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Why do UK public works projects take forever?
09-09-2016, 05:03 AM
I think you give the US too much credit. There was a section of I-95 leading north out of Baltimore that was supposed to be refitted with express lanes for about 25 miles, if I recall correctly. They started this shit show when I began college in 2008, and it wasn't finished until (I think) 2015. The kicker? It was only half as long as intended. How the fuck do you take 7 years to build a few miles of interstate?
Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn't an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag. We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language. And we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.
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Why do UK public works projects take forever?
09-09-2016, 06:21 PM
Have you seen how slow shit like this is in Latin America, they have a few guys leaning on a shovel when in Canada there would be a guy on a backhoe or excavator and do it in like 5% of the time.
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Why do UK public works projects take forever?
09-09-2016, 07:05 PM
Took a major roadtrip this summer in the south. SE London, Windsor, Wiltshire, Bath, Oxford, Stonehenge, Wittering, Portsmouth, South Hampton, Bognor Regis, and back to Heathrow, all over the South. Driving a relatively short distance compared to US standards took entire days, and were mentally and physically exhausting. The thing I noticed is that the roads are heavily traveled, everywhere in the south. There was construction everywhere, not unlike the Northeast of the US. It was like the entire NY tristate region, for the entire trip. Not sure what its like in the north, but in the south, there are just so many people on the roads, anything that disrupts the flow of traffic is magnified 1000x. The article about the trains in SE London is totally true. It really just reminded me of NYC, so not that taken aback.
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Why do UK public works projects take forever?
09-23-2017, 03:55 PM
I have an update on this: councils are currently trialing a scheme where they charge companies by the hour/day to do works in public areas.
It can't come soon enough. Hopefully this will be implemented very soon.
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Why do UK public works projects take forever?
09-23-2017, 03:58 PM
Metrolink, Manchester's light rail system, has been an aberration in the system over the past few years as brand new lines have opened ahead of schedule - over a year early in one case.
Otherwise, yeah - pretty shitty track record.
"The only purpose for which power can be rightfully exercised over any member of a civilised community, against his will, is to prevent harm to others...in the part which merely concerns himself, his independence is, of right, absolute." - John Stuart Mill, On Liberty
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Why do UK public works projects take forever?
09-23-2017, 04:18 PM
I've worked in both the public and private sector. A lot of people who work in the public sector are diversity hires and a lot of them would never make in the private sector.
You will find a lot of black women working in local government offices in the UK, whereas they are rare in the private sector. A lot of of them are also lesbians...there's a similar thing with the DMV in California. At one place I worked most of the managers were women and half of them were incompetent - they only got promoted because they had been there for a while, not because they were good at their jobs.
A lot of public sector buyers are useless too, I know a contractor who consistently overcharged the local council and got away with it for years. Anybody who allowed this to happen in the private sector would get fired pretty quickly.
Saying all that, the roads in UK are still better quality than those in greater Los Angeles.
One fucked up example is the UK Highways Agency - they're the organisation in charge of Britain's roads. I had a job interview with them and they informed me that no parking spaces would be available because of their environmental goals...so the organisation that runs the roads is against idea of people using their cars?!