Here in Oslo new train and subway lines are planned to finish in 15-20 years. For me that seems like a really long time. Is it just so much more important to save money compared to projects in earlier times?
I suspect that a certain amount of that extra time is the unacceptability of worker deaths/injuries during the construction process. In the “good old days”, worker deaths happened with regularity and safety wasn’t much of an issue.
The rise of unions and union rules probably don’t help much either, but it’s probably difficult to separate this from the above.
You mean like earlier times when construction of a cathedral would take a few centuries?
I assume he means relative to the last century. The Empire State Building was finished in less than a year and a half. One World Trade Center looks like it’ll take at least 7 years, despite 80 years of advances in construction techniques. Seems reasonable to ask why.
We might also contrast to, say, the Burj Khalifa, which took 6 years but is a much, much larger building than either the ESB or 1WTC, and obviously required more advances in construction. Is the seeming slowdown limited to western nations?
Depending on the project, who stakeholders are and what country it is in, the public consultation process may require years, even decades to complete.
Plus you have to account for the difference in things being built where other things already are, and stuff built on “unoccupied” land.
Yeah, this is just a WAG but it’s probably 90% politics/business/planning and only 10% of the time is actually spent building anything.
They’ve built entire cities in China in the time it’s taken us to not replace the World Trade Center.
This is a question we all wonder when pass a large road under construction that seems to stand still except for a few workers milling around literally for years and then is completed in just a few weeks or months when they really start working. Part of it is inefficiency but a lot of it is for some of the reasons already given. We are really efficient at building things if there is pure open land and the design is simple but most projects today aren’t and have many dependencies including securing land rights, feasibility studies, engineering designs and redesigns and lots of other things to accomplish before the equipment and heavy equipment start in full-force.
Still, it isn’t always that way when things really need to get done. Manhattan was cleaned up really quickly after 9/11. That is mostly demolition but still complicated project management and they found a way. A massive natural gas deposit was found under my home area of Louisiana and made drill worthy only a few years ago. The energy companies moved in and built massive drilling rigs and all the infrastructure to go with them including roads and bridges seemingly overnight. The first moon landing wasn’t that long ago and it was done really quickly by today’s standards with fairly primitive technology. It is a mix of political will, money, and tolerance for some risk that allows people to build things really quickly and those aren’t always there sufficiently.
This is a sometimes a matter of perspective and scale however. The U.S. Interstate Highway system is one of the biggest but most overlooked achievements in the history of the world and it went from conception to mostly completed in just a few decades with important parts of it operational in just a few years after conception. It is much bigger than the Great Wall of China in total.
A lot seems to depend on where in the country the road construction is happening. I used to drive out to Illinois and back at least once a month, and the “Super 70” construction and related work around Indianapolis seemed to completed really quickly. I’d joke with my friends that the state DOT here should simply contract with the Indiana DOT for its road repairs - around here, we have roads where they’ve put up temporary barricades and barrels, and the road has been paved - twice! - around and on top of them.
In the US we have both environmental concerns and various forms of “mitigation” that can add time, and is probably less of a factor in China.
I’m no civil engineer, but I seem to recall that soil analysis can really slow down road and railway construction. No one wants to miss a pocket of bad soil, so core samples may be made at close intervals, and the base courses are adjusted as the road is laid out.
The train lines currently being planned in Norway are all being done piecemeal. The line from Oslo to Bergen, for instance, will be partially new tracks and partially upgrading the existing tracks. Financing is another big reason. Some of the upgrades will be partially financed by the state, partially financed by local interests, partially by the established NSB budgets and remain partially unfinanced.
For instance, it won’t be viable to start laying new tracks until the question of traffic between Oslo and Ski, which is already running at more than 100% efficiency, is resolved. Follobanen, as that project is called, is already budgeted at around 11,5 billion Norwegian kroner and scheduled to be completed in 2018. It includes 22 kilometres of paralell tracks to the existing infrastructure and will require a significant expansion of the existing tunnel networks, which will in turn require bypass tracks until it’s completed.
In other words, it’s a clusterfuck of logistics, planning, politicians who are coming and going with their support as well as consequence investigations, financing and having to maintain existing infrastructure while making new.
If anyone is interested in how soil was analyzed and tunnels were dug 100+ years ago, I have a scan and OCR of an 1894 book detailing the construction of the East River tunnel, which was the first tunnel between Manhattan and anywhere else (pre-dating the first water tunnel by 10+ years). Link here.
Of course, sometimes there are unpleasant surprises, like when the H&M (now PATH) tunnel to NJ hit rock about 2/3 of the way across (the rest of it is in soft silt in the river bed). That project was completed by the same engineer (Jacobs) as in the book linked above.
To get through the rocks, they used kerosene torches to dry out the silt on the sides and ceiling, to try to make it more solid, and then blasted the floor of the tunnel.
I was in China in March and one of our guides told us there had been a tremendous push to get a lot of building done before the Olympics and the Expo.
And now a lot of it is falling apart.
While it is certainly true China can put buildings and infrastructure at a very fast pace, the quality of the physical construction and the wisdom of both land use and financing decisions are very questionable in many cases.
That isn’t to say bad decisions don’t happen outside of the Mainland, but the decision making and design process encourages a higher degree of quality and lessens the probability that a project lays waste to landscapes and communities in order to satisfy a big shots personal ambitions for glory.
I for one (in most cases) would rather go for a lengthier but more complete, open and honest process than have civil infrastructure decisions made quickly but with less transparency and local input.
Decision makers will often miss, overlook or unwittingly ignore crucial information when they do not thoroughly consult with local communities. They can receive much useless crap during this process, but it is important. The process can also allow for outside parties and different levels of government to investigate a major capital project to ensure a degree of impartiality
Right outside my window, the re-design and construction of Interstate-10 has been going on for 11 years or more. Sometimes I hear them driving pilings, sometimes I hear heavy equipment driving up and down the construction zone. Police cars monitor traffic in the construction zone ticketing people if they can. I have observed so little progress that I wonder if it is ever going to get done.
It took the ancient Greeks 7 years to build the acropolis. The ancient Egyptians built the great pyramid in around 70 years. The Louisiana DOTD will probably build 3-4 sections of I-10 in around the same amount of time…
This is anecdotal, and probably not at all relevant but I’ll mention it anyway.
I live in a slightly poorer section of town, and as such, building projects here are usually the last on people’s minds. However, recently, the city has basically been forced to start replacing section of damages underground pipes that date back to god knows when.
Many of these pipes run right between our property lines and the street, so I’ve basically been able to sit and watch them dig ~4-6 feet down, and do whatever there is to be done. There were approximately 9 men outside my house, and at no point did I see any more than 3 working. Most were either sitting in the trucks or just standing around. They spent two days doing whatever the hell they supposed to be doing. The job was poorly done, and I think I could have done a better job laying down the tarmac. The city returned a few days later, dug up everything again, and spent ANOTHER two days fixing whatever it was they didn’t do properly. I guess they’re done now, but the end of my driveway is still is pretty rough shape, and the tar they slopped down is sinking lower each day.
In the UK, at least, I suspect teabreaks are the main reason.
topping off a building now certainly takes a shorter time. his description is telling: plan to finish. it really takes a long time.