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Comment by _delirium | Hacker News Reader

There seems to be something very broken with contracting in the US, which seems more specifically US government operations than government in general. If you look at something where you can compare prices between countries, like per-mile subway construction costs, the U.S. is a huge outlier, with procurement costs much higher than Europe.

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If you look at something where you can compare prices between countries, like per-mile subway construction costs, the U.S. is a huge outlier, with procurement costs much higher than Europe.

The higher-than-Europe comparison I had not heard before. The higher than private industry cost of United States government contracting (and contracting by local units of government when they spend federal funds) is dictated by the Davis-Bacon Act,

http://www.dol.gov/whd/govcontracts/dbra.htm

once we understand that the law's requirement to pay "prevailing wages" means, in that context, to hire union labor even when less expensive nonunion labor is available.

European labor is pervasively unionized, though, and typically well-paid on construction projects, but the total cost comes in not just slightly cheaper, but at small fractions of the price. Other things involved: there are fewer overlapping transit and government agencies involved in European projects, approvals are faster, contractor billing/profits seem to be more carefully scrutinized, and there is less scope for anyone to file NIMBY suits over the projects, because the courts aren't involved in those kinds of infrastructure-policy decisions.

This article discusses some examples: http://www.theatlanticcities.com/commute/2011/11/1-billion-d...

Madrid comes in at $58m/km, Paris and Berlin at $250m/km, and anything in the USA at over $1 billion per kilometer. NYC at $1700m/km. Some of those differences have legitimate explanations, but that's a 30x difference between Madrid and NYC. The Copenhagen metro, with quite expensive Scandinavian unionized labor, also cost a mere $150m/km, and the current expansion seems to be clocking in around $200-250m/km.

Interesting.

According to the Wikipedia[1], the 1318 km Chinese Jinghu High Speed Railway (350 km/h) came in at about $27m/km.

[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_China

HSR is much cheaper than metro: you don't have to dig and you don't have to deal with all the shit which is already in the ground under the city, or with the structural risks of the dig.

The french LGV Est, also rated for 350km/h, cost ~€4b (up from an original 3.125m estimate, excluding trains) for 300km[0], or ~€13m/km -> $~17m/km. Including all costs (trains &al) according to the 2007 SNCF report the line cost €5.5b, €18m/km, ~$24m/km.

[0] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGV_Est

Madrid is, however, a long way above the sea - which will reduce any tunnelling costs by a huge amount. Cost of living is also considerably lower.

(Not arguing with your basic premise that US costs are over-expensive, but a lot of that 30x difference can be explained away).

> (Not arguing with your basic premise that US costs are over-expensive, but a lot of that 30x difference can be explained away).

A bit of it can be, the 5x difference between Madrid and Berlin/Copenhagen/Paris seems acceptable by the differences in environment (Copenhagen's lowest point is 1m above sea level) and costs of living or complexity of the city's "cellars". The 6x increase on top of that is harder to justify.

In case you think all European transport projects are wonderfully run:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/scotland/9345650/No-s...

About £1 billion for a tram line where the end points are about 11 km apart in a city that has excellent taxi and bus services....

Oh yes. Could have been done for a lot less, in half the time, if they hadn't completely messed up the contracts.

If you don't want it, ship it to Melbourne! We've been gagging for a light rail link to the airport, which is about that distance away. Unfortunately the too-powerful taxi cartel and the Melb airport corporation keep blocking it because they're making too much moolah.

As far as I am concerned you can have it for £1 billion plus shipping costs....

[NB We will have a spare aircraft carrier going "cheap" as well...]

Nah, we don't take proper care of our aircraft carriers and tend to crash them into things.

If the comparisons a few comment up are correct that same tram line would have cost $11 billion+ in the US though.

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