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Originally Posted by Table 5
Yeah that's pretty much why emerging economies, or places like China and UAE, can get big projects done...somebody lays down the law, and things get bulldozed through regardless of consequence. It's not pretty, and often unjust to many, but it gets things done. Or you have countries like Japan, that get things built in a more efficient way, but that requires some serious cohesion and discipline.
Meanwhile we are stuck with paralysis by analysis... with endless consultations and studies, ballooning costs, and several rounds of political flip-flopping. Imagine trying to build the transcontinental railway in Canada today? I'm not even sure it would be possible. It's also why I'm skeptical of all the aggressive energy-transition talk...it takes 10-15 years to permit a new mine in this country, yet somehow we're all going to be living off of batteries soon? Good luck with that.
Obviously we need to maintain a certain set of standards and protocols, but there has to be some swing back the other way at some point, or we're just continue to be mired in this type of development purgatory.
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Apologies if this has been posted, but this article on how Madrid built it their metro for a cost per km that is astonishing compared to similar projects has a number of good ideas
https://worksinprogress.co/issue/how...metro-cheaply/
Cut red tape is a big one, but also continuity and competency of the owners engineering team, higher geotechnical spending up front and standardizing stations. And the funding mechanism at the municipal level really served to centralize the decision making. Plus there was a political element, politicians that delivered cost efficient projects got reelected. So they timed stages to election cycles.