Re:Distances you can travel on a European train in less than...
by sschueller on Sunday June 07, 2015 @04:32AM
(#9673849)
I think the bigger issue in the US it that it appears no longer possible to start large public infrastructure projects that aren't bogged down by corruption and incompetence at every level.
As an example the "Big Dig" in Boston was almost $12 Billion over budget and many years late. There are huge water leaks and there are many cases of bad work. In one case a woman was killed because the epoxy bolt of a ceiling panel broke and fell on the car she was a passenger in. [1]
Compare this with the Swiss NEAT train tunnel [2] which cost $10.3 billion and will be open for rail on December 2016 under budget by $300 Million. It had Problems as well, such as a stuck drill and bad concreet delivered by a company cheating by selling lower quality for the higher quality price. However these kinds of problems can occur and can be dealt with if you hire the right people for the job which may not always be the lowest bidder.
As an example the "Big Dig" in Boston was almost $12 Billion over budget and many years late. There are huge water leaks and there are many cases of bad work. In one case a woman was killed because the epoxy bolt of a ceiling panel broke and fell on the car she was a passenger in. [1]
Compare this with the Swiss NEAT train tunnel [2] which cost $10.3 billion and will be open for rail on December 2016 under budget by $300 Million. It had Problems as well, such as a stuck drill and bad concreet delivered by a company cheating by selling lower quality for the higher quality price. However these kinds of problems can occur and can be dealt with if you hire the right people for the job which may not always be the lowest bidder.
[1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Dig_ceiling_collapse [2] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gotthard_Base_Tunnel