Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:And in the USA 16 miles Purple line near Washington DC takes forever ?

Romans, Egyptians, British and Moguls were even better at building since losing few thousand laborers for a palace or a fort wasn't a big deal, neither was colonizing towns and countries to rob them of their resources to fund projects needing money.

It seems Dubai is using this strategy.

Americans can't understand that they're often not #1 in doing things. They love to try to crap on countries Iike China by pointing out things like ghost cities they heard about or some road falling apart they googled, but look at American infrastructure from lead poisoning in Flint Michigan to the collapsed bridge in Minnesota that killed 13 people after standing for less than 40 years. Or the rail disaster in Ohio. Puhlease, Americans have zero room to criticize other countries about standards, OSHA, and quality, lol.

Go actually travel to Shenzhen and see it with your own eyes. It looks like a futuristic wonderworld that will warp your mind. It makes NYC look like it is behind by 100 years. Try actually riding Chinese bullet trains. They are very high quality and are now the fastest in the world. They blow away anything the US has.

It also isn't simply because the Chinese are communist. Go travel to South Korea or Japan. They have very high quality infrastructure and can build rail. The shinkansen has had zero deaths in over 60+ years of its entire existence and after billions of trips. Meanwhile, how many deaths and rail accidents have occurred in the US over those same number of years.

The reason the US can't do it is because we have too many lobbyists, we are too inefficient, we are awful at planning, too much corruptin, and much of our labor is massively overpaid, and we are simply a bunch of idiots running around trying to put square pegs into around holes. Americans are often terrible at doing things and aren often not #1. Americans need to wrap their brains around it. I mean look how long it took the US to do the big dig around Boston. Billions in overrun costs. And once it was completed it fell apart due to shoddy American construction.

Cheap labor and prisoners. Who are mostly not doing a good job

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:China also builds housing that is basically fictitious (fraud). In order to support their real estate market, they build lots of big housing buildings that are never intended for people to live in. They just fill up land, empty. And keep the big banks afloat through shady loans.

Is that the infrastructure you're thinking of, OP?

No, but these
Record breaking single-span suspension bridge in Yunnan, China.
Beipanjiang Bridge in southwest China.
The world's largest steel truss suspension bridge across a canyon in China.
Etc...

You don't just get to cherry-pick, PP.

Chinese Blame Failing Bridges On Corruption
August 29, 20124

Eight bridges have collapsed around China since 2011. Here, government investigators examine a recently built entrance ramp that collapsed last week in the northeastern city of Harbin, killing three people....

When the Yangmingtan bridge opened in the northeastern Chinese city of Harbin in November, local officials hailed it as a grand achievement.

The bridge stretched more than nine miles and cost nearly $300 million. Construction was supposed to take three years, but workers finished in half that time.

...
But early one morning last week, an entrance ramp to the bridge collapsed. Four trucks on the ramp tumbled to the roadway below. Three people died and five were injured.

The government initially blamed the trucks, saying they were overloaded. But infrastructure fails so often in China, most people assume the real culprit is government corruption.
..
Since 2011, eight bridges have collapsed around the country, according to China's state-run media. The cases include one in April 2011, when a cable snapped on a suspension bridge in Western China's Xinjiang region, sending a chunk of roadway plunging onto a riverbank.

Two months later, a bridge in southern China's Fujian province collapsed, leaving one dead and 22 injured.

And in March this year, a bridge under construction in Central China's Hubei province snapped in half.
...
"I will never remember those victims' names in this accident, and people won't remember it," Niu said. "It will be buried by another accident."

https://www.npr.org/2012/08/29/160231137/chinese-blame-failed-infrastructure-on-corruption

Anonymous wrote:China also builds housing that is basically fictitious (fraud). In order to support their real estate market, they build lots of big housing buildings that are never intended for people to live in. They just fill up land, empty. And keep the big banks afloat through shady loans.

Is that the infrastructure you're thinking of, OP?

No, but these
Record breaking single-span suspension bridge in Yunnan, China.
Beipanjiang Bridge in southwest China.
The world's largest steel truss suspension bridge across a canyon in China.
Etc...

They don't let the concrete cure before adding the next layer
A lot of it is like that downtown silver spring metro facility, cracking up before its even delivered

Anonymous wrote:And in the USA 16 miles Purple line near Washington DC takes forever ?

Romans, Egyptians, British and Moguls were even better at building since losing few thousand laborers for a palace or a fort wasn't a big deal, neither was colonizing towns and countries to rob them of their resources to fund projects needing money.

In addition to over-regulation as cited above, there have been suggestions that infrastructure is expensive in the US because we build so little of it. We (contractors) basically have to relearn how to build railroads, subways, airports, etc each time a rare opportunity comes along, which drives design costs.

Anonymous wrote:And in the USA 16 miles Purple line near Washington DC takes forever ?

No NEPA (National Environmental Policy Act of 1969). It's become sclerotic but was originally put in place so the Federally funded projects can't bulldoze through neighborhoods and forcibly relocate 100,000s of people with impunity (see most of what Robert Moses did to NYC as well as things like I-395 in DC). Instead of just protecting against these kinds of actions, states now try to "litigation proof" these NEPA decisions and it ends up taking years upon years to complete. Now, every NIMBY and special interest group can try to come forward and claim some impact which can tie projects up for years in litigation. That and feather bedding by all of consultants involved in advising the state governments on such projects. There's no expertise in the government anymore. Everything is outsourced so state DOTs don't learn the hard lessons from their projects and apply those lessons to the next one. The consultants do though!

By comparison, look at how quickly and cheaply Madrid built its transit system (https://worksinprogress.co/issue/how-madrid-built-its-metro-cheaply/) and compare that to the Second Avenue Subway line in NY. The U.S. should be taking lessons from other democracies in Europe in how to build these things faster and cheaper.

Among other reasons, the Chinese government wouldn't put up with lawsuits from residents along the route or allow a contractor to back out of the project.

China also builds housing that is basically fictitious (fraud). In order to support their real estate market, they build lots of big housing buildings that are never intended for people to live in. They just fill up land, empty. And keep the big banks afloat through shady loans.

Is that the infrastructure you're thinking of, OP?

5 missing in China’s Sichuan as bridge collapse sends cars plunging down slopes
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/article/3273075/bridge-collapse-chinas-sichuan-sends-cars-plunging-after-mudslide-hits-expressway

China dispatches vice premier, urges better safety measures after highway collapse killed 48
https://apnews.com/article/china-highway-collapse-guangdong-65edefe8eaa027780917d2e98fd1312b

China orders infrastructure checks after another deadly highway collapse: Ministry of Emergency Management says lessons must be learned after 15 die in Shaanxi bridge failure
https://www.scmp.com/news/china/politics/article/3271400/china-boosts-infrastructure-checks-after-second-deadly-highway-collapse-3-months

The Qiqihar disaster and China's infrastructure issues: Hollow bricks and wobbling towers are features, not anomalies, in the story of China’s development. How dangerous is Chinese infrastructure?
https://sinobabble.substack.com/p/the-qiqihar-disaster-and-chinas-infrastructure

The death toll from a building collapse in China soars past 50
https://www.npr.org/2022/05/05/1096810346/survivor-found-almost-6-days-after-china-building-collapse

No republicans or “conservatives”.

No OSHA
No unions
Low standards

And in the USA 16 miles Purple line near Washington DC takes forever ?