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Comment by ErikVandeWater | Hacker News Reader

How efficient would you say the government is when it is in fact doing the work?

I find myself frustrated when it seems there are more workers than necessary, when potholes aren't at least filled with a stopgap filler so it doesn't suck to drive/bike on (doesn't seem that hard to do, even if it doesn't fix the road long-term), or when there are many simultaneous projects where you could be working on one site 24/7 to get it done so you have fewer impediments to traffic. (I understand paying for a night shift is more expensive, but the man-hours lost in traffic due to extra projects that take longer seem absurd).

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Virtually all of that work is through private contractors (most likely) or local governments.

When you ask about inefficiency, what incentives do private contractors have to not milk funds dry?

There's a fun story in Ash Carter's book about the F-35 project. He wanted Lockhead Martin to start hitting cost targets. So in a meeting over it he warned that the pentagon would be curtailing it's order unless the targets were met. Reportedly the LM executive replied "you tell me how much money you have, and I'll tell you how many planes you get." This apparently pissed Carter off enough to reply "how about none" and walk out of the room to let them stew for a while.

Anyhow, end result was a renegotiation of the contract where overruns would largely come out of LM's side. Shockingly they suddenly started hitting the targets. /s

It's really hard to structure the incentives right here, and to some extent relies on having government leaders willing to rock the boat in negotiations.

Liquidated damages for not holding to schedule, having bonds taken, disbarment from future contracts due to poor performance to name a few. However these tend to lead to protracted claims processes and court battles.

Not enough incentives, in any case. I do believe that there should be more incentives for finishing under-budget and ahead or on schedule to allow rolling efficiently into the next project. Assuming these aren't perverse incentives that invite corner-cutting, record falsifying, and so on.

I ask about efficiency because I'm interested in whether more money is a good investment.

I don't really care if the government or private contractors are doing the work. In either case, if the work being done is extremely inefficient, I'm less likely to vote for a candidate that wants more money to spend on roads.

> I ask about efficiency because I'm interested in whether more money is a good investment.

Maybe.

> I don't really care if the government or private contractors are doing the work.

Okay, so you really mean can government do a good job of funding a massive infrastructure project?

It can, but everything has been setup over decades to make it fail.

Is the government rarely allowed to break down large projects into smaller ones, and bidding happens on each small slice?

Why are incentives aligned to hamper this?

And how do you prevent different states battling to get a bigger slice, at the cost of others?

> In either case, if the work being done is extremely inefficient, I'm less likely to vote for a candidate that wants more money to spend on roads.

Increased spending doesn’t mean inefficiency. Not until you factor in pushed-off expenses.

If maintenance cost $1.00 per year but rebuilding costs $100.00 after 20 years of neglect; then wouldn’t you say the inefficiency was from the politicians that blocked/prevented said maintenance?

How much revenue do our bridges and roads generate? What would be the loss if even 30% of said roads were to crumble overnight?

Perhaps it’s just me, but I think being pennywise and pound foolish as bad thing.

How many construction projects have you managed?

How many workers for particular jobs do you think is appropriate?

Where did you get this information and why is it correct?

Were you offended by my comment? I'm asking someone familiar with the industry exactly because I don't know the answers.

I paved highways for 5 years. The people standing around are because there is a surprising amount of manual labor involved. One example that isn’t obvious is raking. Sometimes rocks slip through the cracks at the hot plant and the paver leaves big rocks in the hot mix. There need to be at least one guy just standing around looking at the asphalt to get the rocks out and throw in replacement hot mix between the first and second rollers.

Asphalt is mostly crushed rock, and you need different sizes of rock from fines to bean size. Part of the QA process is checking that the rock mix is composed of the right ratios and have enough faces to meet the spec. This is done with random samples from the asphalt as it’s laid down. They also check the temp, if it’s too cool it won’t work. So they mostly stand around. On the other side of the paving train is another QA where they use a radioactive density meter to check the asphalt after the rollers hit it, and they also take core samples along the joint to confirm the rollers are doing right.

Then there is a guy from DOT supervising. The State owns the roads, he’s there making sure no one is cutting corners and to coordinate the train with the supervisor of the crew.

Add in a couple more hands to rake/shovel (think guardrails etc) and it LOOKS like 5 guys working and 10 standing around but it’s 15 people taking turns in a continuously moving operation, often in live traffic

(non US perspective here) Another element is that a lot of the expense is closing the road, site management, safety setups, materials, having the plant (machinery) on site etc.

Despite being visible, having relatively cheap workers hang around when their role is not needed 100% of the time doesn't add much to the overall cost.

And you can't effectively redeploy them elsewhere to other jobs during those gaps anyway.

Thank you for your in-depth response. I appreciate hearing from people with first hand experience on topics that I don't personally have experience with. There's things we don't think about when its so far out of our usual field of expertise.

Not quite, I'm offended by people assuming they know the correct answer about something and making baseless assertions.

Asking your friend first would have been the move

This is something that seems to happen in the US on a constant basis. People just assume they know or understand things that they have never learned about nor had contact with and then we get people voting and making policy decisions based on that info that was pulled out of someone's ass

> This is something that seems to happen in the US on a constant basis. People just assume they know or understand things that they have never learned about nor had contact with and then we get people voting and making policy decisions based on that info that was pulled out of someone's ass

Thank God that sort of thing is limited to the United States.

I know you're likely being sarcastic and I definitely understand. I can only speak to my experience and that's in the US, although I can't reasonably doubt that it happens elsewhere

> Asking your friend first would have been the move

How did you know I didn't ask a friend first? And second, if my friend agreed these are good questions, then I get to ask an expert? Or do I have to ask more friends? How many unknowledgeable people do I have to ask before I get to ask someone knowledgeable to get an answer?

> Not quite, I'm offended by people assuming they know the correct answer about something and making baseless assertions.

Thirdly, who are you to say any of my assertions are baseless? You don't know if any of my other experience is relevant enough to form a meaningful base on which to pose a question.

Word and phrase choice indicated that this was your perspective as a driver

I'm wondering why you chose to respond to me rather than the person who chimed in with solid experience and an explanation for you.

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