[_fat_santa]

Big infrastructure projects I feel like is where America's democratic system starts to fall apart, and we honestly need a better solution.

It seems that in the US we want both good infrastructure but also to have out hands and inputs in every project. We all need to collectively understand that you can have one or the other but not both. That new rail project may not go down the exact route you want but realize that if you start suggesting changes, it will never go down the route you want because it will never be built.

This rail project could have been completed years ago if political leaders didn't always change the plan to benefit themselves.

[Kon-Peki]

I used to live in Chicago. In my old neighborhood, there is a right-of-way reserved for future high-speed rail. Most of it is now “tunnel” because high rises and stores have built out around it, taking all the space except that reserved portion. The grocery store has a parking deck cantilevered over the right of way; a high rise literally has a tunnel through it, etc. it looks crazy in the present, but that’s what planning ahead looks like.

The US can do big infrastructure projects. It is happening all over the place. You just don’t notice because nobody is writing about non-failures.

[xyzzyz]

Can you give an example of successful recent (say, from last 30 years) passenger rail project that, unlike your Chicago one, actually exists? I mean, it is easy to set out space for project in advance, it’s actually building it that is the hard part.

[relwin]

$2.1 billion 10 mile light rail extension, completed last year:

https://www.sdmts.com/inside-mts/current-projects/uc-san-die...

[simfree]

Dayyyum, that is cheap compared to our 2 mile tunnel here in Seattle: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/State_Route_99_tunnel

$210 million a mile for rail is a great value compared to the cost to build here in the Puget Sound region. Sounds Transit 3 is adding 62 miles of rail for $53.8 billion and central portions like Ballard and West Seattle are still over a decade away from starting construction.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sound_Transit#Sound_Transit_2

[fullshark]

Do you have an example? Your example can hardly be called a success. The last big infrastructure project I recall that can even be called a success is the Big Dig in Boston, which came at a huge (unplanned for) cost.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Dig

[mickdeek86]

You don't have to leave the area:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunnel_and_Reservoir_Plan

Though decades-long, is on schedule and budget. In Chicago.

[pasttense01]

The infrastructure projects being done take much longer and cost a great deal more (even after adjusting for inflation) than a few decades ago.

[supertrope]

This is a feature not a bug. We have a system of government designed to prevent abuse not to maximize project completion.

We like low taxes so we need voters to either directly approve a project’s budget or politicians who approve the budget need to keep getting re-elected. Politicians know that increasing taxes during their term for a project that will be completed after their term or career is a difficult sell. We Starve the Beast so we don’t have a Ministry of Transportation with career workers but rather everything is contracted out. We like federalism instead of a unitary state to avoid the problem of distant inaccessible decision makers. But then any projects that cross jurisdiction boundaries require the equivalent of negotiating a treaty. And each town controls zoning and can refuse to give up land unless they get a stop. Rural areas are overrepresented in Senates. We have environment review, lawsuits, and anti-racism laws so the little guy doesn’t get steamrolled like in the Robert Moses era. But this slows down projects tremendously.

When there is a strong mandate things get done.

[V_Terranova_Jr]

It's a bug. Nowhere in any of the rationale you lay out is there anything about competence and active involvement/oversight on the part of the government. Neither major political party in the U.S. focuses on this, though the Republican mentality is largely that the government can never be competent. However, at a minimum, the government is the buying agent of the people in procuring infrastructure or infrastructure improvements. It sets the requirements, oversees execution, and signs off on the delivered products. Companies perform work, but their interests are not aligned with the interests of the taxpayers. Incompetent or unempowered government employees cannot prevent the abuse of the taxpayer by companies, nor can they establish boundary conditions for successful project completion. The checks you indicate, e.g., environmental review, are procedural devices that can have radically different outcomes depending on the competence of government employees.

The U.S. system will not get appreciably better until we focus on government competence. The layperson's go-to explanation for these outcomes is something in the tree of corruption but the truth is likely closer to Hanlon's razor.

[ncmncm]

Sometimes.

The replaced I-35 bridge went up fast. It would have cost radically less to maintain the old one properly.

[mickdeek86]

America was a democracy when we built the Interstate, TVA/Grand Coulee/Hoover, Manhattan Project, space program, etc. Many of these overran budgets and schedules, but they are there to see.

A bigger problem than our democratic system is our Republican ideology, which has lost the stomach for large-scale cooperation.

[uni_rule]

Most people wouldn't mind bringing back a non-military federal job guarantee in the form of returning the WPA in some form. It won't be a particularly glorious or high paying job but I definitely believe such a program would have a place in rebuilding various pieces of infrastructure.

[windows2020]

1) America is a constitutional republic. 2) Don't blame America for a state's failure to build a train.

[addicted]

You do realize that there is no contradiction in being both a republic and a democracy right?

Your point 1) is the equivalent of you rebutting someone’s claim that their hair is black by saying that their eyes are brown.

[mickdeek86]

Ah, that tired old cliche. Basically every country on the planet is a "republic" (See People's Republic of China/etc, Islamic Republic of Iran, et al) and has a constitution. Your statement could be rephrased "America is a country". Turns out adjectives matter.

In any case, it doesn't really effect my first point, because whatever America's system of government is today, it's the same one as it was before.

To the actual point, all of these great projects for which we will be remembered by 25th century historians, ran over budget and over schedule, and we had people talk sh*t about them, and they got built anyway. Who remembers the naysayers (today it happens to be the Reagan/Trump Republicans, yesterday it was 'Whitey's on the moon')? Nobody. They are not memorable.

That said, as is always pointed out on HN, high-speed passenger rail doesn't make a lot of sense for this country at this point in time, it's a high-hanging fruit without that much juice. Better places to spend our billions.

[dragonwriter]

> Basically every country on the planet is a "republic"

Not true, there are quite a few monarchies.

[mickdeek86]

Fair enough but it doesn't make the phrase "constitutional republic" any less meaningless in the context it was offered (saying America is not 'a democracy'), does it? Incidentally, aren't most of those monarchies constitutional (ie ceremonial) in which the public elect the actual government, thus in practice democratic?

[dragonwriter]

Yes, many (constitutional) monarchies are also (representative) democracies, just like some republics are.