Hacker News Reader

Comment by c54 | Hacker News Reader

I’d agree with this except that France seems to be getting way better prices per mile, as mentioned in the article. What is France doing differently?

View on HN

The NY Times did an expose on infrastructure expenses and found that France simply uses fewer people to build and doesn’t waste time asking for peoples opinions.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyregion/new-york-subway-...

France also has half the population density meaning that there are in fact fewer people to ask and fewer people negatively affected (per unit distance of rail for instance).

Paris Subway construction is much cheaper than anywhere in North America and yet they have a very high population density.

These metrics are almost meaningless when you use them this generically -- for the same reason Spain is on the lower end of EU countries ranked by population density yet contains some of the most densely populated regions in all of Europe (as mentioned in the article). Moreso than Paris.

Counterpoint: Paris.

This tracks.

I live very close to several HS2 construction sites in London and frequently see dozens of people just stood around doing nothing.

Paris and the surrounding area is densely populated. The rest of France is very rural overall it comes in at 105 per km^2. England, in contrast is almost as densely populated as India (434 per km^2). There are a lot more places to put things in France. As a consequence land in France goes for about €6k per h, while in England it's closer to €30k.

So - there's that.

but barcelona is more densely populated than london, yet it's metro didn't cost as much.

I've not seen a good reason to explain _why_ its so expensive.

Even if you do strict comparisons of only the capital, Parisian construction costs are lower than London's.

Consider that they are building the RER E extension for about 3.8B EUR for 28km, and Crossrail was 18.8B GBP (21.9B EUR) for 42km.

It feels that there are fundamental political and cultural issues with English speaking countries (common law?).

If you want to begin to understand this I recommend you read two books, in the following order: The Abolition of Britain - Peter Hitchens The Abolition of Liberty - Peter Hitchens

Synopsis: Two worldwide wars led the flower of Britain to be torn to shreds by shrapnel into rat food. The millions of broken homes, (furthered by the subsequent exodus of native Brits which continues somewhat to this day), and society which has never really recovered led to the spivs taking charge. Hence the phrase 'mediocre mafia'.

Things are changing for the better, and will continue to do so. But right now we are seeing the light of the past fade and the lunacy (PR1D3overPrinciples) of a nation only just coming to terms with this loss from 1914 onwards - hence 'special relationship' sucking up to 'USA'/'YU-ES-AY'.

> Things are changing for the better, and will continue to do so.

I'm curious as to what gives you cause for optimism. As an interested observer from Australia, it seems to me that the UK has a very bleak immediate to medium term future. But I'd be happy to hear why I'm wrong or what I'm missing.

Id also suggest that France is much less densely populated than the UK - less inhabitants to work around.

The population density of the UK (particularly England) feels staggering to this Swede.

Some examples (people/km^2):

    England:     434
    UK:          280
    Germany:     239
    France:      118
    EU:          109
    California:   98
    Texas:        43
    US:           37
    Sweden:       26
    All land:     16

Sweden has about half the population of London. I am probably within walking distance of more people than live in Sweden.

Sweden gets loads of tourists from e.g. Germany/The Netherlands just looking for peace/quietness.

Where do English people go for that? Scotland?

Personally I go to Scotland, or sometimes Wales.

Though even within England, the population is highly concentrated in the South East, so the South West and North East have a lot of relatively sparsely populated areas.

Yeah Scotland's very much up there, its known for having some incredibly remote regions.

> Where do UK people go for that?

Brits don't want quietness. Instead they go to Germany and drink until they can't stand upright - and then continue to drink until they pass out.

Source: was a barkeeper many years ago in Munich. A group of half a dozen Manchester fans drank more in one night than what would last two days otherwise, it's absolutely insane. Australians also tend to drink a lot, but IME they tend to get rowdy when too drunk.

Maybe the brits who want quiet aren’t going to bars in Munich to seek it out? What a fucking ridiculous means to back up an equally ridiculous statement.

Does Germany not have laws restricting sale of alcohol to drunk people?

They have that in many countries but it doesn’t work. There is always someone who will sell booze to you, no matter the state you are in.

Yeah, UK by area is mostly Scotland, which is stunningly beautiful and quite empty. Also infrastructure there tends to be more basic; even main roads in the north of Scotland are often single lane with passing places.

Wales and Northern Ireland are smallish by land and not very densely populated (?) but not massive outliers I'd think.

Even the SE has areas with surprisingly low population density. Outside of the urban areas much of the land is protected against development as national park/AONB/green belt.

One of my favorite things in Scotland was everyone waving at each other as one car stopped on the passing space as the other car drove past.

Interestingly India is 435!

Australia : 3

Reply on news.ycombinator.com