[thatmf]

> Unlike infrastructure projects in Britain or America, which are heavily reliant on external consultants to handle all stages of the project, this group of well-paid in-house engineers led much of the Madrid Metro expansion. The team stayed largely the same throughout the different projects, meaning that they were able to learn from their experience and apply it to future projects.

Imagine that: building expertise in-house and within the governmental org results in better planning and management and thus outcomes.

[gib444]

In the UK infrastructure projects are about creating jobs and making their friends rich first, and providing some kind of useful infrastructure last (and also optional)

There is so much thievery of public funds it's just corruption disguised as incompetence and the public believe it every time

[fer]

In Spain it is the same, the Metro de Madrid being an anomaly rather than the norm (for now).

Some flagrant cases:

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

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Castell%C3%B3n%E2%80%93Costa_A...

https://maps.app.goo.gl/8BRnx8eQFfihvHmv5

https://english.elpais.com/elpais/2019/05/17/inenglish/15580...

The 2008 crisis had a special flavor in Spain, cajas de ahorros (privately owned but politically controlled) worked with politicians -surprise- to grant bad mortgages (lending someone else's money, of course) to buyers of the housing constructions they themselves had their fingers in.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Savings_bank_(Spain)

[thewhitetulip]

In India metro is either built by private companies in a Public Private Partnership

Or by govt orgs by contracting it out.

Both styles have resulted in massive delays so much so that it has become a meme that metro will be inaugurated 100yrs into the future

Maybe if Govt hired actual engineers like they do for railways then metros will be prioritised

[thelastgallon]

India has the most interesting construction projects: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZcRDsIjG3g8

I guess this is what vibe coding in the real world looks like.

[boxed]

I would guess this is a consequence of people following orders. There's many people that should have refused the work along the way, but only the planner gets the blame, while I'd bet the planner was only following orders also.

[sieve]

Depends on the state and the political environment. Some people will deliberately sabotage projects for political reasons. The biggest problem with metros in India is the inability to provide last mile connectivity. Some cities will run buses in competition to metro lines, or provide free bus travel to women. Both actions compete against a fast mode of travel.

So, it is an India problem, not a government problem.

[porridgeraisin]

Metro doesn't use PPP or directly public in any Indian city I can think of, they setup SPVs and actually have stable engineering and finance teams across contracts. And most of the engineers are taken from railways only in any case. And it's a really good promotion path, ministers are known to select successful metro spv administrators for lucrative roles in the state secretariat. They even have lateral movement between SPVs of different cities, e.g many top CMRL people are ex-DMRC. So the talent problem is not there.

The reason for delays are more boring: land acquisition, coordination among nhai, state pwd, railways, utilities, etc etc. But overwhelmingly land acquisition is the main bottleneck. If land acquisition fails or isn't exactly as you planned then you have to tweak the project itself which ripples delays all the way into the construction contracts, safety approvals, NOCs etc etc. After you resolve that, flyovers and roads are simultaneously being constructed in most cities since they are all expanding so you have to coordinate with that. And india from pre-independence has utilities placed under the middle of the road, as opposed to the sides of the road. Now this is not an iron clad rule (nothing is, in india) but it's generally true. This means that you also have to coordinate with utilities. And most of them were laid in the last century without any record left of where they were laid, so you can't even plan ahead you dig and you find out you've slashed a utility line. Each coordination point above is an NOC and all put together it takes time.