[rayiner]

Just 850 million euros of public money to build a mile and a half long tunnel under downtown! (Under a billion euros total.) A bi-level tunnel, with separate express and local levels, and four lanes on each level.

By contrast, the SR99 tunnel in Seattle was about 1/3 longer, cost $3-4 billion, depending on how lawsuits shake out, and has half the capacity (two levels with two lanes each). The Big Dig in Boston was the same length, and cost 22 times as much.

In timely news (another post on the front page), the A2 tunnel cost only modestly more than it’s costing San Francisco to simply reconfigure Market Street to shut down through traffic.

[cesarb]

Different technologies. Judging from this article, this Maastricht tunnel seems to have been built as a "cut and cover" tunnel, while according to Wikipedia, that SR99 tunnel was built with a tunnel boring machine. AFAIK, the cut and cover method is much cheaper (but more disruptive during the construction, and can only be used for shallow tunnels like this one).

[RandallBrown]

The TBM in the SR99 tunnel is also the largest TBM in the world. It was a bit of a gamble, and it didn't pay off. Another huge problem was that it ran into a huge metal caisson that had been placed while surveying the area to build the tunnel... The contractors operating the machine "knew" about it, but still ran into it, which broke the machine for a long time. (They were given information that it was there, but they overlooked it.)

[mcv]

Boring tunnels is also hard in the muddy Dutch soil. It was used in Amsterdam for the new Noord-Zuid-lijn, which had tons of complications and went way over deadline and budget by an enormous amount.

Although if there's a part of the country that is suitable for boring, it's probably Maastricht, which is in the tiny part of the country that has actual hills.

[scarejunba]

The SF Market St plan doesn't have that and the Central Subway has got to be cut and cover since they just shut down the road.

[secabeen]

Cut and cover is just so much cheaper.

[gimmeThaBeet]

So like, what's the deal? Is that level of efficiency common in Netherlands/Europe or were they just as surprised?

What are they doing that they can end up with such a disparate outcome with regards to what most people expect from an ambitious public infrastructure project like that?

Like, I don't even think it's cynicism at this point that when you see they want to do something with the MTA or the Metro, they'll say it'll be X Billion and Y months, and you already know going into it that they're low by a factor of like 2-10x.

[skrebbel]

The "Noord-Zuid-Lijn" new metro line in Amsterdam was a classic disaster like so many others.

I guess the answer is "we have fuckups too but not all the time". Could it be the case though that the same holds for the US? I mean usually if something is on time and within budget it doesn't make the news just as much :D

[rayiner]

That’s your “disaster?” 6 miles of new train line (4.5 underground) for $3.5 billion. Total construction time 15 years.

The first phase of the Second Avenue subway cost $4.5 billion for just 2 miles, and took 10 years. The next 1.5 mile segment will cost $6 billion (that’s just the estimate) and take another 10 years. And that’s not even all that over budget or delayed.

I’ve never encountered a major public project in the US that was on budget and on time. I’m sure there are some, but that’s not the rule. Here in the DC area, we recently spent $150 million on a bus station (it’s a nice, 3 level bus station on existing public land). That was delayed and was $50 million over budget. The $6 million renovation project in the parking garage at the metro station nearest to me is years behind schedule. The purple line in Maryland is years late and billions over budget. The silver line in Virginia is years late and billions over budget.

Your “disaster” would be a miracle in a major US city. Such a miracle that few cities are even contemplating such things. DC, for example, is growing rapidly, and WMATA desperately needs another tunnel through downtown. And people are willing to spend that kind of money—WMATA just invested $6 billion and a decade constructing the silver line to Virginia. And Maryland is investing a similar amount in a light rail through the suburbs. But a downtown tunnel would be a $15+ billion, 20-year project here.

[oneplane]

To us, that was a disaster yes. I suppose we measure or weigh things differently? Or perhaps we haven't had those monstrosities you mention so we have no local reference.

[showerst]

Just as a minor counterpoint, the Anacostia River Tunnel project was finished on time, and the overall clean rivers project is on time and under budget by nearly 100MM so far.

Granted, it doesn't face WMATA's absolutely insane leadership and funding structure, but it can be done, and even in one of the most complex jurisdictional messes in the US.

[willyt]

It’s different legal and contracting culture. Britain is also a common law legal system and our projects are typically way less efficient than mainland Europe. E.g the most expensive TGV the french have built was about 5-10 times cheaper than HS2. It’s not land acquisition costs that are causing the difference as these only account for about 3bn of the 80bn budget. It’s not difficult terrain either as the french TGV med has more bridges and tunnels. It’s not labour costs as we share the same labour pool as the french so we could attract loads of french digger drivers if we paid 5x more. My theory is that UK politicians and managers are more risk averse so the cost of the risk gets pushed down the chain of subcontractors and every time it jumps down a level it multiplies. I also suspect that the french will have a government department for building high speed lines with a continuous culture and body of knowledge stretching back to the 1960’s with engineers on staff. Whereas in the U.K. the team will be assembled from various consulting engineering companies and everything that is learnt on the job gets lost when the team disbands at the end.

[gpvos]

Don't worry, we have public works that go way over budget too. Curiously that happens more often with rail projects than with road projects here.

[hinkley]

Is that 22 times as much for just the downtown part or the whole thing?

I saw a documentary on the Dig and it was a lot more involved than I would have guessed. Route to the airport if I recall, and a tunnel under a river, and by 'under the river' I mean that pretty literally. The tunnel wasn't far below the riverbed due to other obstructions so they came in essentially from above to lay it. They filled most of an hour just talking about that section.

[class4behavior]

In the comments right at the top a video was posted about that. Some evidently neoliberal group blaming environmentalists and labor unions for the high construction costs in the US. As if their counter examples, Canada, Japan, and the UK, don't have even better established labor unions and environmental oversight.

[rayiner]

In broad strokes there are more environmental and labor protections in Canada, Japan, and the U.K., but at the same time, US law has some unique features that have been weaponized. For example, while the US is sometimes relatively more lax on environmental issues in the private sector, it’s very strict for environmental issues in the public sector. Nobody has the equivalent of NEPA, which requires every significant public project to undergo years (4-5 on average) of environmental review and litigation before even getting started. See: https://legal-planet.org/2012/05/13/comparing-canadian-and-u...

> US environmental law is much more generous in allowing for judicial review of decisionmaking by government agencies that is alleged to violate relevant environmental laws. It is also much more generous in allowing private parties to enforce environmental laws against other private parties who are alleged to have committed violations.

The US is unusual in the degree to which it allows private interests (environmentalists, landowners, etc.) to litigate and hold up projects that the government has already approved.

[mkohlmyr]

I mean I don't think saying that the unions in the US inflate costs is too out there..

Perhaps this is just my perception, but I would say the difference is that European unions (at least northern European, can't speak to the rest of Europe) seem less inclined to engage in dodgy behaviour than their US counterparts. I'm specifically thinking about construction, ports, etc.

I mean the fact that there are people employed to literally do nothing, "because that job used to exist and must never go away" is one example of this. It's not something I've heard of happening in Europe to the same extent it seems to in the US.

[runarberg]

I like to say this and HN never takes it too kindly, but it seems like corruption is the problem in the US, not unions. Many people just like to “blame the union” and leave it at that, without actually asking the logical follow-up question: “What is it exactly that the unions are supposedly doing, and can it be stopped?”

[gok]

The issue isn't unions per se, it's that there's overt collusion between the unions and the government officials who are supposed to be controlling costs. The United States has the unique situation where those government officials are often directly affiliated with the union they're supposed to be negotiating with. You can guess what happens when both sides have an incentive for costs to overrun and timetables to be blown.

[kalium-xyz]

We just had a farmers revolt in the Netherlands because of environmentalists groups pushing very restrictive laws which would result in both the amount of cattle in NL being halved and a lot of construction stopping. One major reason they protested was the news reporting that nitrogen kills trees.

It can go both ways, depending on how well things are thought out and executed. We have a lot of people who don't have realistic expectations and don't seem to realize that the Netherlands is largely made up out of artificially build nature which needs to be maintained and kept in check instead of left alone.

[wil421]

Rayiner, are there costs due to regulations and bureaucracy? How much do other projects of this size cost in regions of the US that are less “regulation heavy” such as the South? Basically not the West Cost or North East.

[thatfrenchguy]

> the A2 tunnel cost only modestly more than it’s costing San Francisco to simply reconfigure Market Street to shut down through traffic

Salaries in San Francisco and Maastricht are widely different.

[netcan]

Salaries are one variable.

[GhettoMaestro]

Wow that really is a staggering difference in cost per mile.