[Retric]

The big dig was not nearly as poorly executed as you might assume, digging in the middle of a major city is simply rediculusly expencive.

IMO, the best option is to simply raise buildings following the Chicago model. http://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raising_of_Chicago. A major advantage being you don't need to worry about flood control measures failing. It's not like the buildings are actually worth all that much it's 90% pure land value with a token for the structure. (Aka move the same building to the middle of an Iowa cornfield and suddenly there not so valuable.)

[cjcole]

Either it was poorly executed or disingenuously planned.

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

'The Big Dig was the most expensive highway project in the U.S. and was plagued by escalating costs, scheduling overruns, leaks, design flaws, charges of poor execution and use of substandard materials, criminal arrests,[2][3] and one death.[4] The project was originally scheduled to be completed in 1998[5] at an estimated cost of $2.8 billion (in 1982 dollars, US$6.0 billion adjusted for inflation as of 2006).[6] However, the project was completed only in December 2007, at a cost of over $14.6 billion ($8.08 billion in 1982 dollars, meaning a cost overrun of about 190%)[6] as of 2006.[7] The Boston Globe estimated that the project will ultimately cost $22 billion, including interest, and that it will not be paid off until 2038.[8] As a result of the death, leaks, and other design flaws, the consortium that oversaw the project agreed to pay $407 million in restitution, and several smaller companies agreed to pay a combined sum of approximately $51 million.[9]'

[Retric]

I don't think they did a good job, but your cost estimates are rather divorced from reality. Inflation is a poor way to measure projects like this. Construction costs in the short term are only loosely coupled with overall inflation. Consider the just price of copper: http://www.nasdaq.com/markets/copper.aspx?timeframe=10y Though most construction raw materials had similar price swings.

Anyway, the project finished in 2007 amid a huge housing boom in the US which significantly increased costs. A well managed project could have probably been ~30% cheaper, but the much of the "190%" over run was well outside the projects scope.

For comparison the hover dam is generally thought of as a well executed project despite ~98 directly related fatalities during construction. IMO, we have become vary critical of large construction projects in large part because rebuilding infrastructure is simply far more complex than clean slate construction in the middle of the wilderness, and even worse it negatively impacts peoples lives during construction. Especially in places like HN considering how few software projects are on time and under budget.

[akgerber]

America has gotten pretty bad at tunneling, and it's much more expensive here than in Spain or France.

Madrid buried its M30 high for far less money: http://www.roadtraffic-technology.com/projects/m30_madrid/ Note that the project included two contracts that included >4km highway tunnels, neither of which cost more than $1B USD.

There were differences, of course. But read up on American tunneling costs versus those in Asia or non-English-speaking Europe, if you want to better understand why we can't have nice things.

[mmanfrin]

  But read up on American tunneling costs

Where? I'm kind of interested as to why it's so much more expensive here (other than the obvious labor cost and probably-more-stringent safety regulation)?

[_delirium]

One difference (though I won't venture a guess for what % of the cost difference it account for) is that the U.S. has a much more drawn out and less final decision-making process. The national legislature passes very general laws, like the Clean Water Act, and charges an administrative agency with implementing them, and the courts with interpreting them and resolving disputes over what they mean. States do something similar. A city that wants to do something like build a metro line must therefore pass a series of these general requirements. They do things like prepare environmental impact statements, noise-abatement statements, seek EPA and other agencies' approval of plans, seek state approval of plans, etc. Various stakeholders or members of the general public can challenge these plans at each stage (sometimes up to a dozen or so agencies may be involved). If the plans make it through that stage, such people can then sue in state or federal court, using any of these dozens of laws, looking for an injunction to halt construction, modifications to the plans, etc. The end result of all this is a lot of delay and expense, even apart from any actual construction issues.

In many other countries the process is somewhat more legislative. A city proposes a metro line, and seeks the direct approval of higher levels of government: there are discussions, hearings, and then the plans are passed into law. Once the plan is law, then it's law: the legislature is presumed to have weighed the pros and cons and made the decision, so you can usually no longer challenge it on environmental grounds, noise-pollution grounds, or anything else, because that power is not delegated to agencies or courts.

In short: the U.S. both has a lot more layers of government (city, transit district, county, state, national), and delegates much more case-by-case decision-making power to administrative agencies and courts.

[toomuchtodo]

Corruption.

http://usa.streetsblog.org/2014/06/06/study-corrupt-states-s...

"According to research published in the journal Public Administration Review, states with higher levels of public corruption spend more money on highways and construction. The study found highway and construction projects and police programs provide the most opportunities for lawmakers to enrich themselves, according to Governing Magazine, and are positively correlated with state levels of corruption. Meanwhile, highly corrupt states also spend relatively less on health, education, and welfare — categories that were less susceptible to graft and bribery, the report found."

[vonmoltke]

Interesting how Texas and North Carolina managed to avoid the corruption endemic in their neighbors. In the case of Texas, though, there is plenty of localized corruption. Dallas proper and its southern suburbs are dirty as shit. The northern suburbs, not so much. I get the impression Massachusetts has something similar, with Boston metro being far more corrupt than the rest of the state.

[rayiner]

And Spain isn't corrupt?

[toomuchtodo]

I didn't say it wasn't. The data from the link I posted only had US data.

[colanderman]

I can't find the answer with Google, but maybe someone here knows.

During the raising of Chicago, how did they get the jackscrews under the buildings in the first place? Especially those (presumably) positioned in the interiors (as opposed to edges) of the buildings?

[astrieanna]

I think they go into the basement, as they do when raising buildings today. I don't know what they'd do for buildings without basements.

[colanderman]

But, presumably, you want to put the jacks where the structural walls of the basement already are? Is this not the case, or is the basement dug away piecemeal as jacks are inserted?

[freyfogle]

My impression was the big dig succeeded spectacularly at its goal: it was a machine to pump massive amounts of federal funds into Boston. As a nice side effect they also built some roads/tunnels/etc.

[zalzane]

now they just have to fix the damn green line

olympics bid when?