Infrastructure Plan Set to Break Trump's Promises. Again.

[Mormolyce]

I was involved with the South Bay Expressway project in San Diego. The builder South Bay Expressway Partnership spent $843M building the toll road. It opened late 2007 and by 2010, they filed for Chapter 11. San Diego Association of Government (SANDAG) ended up buying it for a sweet deal of $341M.

So I guess that is good. Not to mention for 2 years, we got to keep 3 lab technicians working around the clock in the lab, and 4 inspectors out in the field.

It's astonishing what a road costs. I guess most of that is moving existing structures out of the way of the road rather than the actual asphalt and bitumen or whatever the hell roads are made out of these days?

[melodramocracy]

Who is this "your lot"?

To answer the question, I stated a while back that those who supported the left side of the political spectrum would end up uttering that phrase more often than those who support the right. Thus far that statement has pretty much come to fruition.

I'd say you aren't paying much attention if you believe that to be the case. Go peruse Trumps twitter feed for a good example.

[Rasulis]

It's astonishing what a road costs. I guess most of that is moving existing structures out of the way of the road rather than the actual asphalt and bitumen or whatever the hell roads are made out of these days?

There was a lot of infighting, lack of local experience and also bad timing with opening the toll road. Parsons Brinckerhoff was the original builder/operator. PB spend a lot time and money fighting environmental and community opposition during the design stage. They finally sold the final plans to Macquarie (an Australian investment bank). During construction Macquarie quarreled with the contractors, Fluor and URS, two global construction giants, over cost overruns and delays. To make matters worse, due to the Southern California housing bubble burst; few of the homes planned along the toll highway were ever built, leading to far fewer drivers along the route than earlier projections.

In CA, at least, privately funded public infrastructures have not done well.

http://www.dollarsandsense.org/archi...ondgraham.html

[Mormolyce]

There was a lot of infighting, lack of local experience and also bad timing with opening the toll road. Parsons Brinckerhoff was the original builder/operator. PB spend a lot time and money fighting environmental and community opposition during the design stage. They finally sold the final plans to Macquarie (an Australian investment bank). During construction Macquarie quarreled with the contractors, Fluor and URS, two global construction giants, over cost overruns and delays. To make matters worse, due to the Southern California housing bubble burst; few of the homes planned along the toll highway were ever built, leading to far fewer drivers along the route than earlier projections.

In CA, at least, privately funded public infrastructures have not done well.

http://www.dollarsandsense.org/archi...ondgraham.html

Boy that all sounds familiar.

I didn't know Macquarie invested in things like that. They're very small potatoes over here.

[Allybeboba]

I'd say you aren't paying much attention if you believe that to be the case. Go peruse Trumps twitter feed for a good example.

I do not follow his twitter feed. As I stated many times, I am not as enamored with him like so many others on this forum.

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Say that to I-35 here in dfw (north texas) I'm sure they got engineers to sit down and think up the worst fucking way to rebuild one of the busiest stretches of road in north Texas. So glad i dont work in alliance any more.

They engineer those roads so that in 10-20 years they will have to be expanded again. It is called job security.

[Noxx79]

I do not follow his twitter feed. As I stated many times, I am not as enamored with him like so many others on this forum.

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They engineer those roads so that in 10-20 years they will have to be expanded again. It is called job security.

Arguing from ignorance is not something you should be proud of, yet you do it constantly.

Edit: Since you'll need the help to understand, as you usually do: You do not need to be "enamored" with the president to read and listen to what he says. In fact, it is essential for a democracy for a government official to be held responsible for his words. Why you brag about being ignorant is beyond me, but HAVE A NICE DAY

[Allybeboba]

Arguing from ignorance is not something you should be proud of, yet you do it constantly.

Edit: Since you'll need the help to understand, as you usually do: You do not need to be "enamored" with the president to read and listen to what he says. In fact, it is essential for a democracy for a government official to be held responsible for his words. Why you brag about being ignorant is beyond me, but HAVE A NICE DAY

Who is argueing, my friend, other than you?
Being ignorant about something isn't not a bad trait. It just means you don't know a lot about it. I am fine with not knowing a lot about his everyday tweets.

[Dontrike]

Our country needs new infrastructure but the government can't afford it. Finding a way to get it done is now breaking a promise?

Probably because he keeps going on about how we need to step away from helping other nations get rich and "Make America Great Again", this is literally going against one of his major points of his presidential run. This man has kept how many promises? Negative three?

[melodramocracy]

Our country needs new infrastructure but the government can't afford it. Finding a way to get it done is now breaking a promise?

They absolutely can afford it, they just want to dump the money on other things, and instead believe that privatization of new roads will be a benefit to everyone (it won't).

[Deleted]

They engineer those roads so that in 10-20 years they will have to be expanded again. It is called job security.

This has more to do with current politicians being unwilling to fork over current money to help future politicians.

[Rasulis]

Boy that all sounds familiar.

I didn't know Macquarie invested in things like that. They're very small potatoes over here.

The lack of experienced showed. Our initial batch of corrosion testing showed that the soils were highly corrosive. The first thing they did was questioned the accuracy of our tests. We ended up bringing independent testers from another company and a local agency’s lab. They confirmed out test results.

Turned out the design reports had identified the soils as highly corrosive and they did not catch it. This is a big ticket item to miss. This has implication on the type of concrete (Type V instead of Type I), corrosion protection, and thickness/type of stormdrain pipes to be used on the project.

Government transportation agencies may be inefficient and bloated, but I doubt their engineers would have missed something as significant as this. This is the disadvantage between privately constructed vs. government constructed infrastructure projects. An agency like Caltrans, for example, have been doing roads and bridges for over 100 year. It is hard for a private firm to compete with that amount of experience and knowledge.

[BrerBear]

It's kind of fun when you consider that rural Trump voters would be the ones screwed by infrastructure privatization, because only government subsidy would throw money at underutilized projects that benefit the few in remote areas. Private industry sure as hell won't.

[Rasulis]

I do not follow his twitter feed. As I stated many times, I am not as enamored with him like so many others on this forum.

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They engineer those roads so that in 10-20 years they will have to be expanded again. It is called job security.

Pavement sections are designed with 20- or 40-year service life. I don’t know much about traffic study (not my field of expertise), but they do get it wrong sometimes (actually a lot of times). Keep in mind, they have to balance between budget and need. Unfortunately, budget is still a major constraint in public work construction. Doubly so in private construction.

[Allybeboba]

It's kind of fun when you consider that rural Trump voters would be the ones screwed by infrastructure privatization, because only government subsidy would throw money at underutilized projects that benefit the few in remote areas. Private industry sure as hell won't.

I would imagine rural non-Trump voters as well.

[BrerBear]

I would imagine rural non-Trump voters as well.

Sure, yeah, like those exist.
Didn't you see all those great election maps with the giant swaths of empty red space?