leave to work in the private sector because they get sick of working with/for incompetents.
in laymans' terms, see "Big Dig, Boston" about how gummint projects work.
Bid let at $2 Billion to be completed leak free within three years.Current cost: well over $15B and rising (along with the water in the tunnel). Time to "finish" six years, and that was eight years ago.
The project was managed by the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority, with the Big Dig and the Turnpike's Boston Extension from the 1960s being financially and legally joined by the legislature as the Metropolitan Highway System.[25] Design and construction was supervised by a joint venture of Bechtel Corporation and Parsons Brinckerhoff.
Bechtel Corporation and Parsons Brinckerhoff have the inside track in all federal government projects, from "rebuilding" Iraq, to road projects in the U.S.A.
Lead contractor Modern Continental filed bankruptcy.
The $15 billion Big Dig project, which replaced an elevated highway with an underground system of roads, has been plagued with problems, the most serious of which was the collapse of ceiling tiles in a tunnel in July 2006, which killed a passenger in a car, Milena Del Valle. Investigators have said that the wrong epoxy was used on the concrete ceiling tiles.
Federal information detailing the charges against Modern Continental refers to the death and the blowout of a slurry wall in 2004 that caused major traffic problems.
HardLoper wrote:
sayer of you mad bro wrote:Building a larger bridge for slightly more than the cost of the original bridge in 2016 dollars. Yeah, those bad old unions.
It's not slightly more dude. It's 36.6 times as much, that's why I started the topic.
Ok, now you've elevated yourself to Clown.
Real dollars. Look it up.
Bro's mad.
Sayer of you mad bro wrote:
HardLoper wrote:It's not slightly more dude. It's 36.6 times as much, that's why I started the topic.
Ok, now you've elevated yourself to Clown.
Real dollars. Look it up.
Bro's mad.
HardLoper's number was already inflation adjusted. Read the thread title clown
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