Watching the ongoing slow dripping failure of the Southwest Light Rail line, it’s temping to remember a time when American could actually accomplish big public infrastructure projects.
Forget for a moment the breezy authoritarianism that went behind such projects as “Urban Renewal” and driving interstates through neighborhoods with less clout than their neighbors – that’s part and parcel of government “getting things done” whether your goal is to drive from Cleveland to Detroit or to stop the spread of a disease with a 99+% survival rate.
But there was a time when this country did get big projects done; the canal system, the coastal forts, the transcontinental railroad, the Panama Canal, the Tennessee Valley Authroity (again, forget the low-grade totalitarianism), the Interstate Highway System.
Those days seem to be over. America just doesn’t finish big infrastructure jobs anymore.
It’s a long read – but this piece notes the dismal record of American public infrastructure work since the beginning and failure of California’s “High Speed Rail” (HSR):
Despite its failure, the HSR project inaugurated the U.S.’s megaproject era. Once a rare type of project, by 2018 megaprojects comprised 33 percent of the value of all U.S. construction project starts. An alarming number of these have spiraled out of control for many of the same reasons that killed the California bullet train. The decade that followed the financial crisis was a kind of inflection point in the industry; this was when construction projects became noticeably worse and when the long-term implications could no longer be ignored. One of the most cited studies of the U.S.’s declining ability to build reviewed 180 transit megaprojects across the country, revealing that today, U.S. projects take longer to complete and cost nearly 50 percent more on average than those in Europe and Canada.
Having joined Kiewit in 2010, I witnessed these changes first-hand. I have since moved on, but have remained in the broader industry, including working on what are called “strategic pursuits”—the process by which companies compete for megaprojects. This experience has provided insight into the mechanics of how these projects are awarded and why they so frequently fail.
You can fill in “Southwest LIght Rail” (and some Twin Cities-y locations) at virtually any point in the piece, and it still makes sense.
Those days seem to be over. America just doesn’t finish big infrastructure jobs anymore
Using the Southwest LIght Rail as your example seems a bit like a strawman. The transformation of the road to Mille Lacs from Rogers thru Elk River and eventually Zimmerman has been successful, authoritarian, and big. Heck, closer to the metro area, the massive transformation of I94 from Maple Grove thru Rogers and out to Monticello is ongoing.
Why? Because these roads have a purpose, they will be used, they are solving real world problems that (good) government tries to resolve. On the other hand, the whole Light Rail project exists so our metro planners would be cool and able to tell stories at metro planner conferences, rail aficionados will be able to get hard-ons, grifters will have a lot bigger pool of money to dip into than that provided by buses, and Jesse V would be able to drive his Porsche without all that damn traffic.
Compare and contrast: the replacement of the fallen I-35 bridge with any other bridges built on the beltway, notably the 494 bridges over the Mississippi. I-35 was done quickly and cheaply, the others dragged on for years and cost many times more.
As I look at the numbers, the thing that comes to mind is that an early sign that the wheels are coming off is cost overruns, and we might infer that what is really going on is that people are putting together a “lipstick” version for the voters and then a “pig” version for reality. There was a greater tolerance for fatalities–100 men died making Hoover Dam and 5 for the Empire State Building–but not for bad planning and going over budget.
Another thing that comes to mind (high speed rail in CA) is that a lot of projects today simply don’t make sense. If you can fly from LAX to SFO in 40 minutes, why take a train that takes 3 hours? If morale matters to productivity, and it does, meaningless busy work is going to be a killer.
I probably shared this in this forum before, but it’s relevant to this topic.
We all remember the the 35W – Crosstown highway interchange debacle. When I was a high school junior, I had a good friend who’s dad was a structural and highway engineer. He initially worked on that interchange project. According to him, that hard jog was a redesign. 35W was initially supposed to take only a slight bend, but be more of a straight shot, with East/west 62 traffic merging up to Diamond Lake Road. Anyone that knows that area, knows about the variety of housing and businesses in that area. It all boiled down to Centerpoint Energy (then Minnegasco) not willing to give up their maintenance facitly and the owner of several of the apartment complexes not willing to sell to the government to place supports, etc. Why the government didn’t use their standard tactic to steal privately owned land, was a mystery.
When that hard jog was designed, my friend’s dad decided that he didn’t want to have his name attached to the debacle that he knew it would be and resigned from the project.
I will say that the reconstruction project a few years ago, greatly improved traffic flow.
jdm beat me to the punch. All the “good ‘ole” projects were necessary, all the failed boondoggles, not so much. Necessary projects still get done, as in 35W rebuild as everyone pointed out. The premise of the article is wrong – as much as you may hate federal bloatness and overreach, necessary projects DO get done.
no d0g in the fight and still in moderation
darn, I do have a d0g in the fight, as in boond0ggle.
What the author calls the “principal-agent problem” is a problem that has been studied by economists for decades. Basically, the person whom you trust with your principal is incentivized to use your capital to server his interests and not your own.
What Balkus is talking about is actually a sub set of the principal-agent problem that is called the “public choice” problem.
From Econlib: As James Buchanan artfully defined it, public choice is “politics without romance.” The wishful thinking it displaced presumes that participants in the political sphere aspire to promote the common good. In the conventional “public interest” view, public officials are portrayed as benevolent “public servants” who faithfully carry out the “will of the people.” In tending to the public’s business, voters, politicians, and policymakers are supposed somehow to rise above their own parochial concerns.
Public choice theory has been criticized in some of details, but its foundation has never been debunked: politicians and bureaucrats aren’t working on your behalf, they are working on their own behalf or, at best, the interests of the institution in which they serve.
The proposed solutions to the principal-agent problem (and public choice problem) are greater oversight and more comprehensive rules about spending processes. But these solutions are never enough, because the principal-agent is highly incentivized to avoid oversight and to workaround rules governing the spending process.
The public choice problem shows that there is a limit to democratic liberalism. As more and more money is diverted to public spending, that money is spent less and less effectively. If you want an example, solar power subsidies intended to reduce pollution may create more pollution than NOT subsidizing solar power.
Public choice theory has been criticized in some of details, but its foundation has never been debunked: politicians and bureaucrats aren’t working on your behalf, they are working on their own behalf or, at best, the interests of the institution in which they serve
Thanks for that concise explanation. Sounds a lot like rule 3 of Conquest’s Three Laws of Politics, or the (consequences of the) Iron law of oligarchy.
Which means to me that understanding these problems is not the issue, it’s doing something about them that’s the problem.
MP’s point is seen historically very well in Illinois, where every boondoggle has some politician’s name attached to it.
Back in the 00’s, I was working for Siemens doing municipal water and wastewater treatment plants. These projects were managed by city engineers and the general contractor….sometimes the city acted as the general. The state water quality control people oversaw the project to ensure the plants met all state and federal standards.
I remember intensely tight schedules and financial penalties for missing milestones. The city staff knew what they had paid for, and demanded every last jot and tittle be lived up to.
The current clusterfuck in public projects is, I think, a reflection of the quality, or lack thereof, of the people that are going into public work.
This feels a lot like the MNLARS debacle. Only after the entire project blew up did the state pull the plug. Taxpayer dollars were wasted and no one was held accountable.
This seems like the Met Council saw those Federal dollars and just had to find a project to utilize them
The facts on the ground have changed dramatically since this project started. Those need to be taken into account now, before any more money is wasted.
What was the projected ridership of the NorthStar line? What is the actual experience now? My understanding is that ridership is far, far below projections—why won’t the same be true for Southwest Light Rail?
One big reason for ridership being down is that Minneapolis has been unwilling or unable to prevent crime on the existing light rail. Why will the Southwest light rail be different?
How will the demand for transportation to downtown be changed after Covid-19? How many more businesses will be forced out of downtown by the explosion of crime? Will the city have to buy those condos that are crumbling now from the stresses of the building the tunnel?
Rail is a 19th century transportation solution. It was terrific once upon a time. That time has passed. This project should never have been started, and now it should be stopped and environmental remediation begun. Don’t waste another taxpayer dollar.
The state’s IT department has been an illustration of dysfunction for at least 20 years. The right hand never knew what the left hand was doing. When I sold in the IT industry in the early 90s, my company was bidding on a project. I got to know one of the members of the project team, because we had the same sense of humor. She shared with that the lead evaluator for the bids was a consultant that would fly in from Chicago on Monday and leave at noon on Friday. He “wore $800 custom made suits and $300 shoes, billing the state $185 per hour, plus expenses.” No one knew how or why he got that gig. She also said that he supposedly had “other projects that he was working on”, but again, no one could identify any of them. She concluded her statements by telling me that stuff like that happens all the time.
Regarding light rail ridership, their fares are way behind the ridership to the tune of $1.5 million at last count in 2019. Too many riders not paying their fares and I’ve witnessed it myself. Next thing you know, they’ll waste another billion putting in turnstiles.
Academia has been churning out urban planners literary for generations. They are all taught the answers to every question: high density housing and mass transit. A little thing like a pandemic ain’t going to change them. You will get high density housing and mass transit. The process of urban planning is not now nor has it ever been a rational process.
^^ Your girl Pelosi arrived in Taiwan.
Good for her — democracies of the world should stick up for each other. The alternative is tyranny.
Quite frankly—this only acknowledges that containing the expansion of PRC military power in the Indo-Pacific is one of the few issues on which majorities of Democrats and Republicans agree. There are no indications that the November elections will alter this consensus.
President Joe Biden has completed his sixth quarter in office with a historically low average approval rating of 40%, according to a Friday Gallup poll.
This average represents the lowest sixth-quarter (which spans April 20 to July 19) results for a first-term president, and comes on the back of a July poll by Gallup which found Biden’s approval had fallen to 38% that month. Biden’s approval amongst independents fell to the lowest levels on record, with only 31% approving of his tenure, and his 78% approval among Democrats is tied for his lowest score with them, according to Gallup.
Even most 80 IQ leftist nitwits have had enough of Pedo Joe, leaving only the most spun, braindead reprobates to prop him up. He will not complete his term of office.
^^ Tell us you’re on the daily FSB propaganda talking points email list without telling us you’re on the daily FSB propaganda talking points email list.
Emery on August 2, 2022 at 12:24 pm said:
^^ Your girl Pelosi arrived in Taiwan.
Day drinking. I haven’t the foggiest idea what Emery is talking about.
Day drinking again, I suppose.
Emery now believes that Gallup is an FSB front.
Not even day drinking could scramble a guy’s brains that much, I’m guessing anti-depressants followed by a cocktail.
FSB front? A front side bus? The little weasel working on overclocking his CPU?
UMMP, when I said “leaving only the most spun, braindead reprobates to prop him up” I was picturing rAT Emery, guzzling his 6th G&T of the day. I knew that would jerk his chain, and cause an inchoate thought to bubble up into his wet, addled brain.
Many addicts are, at their core, flawed, weak minded people to begin with. rAT certainly fits that description. His family has left him, and he can see nothing but failure in his wake so, he concocts asinine, bullshit lies, to fill the emptiness.
One other thought, since some have brought up rail as a wonderful 19th century invention, is that when I asked my grandmother (born in 1920) about what she thought about rail travel back in the day, she responded that it was always kind of dismal. Yes, if you had a lot of money ,you could bounce along the tracks in a bit nicer seat (or berth), but all in all, it was always pretty bad. There is a reason that people started driving or flying when they could.
OK, the trains did beat traveling by wagon or walking, but still…
bike;
My mom was from Springfield, IL. When I was about five or six, my mom, brother and I, would take the train there. My dad worked for a large construction company, so he had to go to other states for projects a couple of times, so he would drop us off at the Milwaukee Road depot in downtown Minneapolis and once at Union Depot in St. Paul and we took the train to Chicago, changed trains to go to Springfield. I only remember that it took a long time. On the other hand, I did take the Empire Builder from Minneapolis to Seattle once, back in 1976. At that time, I paid extra to have a private cabin and was using it to deprogram from military life. The three days(?) it took and three days back, were pretty relaxing.