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this post was submitted on 08 Dec 2023
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These mean nothing for as long as the US government continues to contract work for these projects through private companies. This country needs a publicly-funded and operated office of construction. Otherwise, be prepared to watch that $8.2b amount to a couple hundred feet of rail and go 10x past budget and schedule
Not just that, we also need to take back the physical rails from private freight companies.
We gave them to them because they said they'd maintain them, but they don't because the insurance premiums are cheaper, and after major wrecks the taxpayers still have to pay to fix the worst sections to prevent a crash.
That's why passenger rail is virtually non existent here.
Since freight owns the rails, they get priority. So a passenger train might have to pull over and wait a couple hours for a freight train going 5 mph to get past them.
If we don't fix that, there's no point in doing anything else
One rather comedic and unfortunate problem—rail tracks are designed to somewhat circumvent this problem by occasionally splitting into two parallel tracks. The slower train goes onto one track and then the faster train goes onto the other track to pass it.
Now, the biggest issue is that freight companies have realised it's more profitable to run obscenely long trains rather than running more trains. As a result, the freight train is often longer than the entire section of parallel track, rendering it useless.
Ugh, Cincinnati just voted to sell the last municipality owned rail line to Norfolk Southern. I agree with you completely.
Well, at least they didn't sell it to a company who just had a crash spilling dangerous chemical is their state...
/s
Fuuuuuuuck. I voted against that but I didn't have high hopes.
Yeah that sale never felt right at all, especially with the campaign having common administrators as the mayor’s own campaign and he got lots of TV ad time out of the push to pass the sale
Freight, by law doesn't actually get priority, but that law is basically never enforced which amounts to the same thing.
sounds like the perfect use of eminent domain.
I know that you mean “pull over” as in, onto another track, but I can’t stop picturing the conductor cranking a steering wheel to derail the train and huffing and puffing on the side of the railway while slow traffic passes him.
I agree. You should start a grassroots campaign to get people in these local communities to start beating down their Rep's doors to make this happen. Not even joking.
Me? No, I'm just gonna bitch about it online. But you, you should
No. U, PP_BOY_.
Yeah! Step up and stop being a PP_BOY and be a PP_MAN!
I agree that regulated public rail is a better implementation, but this does not "mean nothing", it's a substantial investment in critical infrastructure and shows that the US is trying to catch up to the rest of the world.
It's a significant policy.
Amen.
Just look at the further decimated ruins of our public education system after diverting funds to charter schools.
Privatization of the commons is just another capitalist con-game to grow/metastasize/profit off of aspects of society where any rational, empathetic person would immediately understand greed has no place.
But acknowledging greed as the destructive force it is is the height of Un-American at this point, so whatever. There doesn't seem to be anything more than a tiny smattering of powerless peasants that even acknowledge let alone care what giving sociopathic, insatiable greed the keys has and continues to do to the citizenry. Even those most hurt tend to side with the faceless, amoral corporate entities that hurt them and blame whoever their preferred mass propaganda tells them to blame.
Oh lost your job/savings/future? Man, I'll bet you're really mad at that camp of powerless homeless people over there, or the concept of government (even though the corporations intentionally, loudly broke ours and bribe officials to keep it broken), it's really their fault if you do enough mental gymnastics, herp derp!
Or to put it another way:
Trenitalia high speed rail in Italy is the best high speed rail I’ve ever used. It’s both government funded and privately owned. It’s a lot more complicated than just private vs public ownership.
Was gonna say, the Shinkansen is another great example of privately owned mixed with public work and amazing high speed rail
Please, I implore you to visit Japan to see what real HS railways are supposed to be like.
Japan is mostly private too, isn't it?
The federal government has never built these kinds of projects directly. The money goes to states to spend with the feds instituting auditing procedures to make sure the money is spent correctly.
Two are depression era programs and the third was a military project built in an area without much of anything. It has been the preference of the Federal government over several generations to outsource construction. That isn't going to change any time soon.
Democrats need better slogans.
This is the international norm. The closest to government control has been China's State Owned Enterprises, but even then China pushed these to be run as private companies without the protections afforded to employees that they would have as government employees. China also created SOE's as the local market didn't have the local experience to build the initial projects.
Government operation of part of the construction industry is very low on the public's list of things that need to be done and it isn't exactly certain that the control will produce cheaper projects.
All I did was notice that "that won't change anytime soon" is said frequently by Democrats.
And I'm responding to the context of the discussion you said it in.
So you're responding to my comment about broader context by acting like I was talking about this one thing. Ok.
???
Sure. That's the way the interstate highway system was built and is maintained. This time, though, companies will be directly involved in the build.
Aren’t government jobs put out for tender and any company private or public can bid on them? They are required to take the lowest bid as well (so you don’t just give it to your buddy) but if your buddy is the lowest bid the only way to not take it would be to prove it couldn’t be done for that price.
Lowest qualified bidder. There is also a lot of play in the spec writing. If for example my employer has something our competition can't offer they can push for the spec to include it. For example I came up with a standy-by power mode with one of our systems that saves utility costs. Pretty proud of it. Sometimes the sales guys can convince the government to require that in the scope.
I don't like that because lowest bid can often be lowest quality, plus it's not like they only pay the lowest bid up to that bid and then move on to the next lowest bidder if the lowest bid goes over budget. The bidding system kinda sucks in all aspects.
Like if one company put in a bid for a bridge at $12 million but their design would need to be replaced in 20 years and another put in a bid for a $20 million bridge that would last a century, would the better bridge or cheaper one be built?
It isn't that simple. Standards are set and there are punishments governments can use if things aren't followed. Your stuff broke early? You are banned from bidding in this area for the next decade. Project is delayed? We are paying you 80% of what is agreed upon. You are constantly causing problems? We will write a spec that is so specific to your main competitor that you can't possibly meet it.
The system is not perfect but it isnt as bad as people might think.
The spec is allowed to require a certain level of quality. So the job could require a 100-year lifetime. You write it so that the bridge is as quality as you want and then take who can do that quality for the lowest amount.
It is becoming a lot more complicated than that.
A lot of newer contracts are design-build, where the Contractor is given a design that is conceptual and the Contractor has to finish the design and build it. Because the design is partially done by the Contractor, the contract is usually won by a combination of price and rating based on technical merit.
Well, this is definitely the best case scenario. It’s not something that US government is capable of. Publicly funded and operated projects are a nightmare when managed by the US government.
Take the Artemis program for example. Constant shifts in power and Congress People’s desire to help their own region over the nation as a whole has slowed the program, increased costs, and lead to an outdated and illogical rocket design.
Also 8.2 billion dollars is a fucking pittance in terms of national rail service. That's barely enough to expand an already existing rapid transit network in a moderately sized US city.
Ministry of construction? Going to be a bit hard to pull for any country, especially with multiple international standards for everything from fireproofing to waterproofing, and measurement systems etc
Annnnnd straight into executive pockets. "Well these things happen, we tried!"