[HN Gopher] UK's infrastructure is too expensive: Railways, Tram...
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UK's infrastructure is too expensive: Railways, Trams, and Roads
all cost more
Author : kilotaras
Score : 78 points
Date : 2023-08-26 17:01 UTC (6 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.samdumitriu.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.samdumitriu.com)
| ricardobeat wrote:
| Can someone explain in plain numbers how _one mile_ of railroad
| can cost PS396 million unless the whole thing is cutting through
| the city center?
| [deleted]
| doublerabbit wrote:
| Corruption.
| franciscop wrote:
| We at Spain are the (western Europeans) kings of corruption
| and we still build very cheap according to the article, so
| that doesn't explain it:
|
| https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-26014387
| nextos wrote:
| Spain has a long tradition in civil engineering and is able
| to reach some of the lowest costs per km in multiple
| infrastructures, despite a difficult landscape, and execute
| complex projects well. Two things really help:
|
| * Government has an engineering corps that draft really
| detailed specs for all projects, and ensure compliance
|
| * Laws that allow confiscating land in the name of public
| interest
|
| The second item tends to be problematic in common law
| frameworks typical of the Anglosphere.
| DrBazza wrote:
| Hs2 is going through the most densely populated part of the Uk,
| and in tunnels.
|
| And in addition to queuing, we also seem to enjoy bureaucracy.
| There will have been a decade of planning employing dozens if
| not hundreds of people before a shovel is in the ground.
|
| Then of course every new station has to be 'special' in some
| way. So we pay some architects firm absurd amounts to use
| Tibetan Yak hair insulated, Alaskan larch clad stations for
| some weird Green box ticking exercise.
| ricardobeat wrote:
| As the article points out, Japan is densely populated and
| builds at 1/4 of the cost. That alone cannot explain it.
| throwaway5959 wrote:
| Graft.
| DrBazza wrote:
| We don't do viaducts over streets or houses. We have to
| tunnel under tunnels, and so much bureaucracy. Newts on the
| site? Need to be moved. Some other animals? Need to wait a
| year to move them. Bats? Careful there. Well motivated
| neighbourhood group? Some sort of legal challenge.
| Protestors in tunnels that can't be removed for months. The
| list is endless.
| [deleted]
| erremerre wrote:
| You need to prove that the construction of the train is not
| going to affect negatively the area environmentally.
|
| This translates as, you need to dry boreholes along the place,
| take samples, send the samples to a laboratory, get the data,
| save the data, store the data, build a system that deals with
| the data (because different laboratories have different
| methods) standardise everything, and present the data. You need
| to do that every month or so.
|
| You need to make sure that the watercourses are suitable for
| fishes and other animals. 40 years ago, you had a watercourse,
| you threw a 200mm pvc pipe, call it a culvert and carry on. Now
| if you really want to preserve the watercourse you need a super
| oversized culvert that can contain the whole watercourse. But
| such a culvert is dangerous (people can go inside), so you need
| to install a grill. Now you need to study the flood risk of the
| culvert with a blocked grill.
|
| That is in addition to the multiple flood risk assessment that
| need to be done for a linear project, basically one for each
| watershed that it crosses. An what if the design changes for
| whatever reason, like not being compliant with the flood risk
| assessment? Oh you need to start again, and repeat everything.
|
| Plus in engineering, every time you change something in any of
| the steps, you need at least 4 pair of eyes to check the
| change.
|
| So the reason is bureaucracy. These rules are important, but in
| linear engineering projects, they do impose a high toll on the
| project price, because you need to make sure they comply on
| every mile of the project.
|
| That is from my point of view, I am pretty sure there are other
| stuff that increases the price.
| 7952 wrote:
| It is just good design. But that includes a lot of things
| that cross traditional discipline boundaries. So there is a
| large communication overhead between different teams.
| MichaelZuo wrote:
| Spot on, a 2x increase in complexity can easily increase
| final cost by 20x in the real world, 5x by 50x, etc...
| bluescrn wrote:
| Decades of government trying to keep property prices pumped up
| to ridiculous levels
| LightBug1 wrote:
| Overpriced contracts given to political allies comes to mind.
|
| De rigueur for the UK ... even when peoples lives depend on the
| subject of those contracts.
|
| We're a rotten/ing country.
| loxs wrote:
| Infrastructure is not expensive. Massive over-regulation,
| bureaucracy an over-taxation is expensive.
| skywhopper wrote:
| Does the UK or US have more of this than France?
| Guvante wrote:
| 132 miles of railways is never going to be cheap.
|
| It can be cheaper of course but never cheap.
| readthenotes1 wrote:
| "was estimated to cost about PS56.7bn in 2023 prices. But this
| proved to be a massive underestimate. The 134 miles of track
| between London and Birmingham alone is now forecast to cost
| PS53bn,"
|
| How is -PS3.7bn a massive _under_ estimate. Usually coming in
| under estimate is a good thing (outside of govt and consulting,
| of course)
| AS37 wrote:
| The article says the original estimate was for tracks between 4
| cities, not 2.
| Dfiesl wrote:
| The original PS56.7bn estimate was from London all the way to
| Leeds. Whereas the PS53bn figure they quoted is just for London
| to Birmingham which is only about half way to Leeds.
| DanielVZ wrote:
| It says a part of the project now costs almost as much as the
| whole previous estimate. Emphasis on "alone".
| neovialogistics wrote:
| > HS2, a train route, has so far been more expensive per mile
| than the Large Hadron Collider.
|
| I reckon a couple economists could get a bestselling book out of
| this.
| whatshisface wrote:
| It's an electron bound state nevercollider.
| lowbloodsugar wrote:
| I feel like the pound is strong against other currencies because
| of the city of London and arms sales (and what's behind those).
| But it's spending power inside the UK is shit. People just don't
| make much money compared to how much things cost. I moved to the
| USA when the pound was worth two dollars, but I earned far more
| dollars and those dollars bought more.
|
| Britain is a tiny overpopulated island with legacy law and
| property problems that effectively has serfdom. It got powerful
| because it had the right ingredients for the Industrial
| Revolution but all the reasons that made the revolution happen
| are all reasons that weigh on it now.
|
| It is already a failed state.
| [deleted]
| RobinL wrote:
| UK citizen here.
|
| I earn poor money relative to a comparative US citizen, but I
| wouldn't swap places if given the chance.
|
| I walk my kids to school, and local schools are pretty good.
|
| I cycle them a couple miles down the canal to the local sports
| centre for cheap swimming and recreation. I have many free high
| quality playgrounds nearby within walking and cycling distance,
| and streams and woods to play in. As a result my family can get
| away with a single medium sized car and use it infrequently.
|
| I don't think there are many places in the - especially
| affluent areas - where this would be the case in the US, but I
| may be wrong.
|
| I paid little for university and get free healthcare, which has
| been excellent quality whenever I've needed it (including for
| the birth of my two kids).
|
| My employer gives me 30 days leave a year, with the option to
| buy more (and I do). There's no implicit pressure not to. I was
| able to take 6 months of after the birth of each of my kids on
| shared parental leave, which my employer had a legal duty to
| allow me if asked.
|
| There are many beautiful historical places to visit for little
| money. The coast in any direction is within a day's drive and a
| varied holidays can be had without flying.
|
| My country has in the pipeline 100GW of wind power, meaning
| that in a couple of decades energy is likely to be abundant and
| cheap if on a smart plan.
|
| We do lots wrong as a country, and I haven't listed the
| negatives, but Britain is far from a failed state.
| hsjqllzlfkf wrote:
| Have you ever lived anywhere else other than the UK? Almost
| everywhere in Europe has all the nice things you described,
| but cost of living is lower (parity adjusted - meaning you
| make less than in London in absolute terms, but the money
| buys you more quality of life).
| RobinL wrote:
| I agree, Europe's great too!
| baybal2 wrote:
| Should people in the West start calling things their names?
| Public sector corruption, not unlike at all what once plagued
| Eastern European countries. I see the problem as very similar in
| nature, despite dramatically different origins.
|
| The difference I see though, is that much of Eastern Europe
| hardcore criminalized things which would not amount to a crime at
| all in Western legal systems, and not pass the extreme standards
| of proof.
|
| 1. Look for nepotism in appointments
|
| 2. Illogical high profile job competitions
|
| 3. Oversized, omnibus projects
|
| 4. Strange demands in procurement tenders, or one intentionally
| made noncompetitive
|
| 5. Income beyond known means of supervising officials
|
| 6. Strange project structuring, and legal acrobatics
|
| 7. Illogical financing arrangements
|
| 8. Long periods of doing nothing to extract more fees
|
| 9. Unreasonable fees of intermediaries and third parties
| thesaintlives wrote:
| Enjoy: https://archive.ph/GjqCK
| supernova87a wrote:
| Isn't this an unavoidable curse of all maturing
| democratic/capitalistic countries and economies? As the society
| matures, and people's incomes and standard of living rises, and
| the apparatus for doing such projects grows, it gets more costly
| to build the infrastructure that powered the very same
| improvements to get there?
|
| Factors:
|
| People's labor is no longer so cheap to build stuff, they have
| more qualifications and alternatives to their labor and they want
| to be paid more.
|
| Government contracting becomes influenced by political /
| additional considerations.
|
| The projects get more and more complex and are no longer decided
| by just a few responsible people but dispersed among multiple
| agencies each with requirements.
|
| Regulations and standards increase.
|
| There are more people to insert their hands into the revenue
| streams and extract some value.
|
| Property now is worth something and has to be bought off.
|
| It goes on and on. I don't know if there are any good examples of
| where an advanced economy was able to avoid this increasing cost
| of basic infrastructure building, although of course, some
| countries manage to do it without the same levels of cost as the
| USA for example.
| rjh29 wrote:
| Japan.
| gurumeditations wrote:
| It's funny though, how productivity massively goes up per
| capita yet pay doesn't really change much and despite each
| person today being the equivalent of many multiple people from
| yesterday, capitalists complain about how they can't find
| enough affordable labor in a system known for its profit
| gouging and corruption. Something's not right here...
| jjav wrote:
| > Isn't this an unavoidable curse of all maturing
| democratic/capitalistic countries and economies?
|
| It seems to be, which is really ruining many aspects of
| society.
|
| One hears all the stories back from the 40s and 50s where a
| group of neighbors or interested people just got together,
| bought some materials and built up a club house or community
| center or pool or any number of things in a few weeks. So towns
| had all these amenities because they were cheap and easy to
| build comunally.
|
| Today to build even a small club house for the kids in the
| community for instance, you'll need to raise millions of
| dollars to pay off permits and inspections and lawyers and
| insurance and professional builders (since they won't let you
| build it yourself). So hardly anything can be done, nobody can
| afford it.
|
| Arguably sure, the quality of the club house today, if it could
| be built, is better. But does it matter? How much do we lose by
| not being able to build hardly anything? That clubhouse from
| the 50s might be a bit rough around the edges but in most cases
| it is still standing 70+ years later and has brought joy to
| counless people.
| hsjqllzlfkf wrote:
| No, it's a consequence of British rent-seeking culture, where
| all policy at the end of the day is evaluated by the question:
| does it make property prices go up or down, and if down we
| don't do it.
| c54 wrote:
| I'd agree with this except that France seems to be getting way
| better prices per mile, as mentioned in the article. What is
| France doing differently?
| majjam wrote:
| Id also suggest that France is much less densely populated
| than the UK - less inhabitants to work around.
| tpmx wrote:
| The population density of the UK (particularly England)
| feels staggering to this Swede.
|
| Some examples (people/km^2): England:
| 434 UK: 280 Germany: 239
| France: 118 EU: 109
| California: 98 Texas: 43 US:
| 37 Sweden: 26 All land: 16
| rich_sasha wrote:
| Yeah, UK by area is mostly Scotland, which is stunningly
| beautiful and quite empty. Also infrastructure there
| tends to be more basic; even main roads in the north of
| Scotland are often single lane with passing places.
|
| Wales and Northern Ireland are smallish by land and not
| very densely populated (?) but not massive outliers I'd
| think.
| 7952 wrote:
| Even the SE has areas with surprisingly low population
| density. Outside of the urban areas much of the land is
| protected against development as national park/AONB/green
| belt.
| devoutsalsa wrote:
| One of my favorite things in Scotland was everyone waving
| at each other as one car stopped on the passing space as
| the other car drove past.
| cameronh90 wrote:
| Sweden has about half the population of London. I am
| probably within walking distance of more people than live
| in Sweden.
| tpmx wrote:
| Sweden gets loads of tourists from e.g. Germany/The
| Netherlands just looking for peace/quietness.
|
| Where do English people go for that? Scotland?
| mschuster91 wrote:
| > Where do UK people go for that?
|
| Brits don't want quietness. Instead they go to Germany
| and drink until they can't stand upright - and then
| continue to drink until they pass out.
|
| Source: was a barkeeper many years ago in Munich. A group
| of half a dozen Manchester fans drank more in one night
| than what would last two days otherwise, it's absolutely
| insane. Australians also tend to drink a lot, but IME
| they tend to get rowdy when too drunk.
| Dfiesl wrote:
| Yeah Scotland's very much up there, its known for having
| some incredibly remote regions.
| sgt101 wrote:
| Interestingly India is 435!
| selectodude wrote:
| The NY Times did an expose on infrastructure expenses and
| found that France simply uses fewer people to build and
| doesn't waste time asking for peoples opinions.
|
| https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-
| subway-...
| itsibitzi wrote:
| This tracks.
|
| I live very close to several HS2 construction sites in
| London and frequently see dozens of people just stood
| around doing nothing.
| kwhitefoot wrote:
| France also has half the population density meaning that
| there are in fact fewer people to ask and fewer people
| negatively affected (per unit distance of rail for
| instance).
| AshamedCaptain wrote:
| These metrics are almost meaningless when you use them
| this generically -- for the same reason Spain is on the
| lower end of EU countries ranked by population density
| yet contains some of the most densely populated regions
| in all of Europe (as mentioned in the article). Moreso
| than Paris.
| jeromegv wrote:
| Paris Subway construction is much cheaper than anywhere
| in North America and yet they have a very high population
| density.
| selectodude wrote:
| Counterpoint: Paris.
| sgt101 wrote:
| Paris and the surrounding area is densely populated. The rest
| of France is very rural overall it comes in at 105 per km^2.
| England, in contrast is almost as densely populated as India
| (434 per km^2). There are a lot more places to put things in
| France. As a consequence land in France goes for about EUR6k
| per h, while in England it's closer to EUR30k.
|
| So - there's that.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Even if you do strict comparisons of only the capital,
| Parisian construction costs are lower than London's.
|
| Consider that they are building the RER E extension for
| about 3.8B EUR for 28km, and Crossrail was 18.8B GBP (21.9B
| EUR) for 42km.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| but barcelona is more densely populated than london, yet
| it's metro didn't cost as much.
|
| I've not seen a good reason to explain _why_ its so
| expensive.
| switch007 wrote:
| HS2 will never reach Euston, mark my words. All the money so far
| has just been the design phase of the station rebuild AIUI plus
| some preparatory work. They're going to spend PS200m just to
| pause the work. If it were completed at the current budget it
| would be the most expensive station in the world by some margin.
| Hence they'll go for the presumably cheaper option of terminating
| at Old Oak Common
|
| What an enormous waste of money on the existing work
|
| Edit: I double it'll ever reach Manchester. It'll just be
| Birmingham to turn it in to a commuter hub and for companies to
| get cheaper office space. I said this from the very beginning.
| Leeds was a total joke, Manchester somewhat believable if you are
| the kind of person to trust and believe London would ever fund
| such a project in the north lol. And here we are
| Simon_O_Rourke wrote:
| The UK is quickly becoming a failed state. It's interesting to
| see how their previous colonial possessions of India and Ireland
| are doing so well without their august tutelage.
| [deleted]
| joe__f wrote:
| We're not doing great at the moment but I think it's a bit of a
| stretch to say that we're becoming a failed state. Also it
| looks very likely that we'll have the right wing government
| that caused a lot of these issues in the last 10 years out at
| the next election.
| bemusedthrow75 wrote:
| I am not convinced we are not a failed state. Or that it's
| yet likely we will get rid of them at the next election.
| CalRobert wrote:
| Ireland's not too great at getting anything built either.
| gadders wrote:
| Most people in India don't have toilets. Not sure how that
| qualifies as "great".
| soligern wrote:
| Nonsense, the toilet issue has been resolved for the most
| part. Your arguments are from 2012.
| whatshisface wrote:
| Does anyone have the numbers?
| gadders wrote:
| 15% of the population don't have toilets which is over 200m
| people. I wouldn't call that resolved.
| soligern wrote:
| Sounds like it's way better than 60% a little less than a
| decade ago.
| shmde wrote:
| False. Numbers are now in the 15% of the whole population.[1]
|
| I know its a negative stereotype meme at this point and
| westerners love bringing this old number up whenever India
| does something good but please do better next time.
|
| [1]https://www.downtoearth.org.in/news/rural-water-and-
| sanitati...
| gadders wrote:
| That's still a lot for a country sending rockets to the
| moon.
| [deleted]
| orwin wrote:
| Take into account that India is a federal state which,
| while densely populated on average, has very, very remote
| area (think pacohontas county, WV), lack water and
| industrialized recently. Some people in WV have no
| toilets either, so what?
| gadders wrote:
| People in WV open defecate in fields?
| madengr wrote:
| [dead]
| orwin wrote:
| Dry toilets and chamber pots are used in rural areas all
| over the world, yes? How city-centric must you be to not
| know that?
|
| But even in rural areas with easy road access (so not the
| area I talked about in WV), I can easely see people using
| dry toilets and putting their excretions in the field.
| It's not like DIY plumbing for sceptic tank is
| particularly easy or inexpensive, any person living off
| grid, by choice or necessity, might prefer 'defecate in
| fields' (ie: using dry toilets) imho.
|
| Now I remember how some urbanites think themselves above
| rural people from their own countries, I almost forgot.
| Parisians are not the only self-centered narcissists it
| seems.
| radicalbyte wrote:
| Oh the UK are absolutely catching up - they've started by
| just dumping raw sewage into the rivers and beaches.
|
| Give it another 20 years of Tory leadership and there will be
| a complete reverse.
| bemusedthrow75 wrote:
| For context, those raw sewage events ( _untreated sewage_ ,
| strictly -- it is usually mechanically processed but not
| chemically, I think) have always happened infrequently
| (e.g. in storm situations).
|
| They are meant to be exceptionally rare events because
| sewage bubbling up into sinks is unacceptable. (This is a
| small, densely populated country and it has to go
| somewhere.)
|
| They used to be more common into the 1980s, and then
| regulation and modernisation caused the rates to drop
| dramatically.
|
| They are by no means constant events but the numbers have
| risen in a way that suggests that the penalties are now
| cheaper than the remedial work and the risk of consequences
| is collapsing. Not sure if the risks are on the same scale
| as they were before those regulations were enforced, but
| people are rightly concerned about the increase; we have
| slid down the rankings in terms of beach and river water
| quality in the EU:
|
| https://www.newstatesman.com/chart-of-the-day/2022/08/uk-
| dir...
|
| I don't think the UK is unique in this, alas, and to be
| fair I would still rather have this than issues with
| drinking water. The water that comes out of the taps in the
| UK is among the safest in the world:
|
| https://epi.yale.edu/epi-results/2020/component/h2o
| gadders wrote:
| [flagged]
| sbuk wrote:
| Based on? We had Growth the last time we had a Labour
| government. The ineptitude at every level of the current
| Tory party is staggering. Added to the rampant nepotism
| and other forms of corruption, I'd argue it's virtually
| impossible for any Labour government to do any worse.
| joe__f wrote:
| Lucky for you it looks like if you wait till next May and
| then 20 months you'll get to find out
| bemusedthrow75 wrote:
| Why next May? I reckon they will push it all the way to
| December again.
| zadler wrote:
| Cycle of life
| hkt wrote:
| [flagged]
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