Decaying D.C. bridge reflects state of thousands of bridges nationwide

[cpzilliacus]

Washington Post: Decaying D.C. bridge reflects state of thousands of bridges nationwide

A dozen blocks from the dome of the U.S. Capitol, a bridge rots away in silence as 70,000 drivers roar across it each day.

Now and then a chunk of concrete shakes loose from its underside and plops into the river below, but mostly it is quiet corrosion that has eaten holes through the thick steel beams that were laid in place six decades ago. Most are the size of a quarter or no bigger than a paper dollar, but one girder looks like something that has been gnawed on by rats, so riddled with gapping holes that no wise man would dare stand on it.

[wxfree]

This whole line of events, with our infrastructure collapsing, reminds me of something I heard at a county commissioners' meeting a few years ago.  They were discussing the construction of a new court building.  One of the commissioners said right at the beginning "we won't be able to build a large beautiful stone structure like the courthouse we have now."  Now it's probably true that it would be wasteful to build something so extravagant, but it made me wonder how we got this attitude that we simply can't build things the way they were built before.

I mean this to be related to the topic because it shows the attitude our leaders seem to have, with our bridges rotting away and other infrastructure failing, while we stand around not knowing what to do about it.  Our parents and grandparents built this stuff with, compared with what we have now, nearly Stone Age technology.  And now in the modern age we simply can't figure out how to do what they did years ago.  Are we as a society truly so incompetent?

The well-known political dysfunction is one element of our broader failure.  Less visible, but also very important, are all the rusting bridges and leaking water lines.  Everyone knows the problem, everyone knows what's needed to fix it, we just can't seem to make it happen.  While other nations are building modern societies, ours is falling apart.  While claiming to be the greatest nation on earth, we can't pass a national budge, or even fill potholes.

[Scott5114]

But the political dysfunction is exactly the cause of the broader failure. We have trained our legislators to be so scared of raising taxes, for any purpose, that they are afraid to do so, lest they be voted out of office. They are afraid of taking on debt, too, which means they simply try to avoid spending any money at all. So they cheap out on things. New public buildings are bland, bridges are put off 'til next year, then the next.

[Zmapper]

Costs also tend to be higher than in the past, with the result being that less bang for the buck being possible. At current NYC SAS subway costs, it would take a trillion dollars to construct the entire NYC subway from scratch. I recall the MTA Chair Joe Lhota mentioning that what takes 25 workers to do in NYC can be done in Madrid with just nine.

There is no logical reason for the Tappan Zee replacement bridge to cost 5 billion, while essentially the same bridge can be built for 700 million in South Carolina. Coincidentally, if you adjust for inflation the same 700 million today was about the price tag of the Tappan Zee back in 1955. Unless and until the cost escalation problem is addressed, we will be stuck with worse infrastructure than what we could have.

[mgk920]

Costs also tend to be higher than in the past, with the result being that less bang for the buck being possible. At current NYC SAS subway costs, it would take a trillion dollars to construct the entire NYC subway from scratch. I recall the MTA Chair Joe Lhota mentioning that what takes 25 workers to do in NYC can be done in Madrid with just nine.

There is no logical reason for the Tappan Zee replacement bridge to cost 5 billion, while essentially the same bridge can be built for 700 million in South Carolina. Coincidentally, if you adjust for inflation the same 700 million today was about the price tag of the Tappan Zee back in 1955. Unless and until the cost escalation problem is addressed, we will be stuck with worse infrastructure than what we could have.

The only thing that I can think of to explain that obscene inefficiency, and I'll likely get totally reamed for saying it, is one word:

'unions'.



Mike

[brad2971]

Costs also tend to be higher than in the past, with the result being that less bang for the buck being possible. At current NYC SAS subway costs, it would take a trillion dollars to construct the entire NYC subway from scratch. I recall the MTA Chair Joe Lhota mentioning that what takes 25 workers to do in NYC can be done in Madrid with just nine.

There is no logical reason for the Tappan Zee replacement bridge to cost 5 billion, while essentially the same bridge can be built for 700 million in South Carolina. Coincidentally, if you adjust for inflation the same 700 million today was about the price tag of the Tappan Zee back in 1955. Unless and until the cost escalation problem is addressed, we will be stuck with worse infrastructure than what we could have.

The only thing that I can think of to explain that obscene inefficiency, and I'll likely get totally reamed for saying it, is one word:

'unions'.



Mike

South Carolina may be a Right-to-Work state, but it still doesn't exempt the state from Davis-Bacon laws governing their cable-stay bridge in Charleston. It just so happens that SC prevailing wages are...considerably lower than that of NY. Not to mention, SC doesn't have nearly as many...noise-making constituencies (you think Westchester/Rockland suburbanities of either party are going to sit idly by if an attempt to rush through a new Tappen Zee on the cheap is made?).

[triplemultiplex]

I'm always suspicious when someone tries to pin the blame on a single entity; especially the people on the bottom.  It takes a larger salary to support a family in New York than it does in the anti-union South because the cost of living is higher in places with a lot of people.  And that doesn't even begin to get into the difference in cost of materials and energy and right of way.  The collusion of corporation and government seems like an equally valid source of added cost, especially in the context of the last 30 years.  But I'm not going to claim something like unions are entirely blameless; that's as absurd a notion as trying to pin all the blame on them.  I'll simply call bullshit on trying to pin a complex, multi-factor problem entirely on something you don't like.


Also, not knowing very much about the Tappan Zee's replacement, I feel like that $5 billion is made up; a rounded up number from the most expensive alternative or something.

[brad2971]

This whole line of events, with our infrastructure collapsing, reminds me of something I heard at a county commissioners' meeting a few years ago.  They were discussing the construction of a new court building.  One of the commissioners said right at the beginning "we won't be able to build a large beautiful stone structure like the courthouse we have now."  Now it's probably true that it would be wasteful to build something so extravagant, but it made me wonder how we got this attitude that we simply can't build things the way they were built before.

I mean this to be related to the topic because it shows the attitude our leaders seem to have, with our bridges rotting away and other infrastructure failing, while we stand around not knowing what to do about it.  Our parents and grandparents built this stuff with, compared with what we have now, nearly Stone Age technology.  And now in the modern age we simply can't figure out how to do what they did years ago.  Are we as a society truly so incompetent?

The well-known political dysfunction is one element of our broader failure.  Less visible, but also very important, are all the rusting bridges and leaking water lines.  Everyone knows the problem, everyone knows what's needed to fix it, we just can't seem to make it happen.  While other nations are building modern societies, ours is falling apart.  While claiming to be the greatest nation on earth, we can't pass a national budge, or even fill potholes.

You may not like hearing this, but those county commissioners are correct. Presuming this is Texas you're talking about, the days of the new courthouse "arms race" (TX had theirs from the 1890s to just before the Great Depression) are indeed over. Low cost function is the name of the game, and it most certainly applies to today's highways.

I'll just merely note that I find it interesting that nowhere in that WaPo article is it mentioned that road traffic has essentially stagnated since about 2004. And since the states/munis are getting more creative in financing their improvements, it stands to reason that they'll most likely ditch those increasingly unrealiable 2030 traffic assumptions as well.

[kkt]

Costs also tend to be higher than in the past, with the result being that less bang for the buck being possible. At current NYC SAS subway costs, it would take a trillion dollars to construct the entire NYC subway from scratch. I recall the MTA Chair Joe Lhota mentioning that what takes 25 workers to do in NYC can be done in Madrid with just nine.

There is no logical reason for the Tappan Zee replacement bridge to cost 5 billion, while essentially the same bridge can be built for 700 million in South Carolina. Coincidentally, if you adjust for inflation the same 700 million today was about the price tag of the Tappan Zee back in 1955. Unless and until the cost escalation problem is addressed, we will be stuck with worse infrastructure than what we could have.

The only thing that I can think of to explain that obscene inefficiency, and I'll likely get totally reamed for saying it, is one word:

'unions'.



Mike

You're right... you will get reamed.  Blaming the union is BS.  The workers who built the bridge in 1955 were unionized.  Workers in other countries who are outcompeting us economically are either unionized or use government to enjoy a standard of living comparable to unionized workers here (salary, medical care, holidays, retirement plan).

What we have and other countries don't is salaries for senior executives that are completely detached from the salaries of the rest of the country, or from whether their business is making money.  And a government that's afraid to charge taxes for things that cost money.

[SteveG1988]

What we built yesteryear cannot be built today without a huge increase in cost for another reason.

Cost of materials is higher.

Back in the 50s the United States produced....everything. All our metals came from within. Nowadays, we have exhausted our supplies of everything, for example we no longer produce our own oil, so we import it. That adds cost to any constuction project, The metal we use has to come from somewhere as well, so that adds cost due to transporting it.

To go back to the SC/NY comparison.

In SC fuel costs less, so they have lower overhead.

In NY any truck has to pay an extra tax (i work at a trucking company, we just got told to place NY tax stickers on all trucks that go to NY) to drive. So that adds cost.

[Duke87]

The only thing that I can think of to explain that obscene inefficiency, and I'll likely get totally reamed for saying it, is one word:

'unions'.

You're right... you will get reamed.  Blaming the union is BS.  The workers who built the bridge in 1955 were unionized.  Workers in other countries who are outcompeting us economically are either unionized or use government to enjoy a standard of living comparable to unionized workers here (salary, medical care, holidays, retirement plan).

The problem isn't the existence of unions, it's the ridiculous work rules they have around here nowadays. What you end up with is that for every guy who's doing something at any given time there are three guys standing there watching. But all of these guys are of course on the clock the whole time. I wouldn't say the workers are overpaid, but there are more of them on the payroll than necessary - as was said before in reference to Second Avenue Subway construction: there's a job being done with 25 guys which in Madrid is done with 9. Madrid does not have more advanced technology or greater automation, they just have workers who are more productive.

The fact that employers have to provide medical care as a benefit to their employees in this country (as opposed to it being provided centrally by the government) also messes with the apparent cost of labor compared to elsewhere in the world since the accounting is different. Those aforementioned workers in Madrid don't have their employer directly paying for their health insurance - that bill is sent to another department, and while it still has to be paid, it isn't counted as part of construction costs.

[kkt]

The only thing that I can think of to explain that obscene inefficiency, and I'll likely get totally reamed for saying it, is one word:

'unions'.

You're right... you will get reamed.  Blaming the union is BS.  The workers who built the bridge in 1955 were unionized.  Workers in other countries who are outcompeting us economically are either unionized or use government to enjoy a standard of living comparable to unionized workers here (salary, medical care, holidays, retirement plan).

The problem isn't the existence of unions, it's the ridiculous work rules they have around here nowadays. What you end up with is that for every guy who's doing something at any given time there are three guys standing there watching. But all of these guys are of course on the clock the whole time. I wouldn't say the workers are overpaid, but there are more of them on the payroll than necessary - as was said before in reference to Second Avenue Subway construction: there's a job being done with 25 guys which in Madrid is done with 9. Madrid does not have more advanced technology or greater automation, they just have workers who are more productive.

The fact that employers have to provide medical care as a benefit to their employees in this country (as opposed to it being provided centrally by the government) also messes with the apparent cost of labor compared to elsewhere in the world since the accounting is different. Those aforementioned workers in Madrid don't have their employer directly paying for their health insurance - that bill is sent to another department, and while it still has to be paid, it isn't counted as part of construction costs.

Maybe in some unions.  That hasn't been my experience at all, though, as my job went from nonunionized to unionized about 2002.  No change in work rules or working conditions, just small pay increases where we would have continued to get nothing without the union.

I would expect most union members would jump at the chance to be more productive if it was really that easy.  It's not really that much fun to be standing around doing nothing most of the day.

[cpzilliacus]

Costs also tend to be higher than in the past, with the result being that less bang for the buck being possible. At current NYC SAS subway costs, it would take a trillion dollars to construct the entire NYC subway from scratch. I recall the MTA Chair Joe Lhota mentioning that what takes 25 workers to do in NYC can be done in Madrid with just nine.

The Davis-Bacon Act is one reason, but I think the extensive environmental process and paperwork requirements imposed by NEPA and associated case law add years of delay and controversy, and above all cost, to new projects.

One other reason for higher cost today on construction projects also has to do with desirable safety laws and rules.

There is no logical reason for the Tappan Zee replacement bridge to cost 5 billion, while essentially the same bridge can be built for 700 million in South Carolina. Coincidentally, if you adjust for inflation the same 700 million today was about the price tag of the Tappan Zee back in 1955. Unless and until the cost escalation problem is addressed, we will be stuck with worse infrastructure than what we could have.

Work rules associated with (union) labor has something to do with this, and presumably accounts for some of the higher cost in New York when compared to South Carolina (though I am not sure that any of the bridges in Charleston, S.C. are as long or as wide as the replacement Tappan Zee structure has to be).  And even in South Carolina, contractors must pay "prevailing" (union scale) wages, as required by Davis Bacon.

[roadfro]

The problem isn't the existence of unions, it's the ridiculous work rules they have around here nowadays. What you end up with is that for every guy who's doing something at any given time there are three guys standing there watching. But all of these guys are of course on the clock the whole time. I wouldn't say the workers are overpaid, but there are more of them on the payroll than necessary - as was said before in reference to Second Avenue Subway construction: there's a job being done with 25 guys which in Madrid is done with 9. Madrid does not have more advanced technology or greater automation, they just have workers who are more productive.

That "3 people watching for every one person working" issue isn't necessarily from unions. In regards to underground work, that is an OSHA policy. Some of these things that the average person sees as wasteful are actually there for the safety of the workers...

[Duke87]

That "3 people watching for every one person working" issue isn't necessarily from unions. In regards to underground work, that is an OSHA policy.

I am not finding any OSHA standards which speak to number of workers required to complete a given task, operate a given machine, or be on a given jobsite. Can you point me to where I might find what you're referencing?

[NE2]

mmmm bacon.

[cpzilliacus]

The fact that employers have to provide medical care as a benefit to their employees in this country (as opposed to it being provided centrally by the government) also messes with the apparent cost of labor compared to elsewhere in the world since the accounting is different. Those aforementioned workers in Madrid don't have their employer directly paying for their health insurance - that bill is sent to another department, and while it still has to be paid, it isn't counted as part of construction costs.

Providing health care through employers, as is standard practice in the United States, is crazy, and it puts the nation at a disadvantage as compared to other nations with "socialized" health care. 

[vdeane]

In NY it's normal for unions to have a rule saying that only one person can do certain jobs.  For example, if you spill your milk at lunch, it's technically illegal for you to clean it up if the janitor is union.  I can see how this would lead to needing more people - if those jobs need to all be done at once at any point in the project, suddenly you need to have a full-time person for each during the whole project, rather than just hiring temp workers for when you need everyone and sharing the work the rest of the time.