Can you name any new major civil engineering project in the US in the last fifty years?
New San Francisco Bay Bridge. (No, it's not a refurbish -- it's a completely separate bridge with a separate design to replace the existing Eastern span.)
New San Francisco Bay Bridge. (No, it's not a refurbish -- it's a completely separate bridge with a separate design to replace the existing Eastern span.)
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eastern_span_replacement_of_the...
It only supports my point. It's 2.2 miles long. Construction started in 2002. It was supposed to open in 2007. It will not open until the end of this year. Total cost is currently at six billion.
The Hyperloop is 400 miles long, will be built in seven years and will cost six billion.
See my point now?
I don't think it supports your point that US unions are destroying the country. That's complete hyperbole.
Cost overruns can be attributed to many factors, the largest being that they're usually underestimated on purpose to sell the idea in the first place.
Trying to compare the actual cost of actual projects with the first projected cost of an ideal, untested project is a bit silly, don't you think?
Not really. I would never estimate a six billion dollar cost for anything involving placing massive pylons on the center of the Golden State highway for four hundred miles.
It's the difference between reality and wishful thinking.
Look, I already said that I'd rather spend the sixty billion allocated for the bullshit high speed train on the Hyperloop. In other words, I am not saying we cannot build it. I am saying it will cost far more, take longer and be far more difficult (not technologically but unions, special interest groups and plain politics) than stated in the pdf.