<story><title>Why U.S. Infrastructure Costs So Much</title><url>http://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-04-08/why-u-s-infrastructure-costs-so-much</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>humanrebar</author><text>&amp;gt; The first candidate I&amp;#x27;d propose for the top slot is diffusion of responsibility stemming from a US obsession with localism&lt;p&gt;If it were &lt;i&gt;only&lt;/i&gt; localism, there would be localities that were fantastic at investing in their own infrastructure. Responsibilities, even funding local schools, have been nationalizing slowly over the years without an explicit change in the U.S. Constitution. So the national government has to &amp;#x27;hack&amp;#x27; the system with grants and taxes to indirectly get national policies enacted. It&amp;#x27;s a corruption of the system to work around the Constitutional protection of federalism.&lt;p&gt;One solution would be to amend the Constitution to make things like education national policy once and for all. Another would be for the national government to leave things like building roads and funding schools to the local governments.</text></item><item><author>bradleyjg</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t have any love for NYC construction unions and their ridiculous work rules, but the fact that France -- France! where strikes shutting down the whole country is a national pastime -- does better means that can&amp;#x27;t be the number one answer. Similarly we can rule out corruption because even Chicago is a piker compared to Shanghai. I think both unions and corruption play a part but not of the first rank.&lt;p&gt;The first candidate I&amp;#x27;d propose for the top slot is diffusion of responsibility stemming from a US obsession with localism. An MTA project might well be paid for by: the federal government, NY state, NYC, and bonds to be paid back by a dedicated tax in 10 downstate counties. There are contracting rules imposed by each of those sources. And it is administered by the MTA board, a monstrosity with appointments from eight different sources. The buck stops nowhere.&lt;p&gt;The second candidate is, paradoxically, the progressive era procurement rules designed to rein in corruption. They leave too little discretion. In a two sided competitive game, if one side is hampered in by slow changing inflexible rules the other side is going to dominate. That&amp;#x27;s exactly what happens. Government contractors play the system like a fiddle and there&amp;#x27;s little the government negotiators even when they are supremely competent and diligent can do about it.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>imglorp</author><text>The feds could also do some easy, central infrastructure things that would reduce school and local govt funding needs in the first place.  If the schools or localities want to buy their own, great. Three examples:&lt;p&gt;1. It seems every school uses a mishmash of Moodle, Schoology, and some Sharepoint abortion.  If the feds would spend around the cost of 3 or 4 F-35 helmets ($1.6M) they could build and offer a decent school site.  You know, homeworks, attendance.  It could be the same software everywhere, even if you changed schools.  Teachers wouldn&amp;#x27;t need retraining and kids would have their stuff follow them.&lt;p&gt;2. Fund a decent central, unbiased curriculum with open source text books.  Kansas can suck an egg. Localities really _don&amp;#x27;t_ need their own curricula. The 3 R&amp;#x27;s don&amp;#x27;t need to vary with district.&lt;p&gt;3. Same as 1 but for local government operations software. Do they really all need their own?</text></comment>
<story><title>Why U.S. Infrastructure Costs So Much</title><url>http://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2016-04-08/why-u-s-infrastructure-costs-so-much</url></story><parent_chain><item><author>humanrebar</author><text>&amp;gt; The first candidate I&amp;#x27;d propose for the top slot is diffusion of responsibility stemming from a US obsession with localism&lt;p&gt;If it were &lt;i&gt;only&lt;/i&gt; localism, there would be localities that were fantastic at investing in their own infrastructure. Responsibilities, even funding local schools, have been nationalizing slowly over the years without an explicit change in the U.S. Constitution. So the national government has to &amp;#x27;hack&amp;#x27; the system with grants and taxes to indirectly get national policies enacted. It&amp;#x27;s a corruption of the system to work around the Constitutional protection of federalism.&lt;p&gt;One solution would be to amend the Constitution to make things like education national policy once and for all. Another would be for the national government to leave things like building roads and funding schools to the local governments.</text></item><item><author>bradleyjg</author><text>I don&amp;#x27;t have any love for NYC construction unions and their ridiculous work rules, but the fact that France -- France! where strikes shutting down the whole country is a national pastime -- does better means that can&amp;#x27;t be the number one answer. Similarly we can rule out corruption because even Chicago is a piker compared to Shanghai. I think both unions and corruption play a part but not of the first rank.&lt;p&gt;The first candidate I&amp;#x27;d propose for the top slot is diffusion of responsibility stemming from a US obsession with localism. An MTA project might well be paid for by: the federal government, NY state, NYC, and bonds to be paid back by a dedicated tax in 10 downstate counties. There are contracting rules imposed by each of those sources. And it is administered by the MTA board, a monstrosity with appointments from eight different sources. The buck stops nowhere.&lt;p&gt;The second candidate is, paradoxically, the progressive era procurement rules designed to rein in corruption. They leave too little discretion. In a two sided competitive game, if one side is hampered in by slow changing inflexible rules the other side is going to dominate. That&amp;#x27;s exactly what happens. Government contractors play the system like a fiddle and there&amp;#x27;s little the government negotiators even when they are supremely competent and diligent can do about it.</text></item></parent_chain><comment><author>bradleyjg</author><text>If a transportation system crosses more than one jurisdiction than it doesn&amp;#x27;t really matter if some localities are fantastic at investing in their own infrastructure. It is inherently a problem that can be solved optimally only at a different level. It might be possible to design a system such that metro areas are always a single jurisdiction, but given that such areas grow and shrink over time it wouldn&amp;#x27;t be easy.&lt;p&gt;I don&amp;#x27;t think that &amp;quot;corruption of the system&amp;quot; is a cause in and of itself of the high cost of infrastructure construction or repair. Whether or not the Constitution would need to be changed, that&amp;#x27;s an implementation detail. First we need to figure out if diffusion of responsibility is actually a major problem (as I suggest), then get widespread agreement that that is the case, only then should we start worrying about what legal barters may or may not be in the way of mitigation strategies.</text></comment>