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Volmarias posted:If we continue to see rising oil prices, I'm assuming that we'll see significant investments in mass transit, but I'm curious what form that will take. Will we be expanding busing, despite the gas prices? Will we electrify existing tracks where possible at an accelerated pace? Will we expand our light rail? (I'll try to keep this short, so some things will be generalized a bit.) People have preconceived notions of how the world is supposed to work, mainly due to the efforts of marketers. Good examples: Apple products are easy to use and make you look sophisticated, smoking cigarettes makes you sexy/attractive, you have to drink beer to have a good time and you must drive a car even if your destination is just one block away. The truth of the matter is that the average person does not *need* to drive a car for most things, just like the average person doesn't need to drink beer, smoke cigs, buy an iPhone, etc.. Depending on what happens during a person's childhood, the hippocampus portion of the brain may develop in a way that makes the brain stop questioning the information presented to it. This is the case for most people in America, due to the way children are taught and parented (do as I say, don't question me). This is also why young children, the elderly, adults who had good parents/a rough childhood and those with certain disorders won't believe information presented to them without concrete proof - their hippocampus allows the brain to check information against what it already knows before it commits it to long-term memory. The average person has a hippocampus that has been conditioned to do very little fact checking before accepting information and easily say "Yes," with the extremes being people with Autism that accept everything as fact (causing mental discontinuities) and people with Aspergers that can detect bullshit a mile away (making them very difficult to interact with). Marketers love this, because it means we can easily fill your head with ideas. Products... politics... we can plant ideas in your head about anything. Hell, look at how easily GM sabotaged its own EV1 product by using advertising to give people the mindset that electric cars are unreliable, inconvenient pieces of poo poo (when in reality the EV1 was a solid car and a game-changer for the entire industry). So, why does this matter? Even if gas hits $10 or $20/gallon, big oil and big auto will fight tooth and nail to keep people in the mindset that they have to drive. They'll continue to improve hybrid designs so that you'll use exceedingly less fuel (but still use fuel), while at the same time also giving money to organizations like the Tea Party to fight transit expansion as unneeded government spending. Expect big industry to go to the same lengths as they did nearly a century ago, when big auto bought up and purposely ran radial lines (streetcars) into the ground in the 1930s and 40s to make public transit look like an unreliable, useless mess. Unless there is an equal and opposite force on the other side that can counter that message, it doesn't matter what people like Cichlidae design - it won't happen, or it won't happen the way it needs to happen. That Midttrafik commercial is EXACTLY what transit in America should be shooting for right now: smart, witty ways to get the idea into people's minds that transit has many advantages over cars and that it's okay to leave your gas guzzler at home sometimes. In fact, practically every transit agency in America has tweeted and Facebooked that video in the past week (over 1 million views, across all of the copies posted to YouTube) - it makes the average person reconsider their opinion of a bus and gives them the idea that a bus is an awesome thing when it has its own lane. Once that kind of mindset is in place, transportation departments and agencies will be better able to gather the resources they need to construct better multi-modal networks. TL;DR: Transit needs to beat big industry at their own game. Until that happens, status quo. "If you want to change the way the world works, be an engineer. If you want to change the way the world thinks, be a marketer." Varance fucked around with this message at 00:51 on Sep 17, 2012 |
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Sep 16, 2012 23:51
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Volmarias posted:Or will things get worse; rising gas prices raises the prices of construction, causing improvements and new projects to be cancelled as "temporary" cost saving measures while things implode, fares rise on existing lines as ridership increases, lines are cancelled due to no longer being remotely feasible despite high demand? Honestly, I think this will be the case, but I've always been a pessimist. Fuel shortages mean that food prices skyrocket, cost of living goes through the roof in cities, and essentially only the rich can afford to thrive (moreso than now). Trying to keep fuel prices reasonably low so the country doesn't break out in civil war, there will be an even bigger rush toward unconventional oil than there is now - capturing clathrates, mining tar sands, misguided efforts at making more corn-based ethanol. Of course, this will just push the planet's climate over the edge, destroying millions of square km of arable land due to global climate change. Then, we've got massive famine with billions of deaths, continent-wide wars over the last bits of productive farmland available, governments trying too late to switch to carbon-neutral forms of energy or carbon sequestration... The whole thing is pretty nasty, and I hope I don't live long enough to see things get really bad. I'm just an engineer, though, so I do what I'm told, building infrastructure that mainly supports a self-destructive way of life.
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Sep 17, 2012 00:51
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Cichlidae posted:I'm just an engineer, though, so I do what I'm told, building infrastructure that mainly supports a self-destructive way of life. Of course, the problem is that no matter how much greener the rest of the world gets, China will probably start a world war once their pollution reaches critical mass.  Edit: On the optimistic side, most of the major delivery and food companies are well into the testing phase with hybrid vehicles. The local Coca-Cola distributor here in Tampa uses hybrid trucks that get 12MPG on diesel fuel almost exclusively. Better fuel mileage than most SUVs, from a freight delivery truck. Think about that for a minute. CN Rail has also sent shockwaves through the rail industry with some of their more recent innovations. In specific, CN makes shittons of money by using computer AI-controlled locomotives for yard switching and scheduled freight trains that run like commuter rail - superior reliablity, creates space for more commuter rail trips each day. They've been so profitable that they're mulling a buyout of one of the weaker US railways. Lord knows I'd love to see them take over CSX. Varance fucked around with this message at 01:32 on Sep 17, 2012 |
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Sep 17, 2012 00:55
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Varance posted:Edit: On the optimistic side, most of the major delivery and food companies are well into the testing phase with hybrid vehicles. The local Coca-Cola distributor here in Tampa uses hybrid trucks that get 12MPG on diesel fuel almost exclusively. Better fuel mileage than most SUVs, from a freight delivery truck. Think about that for a minute. The least fuel efficient 2012 SUVs get 12 mpg. The best listed is a hybrid SUV at 32 mpg. http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/best-worst.shtml
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Sep 17, 2012 01:52
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Cormack posted:The least fuel efficient 2012 SUVs get 12 mpg. The best listed is a hybrid SUV at 32 mpg. http://www.fueleconomy.gov/feg/best-worst.shtml Edit: Here's a hugeass list for you. Going by City MPG, because that's what local route trucks drive. Keep in mind that hybrids are still rare, due to the cost. The same is true with hybrid transit vehicles, due to shrinking funding and the need for fast expansion. A transit system is more likely to go CNG then they are to go hybrid. Varance fucked around with this message at 02:22 on Sep 17, 2012 |
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Sep 17, 2012 01:58
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FISHMANPET posted:No, because every time I said line I meant system. New York City's actually just following through on plans that are over 70 years old, http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b3/1939_IND_Second_System.jpg. Most of it's never been done, the only part being actually worked on is the Second Avenue Line which was originally planned, in nearly the same configuration as it will be when finished, back in 1929.
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Sep 17, 2012 02:49
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Varance posted:About half of the NA metros were indeed built by for-profit companies, either as private ventures or 3Ps. Even Vancouver's Skytrain falls into that latter category (built/operated by the for-profit Translink in partnership with BC Transit). edit: I also would like to add that Skytrain is ridiculously expensive which is why there's so little of it, but it loving rules! Super fast, quiet, and smooth plus it is run by computers so you won't die when the conductor is texting. hakarl fucked around with this message at 03:14 on Sep 17, 2012 |
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Sep 17, 2012 03:11
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I spent two years living in downtown Atlanta as a student at Georgia State University, and I can say that I have a love/hate for MARTA. I can't really speak much for peak commuter hour usage, since I generally didn't go out during those times. Need to go to Wal-mart to go grocery shopping? Walk 6 blocks to the train station, get on the train and take it up a few stops, then spend the next 30-ish minutes on the bus. It was basically an hour one way from my dorm to the bus stop near Wal-Mart. The same bus route would take me all the way out to behind Cumberland Mall, where I could walk to the Cobb Galleria for Anime Weekend Atlanta. It was a two hour trip, for something that would have been 15-20 minutes by car. (I wasn't willing to pay $400 per semester to be able to have parking at my dorm.) I've heard of jobs that the ad says "Must have reliable transportation (NO MARTA)". MARTA or no, I wouldn't want to try to get anywhere during rush hours that wasn't within walking distance.
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Sep 17, 2012 03:20
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hakarl posted:Nitpicking, but: Translink is the name of the regional transit authority, not a for-profit company. It did partner with SNC-Lavalin to build the Canada line of the Skytrain system. The Canada line uses rolling stock that is incompatible with the rest of the Skytrain system. The Canada line platforms also are half the length of those of the other lines (and underground so expansion would be incredibly expensive!) almost as if private companies are worried about short-term revenue over long-term viablility. It's not that much more expensive than other comparable systems, really. The Bombardier bid for the Canada Line was only like $100-200 million more than SNC's. In my view it's worth it because you get a neat system with Canadian built technology and support local jobs.
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Sep 17, 2012 03:21
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hakarl posted:Nitpicking, but: Translink is the name of the regional transit authority, not a for-profit company. It did partner with SNC-Lavalin to build the Canada line of the Skytrain system. The Canada line uses rolling stock that is incompatible with the rest of the Skytrain system. The Canada line platforms also are half the length of those of the other lines (and underground so expansion would be incredibly expensive!) almost as if private companies are worried about short-term revenue over long-term viablility. The SkyTrain is a fascinating subject of study, and in a roundabout way is the reason why Translink is setup the way it is. The technology behind the Skytrain was originally called Intermediate Capacity Transit System (ICTS), developed for GO Transit (Toronto) by the Urban Transportation Development Corporation (UTDC). UTDC was a crown corporation of the province of Ontario, controlled by MTO: the same people who brought us Ontario Tall Wall and Parclo interchanges. Its sole purpose in life, along with sister company Orion Bus Industries, was to produce advanced transit vehicles and systems for Toronto and the rest of Ontario - in particular, new vehicles for the Toronto subway, streetcar and commuter rail networks. The company made some pretty drat good products, with the CLRV and ALRV mixed-traffic LRVs and Bi-Level rail coaches still serving Toronto after more than 30 years of operation. UTDC's H5 and H6 subway trains, the oldest stuff currently running in the Toronto subway system, will be refurbished and used some more after replacement on a starter heavy rail line in Nigeria. A great deal of Bombardier's current rail tech is based off of old UTDC design and experimentation, with Bombardier continuing to carry the torch to this day when it comes to building Toronto custom transit vehicles (more on that later). Good stuff, eh? ICTS was a conceptual high speed transit mode using linear induction (magnets) to "pull" the train down the track instead of standard traction motors, developed for the GO-Urban transit initiative. By the time the tech was ready, political climate shifted to the point that GO-Urban was abandoned. Not wanting the tech to be completely wasted, MTO forced Toronto into shoehorning ICTS into an under-construction light rail project called the Scarborough LRT (now just RT). Problem is, they didn't adjust the curves or guideway to compensate for the differences. This led to derail problems and an eventual rebuild of one of the stations. Ontario and Hamilton were also supposed to get ICTS lines, but the Toronto demonstration didn't work out that well (it's going to be converted back into an LRT line after the 2015 PanAm games). Detroit also bought into the tech as a downtown peoplemover, which also has its future up in the air. Alongside the Toronto implementation, UTDC managed to sell British Columbia on an ICTS demonstrator line for Vancouver's 1986 transportation-themed World's Fair (Expo 86). To sweeten the deal, they offered the vehicles and associated technology for an expanded demonstrator line AT COST. Since the demonstrator portion of the line was incomplete with only one station, a version of the Toronto cars without automation was used. After Expo, the entire first phase was completed, with the permanent rolling stock redesigned to lose the driver's compartment in favor of the integrated SELTRAC automatic train operation (ATO) system, tested successfully with ICTS in Toronto. Over time, SkyTrain (Expo line) was expanded further through the Vancouver region to Surrey, with a second spur line (Millennium line, now a quasi-loop) added around the turn of the century to provide service out to Burnaby and eventually Vancouver Community College. This is where the mayors started getting uppity because TransLink wasn't building SkyTrain in *their* city - and ICTS was now much more expensive to build because of UTDC being privatized by Ontario, sold to SNC Lavalin, then sold again to Bombardier. Bombardier likes money and charged Vancouver out the rear end for the Millennium Line and Mark 2 ICTS (now called Bombardier ART) vehicles, as Vancouver was the only one with a full-out ART transit system at that time - and a linear induction subway system is as proprietary/custom as you can get. In order to prevent corruption, TransLink was re-incorporated in 2006 as a for-profit corporation, independent of the cities (but still overseen by the mayor's council, who appoints the board of directors). Bombardier lost out to Hyundai Rotem on the Canada Line, not expecting Hyundai to submit a low-balled bid to get their foot in the door. Oops! Bombardier DID manage to win the contract on JFK AirTrain and several systems in China using ART tech, allowing them to bring the price down enough to beat Hyundai Rotem on the Evergreen Line (now an extension of the Millennium line to Coquitlam, rather than its own separated system). As an aside, this is what the onboard computer looks like on ICTS Mark 1 vehicles (taken from a Toronto unit). The master computer controlling the entire line was modernized about 6 years ago, but the individual trains are still using the original onboard computer.  It looks like an older telephone PBX, no? That's because this is the first implementation of SelTrac, which was literally repurposed from Alcatel's PBX technology at the time. Edit: I used to love this sound as a kid. And then there's the space-age wooooosh. The newest ones sound kinda like IndyCars, which is also awesome. Varance fucked around with this message at 06:13 on Sep 17, 2012 |
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Sep 17, 2012 03:35
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Imagine 4 transit companies at the edge of a cliff, translink works much in the same way.
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Sep 17, 2012 03:43
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Varance posted:To get technical, Translink is incorporated as a for-profit, owned by a non-profit (BC Transit). It was done that way to shield the system from regional political conflicts arising from 22 different mayors trying to tell the system what to do. In other words, they wanted to avoid turning into the Toronto Transit Commission where every transit plan for the last 40 years has been turned into a political hand grenade. Translink itself owns Coast Mountain Bus Company, another for-profit incorporated that handles bus operations. It's a fairly arcane setup, but it works. Aha I see, it was me that was confused! Thanks for clearing that up.
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Sep 17, 2012 04:03
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Varance posted:Fantastic TransLink post This is great, but TransLink isn't owned by BC Transit. TransLink (legally South Coast British Columbia Transportation Authority) was created by the BC Government in 1998 to take over control of Metro Vancouver's transit system, along with other things such as major roads and bridges in the area. BC Transit is a provincial crown agency for transit everywhere in the province and it was eventually accepted that Vancouver itself needed its own transportation authority, not involved with the rest of the province. The goals and expertise of managing remote and smaller city transit systems really wasn't applicable for Vancouver any more. (Also the 22 mayors fighting as previously mentioned.) It broke the Province's transit authorities into TransLink (managing Metro Vancouver) and BC Transit (everywhere else.) It's a separate entity, not owned by BC Transit. The switch involved 'transitional' liveries for vehicles where TransLink logos were used with the BC Transit colour scheme. (At the time Blue/Red for BC Transit, still Blue/Yellow for TransLink.) All of the buses have since been redone, but there's still SkyTrain cars in the transitional livery, along side the blue and yellow TransLink livery. 
less than three fucked around with this message at 07:19 on Sep 17, 2012 |
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Sep 17, 2012 07:08
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less than three posted:TransLink isn't owned by BC Transit.
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Sep 17, 2012 07:34
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Now that everyone's busy hating on automobiles and highways, here's a photostream of the work that we did on I-35 on Sept 8th. http://imgur.com/a/vLPrB
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Sep 17, 2012 16:38
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I've heard that electrical vehicles would still be a massive drain on fossil fuels since that's what most American power plants run on. Wind power isn't quite effective enough yet, and solar power is still semi-dependent on petroleum (for the plastics inside the solar cells).
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Sep 17, 2012 17:11
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SlothfulCobra posted:I've heard that electrical vehicles would still be a massive drain on fossil fuels since that's what most American power plants run on. Wind power isn't quite effective enough yet, and solar power is still semi-dependent on petroleum (for the plastics inside the solar cells). Varance fucked around with this message at 18:01 on Sep 17, 2012 |
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Sep 17, 2012 17:59
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Once again an interesting question comes up during my drive to and from work. I noticed this morning that traffic was slowing down VERY considerably, and it was because the sun was blinding everyone going in one direction. It took a 70mph road down to 40mph. Is the location of the sun during morning/evening commutes taken into account when designing things like bridges or other grades? I'd imagine not, because it's such a small percentage of time when this is the case, but was curious. As well, how are beltways funded? For example, we have Interstate 26 coming into town, and a beltway (Interstate 526). However, 526 is just a beltway and is not truly "inter-state". So would it be funded by state/local? Or are beltways considered a Federal project anyway?
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Sep 17, 2012 18:08
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SlothfulCobra posted:I've heard that electrical vehicles would still be a massive drain on fossil fuels since that's what most American power plants run on. Wind power isn't quite effective enough yet, and solar power is still semi-dependent on petroleum (for the plastics inside the solar cells). It's a different kind of screwed. We mostly use coal for our power plants, so while there might be some effect on the cost of coal due to increased diesel prices (mining and transportation costs) your overall power bill isn't going to rise very much. We've got hundreds of years of proven coal reserves; we'll be OK for that for a while, at least. The problem is that coal is as dirty as can be; if we start adding MORE coal plants instead of nuclear, etc, then we're just going to be pumping more sulphur, CO2, etc into the air. Additionally, electrics are really great except for the cost in batteries; having gas/electric or diesel/electric hybrids are great except that you'll spend $5k after 10 years or so to replace the batteries. As the price for batteries drops and battery density increases, this will get better, but for now "everything runs on electric" isn't really the panacaea that we hope it is.
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Sep 17, 2012 18:20
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Overall though, replacing all the exhaust from cars with exhaust from coal power plants charging cars would in fact mean a lot less pollution. It's still bad though.
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Sep 17, 2012 18:30
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Install Gentoo posted:Overall though, replacing all the exhaust from cars with exhaust from coal power plants charging cars would in fact mean a lot less pollution. It's still bad though. Not really. The pollution caused by the US Auto fleet is actually pretty small, at this point, proportionate to the amount of pollution caused by industry. I think that if we got rid of all the cars by making them all run on unobtanium it would eliminate something like 5% of the air pollution production in the US, but I don't have the sources ready. Really, you end up with big wins in increasing efficiency overall in the system so that overall power usage is reduced. Energystar is a much overlooked success story that's done incredible things, simply by getting people to pay attention to how much energy their appliances actually use, and being able to put a price tag on efficiency.
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Sep 17, 2012 18:33
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Volmarias posted:Energystar is a much overlooked success story that's done incredible things, simply by getting people to pay attention to how much energy their appliances actually use, and being able to put a price tag on efficiency. Now if we could only convince DOTs and PubWorks to implement LCCA, TCO, and other efficiency measures into their bidding process. Hey guys! What costs you $1 / unit today, but $0.01 / unit every day for the next year, is FAR more expensive than the item that costs you $2 / unit today! Hello!
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Sep 17, 2012 18:48
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Volmarias posted:Not really. The pollution caused by the US Auto fleet is actually pretty small, at this point, proportionate to the amount of pollution caused by industry. I think that if we got rid of all the cars by making them all run on unobtanium it would eliminate something like 5% of the air pollution production in the US, but I don't have the sources ready. Yes but I'm talking about "the pollution caused by driving". The pollution to power ratio for electricity out of a coal plant to run a car for 100 miles is much less than the pollution to power ratio for gas or diesel to drive the same car 100 miles. Similarly to how most electric railroads in this country are powered by coal power plants primarily, but it's less pollution than running the same trains by diesel engines.
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Sep 17, 2012 18:54
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Install Gentoo posted:Yes but I'm talking about "the pollution caused by driving". The pollution to power ratio for electricity out of a coal plant to run a car for 100 miles is much less than the pollution to power ratio for gas or diesel to drive the same car 100 miles. That's true, but my point is that improving autos is kind of reaching a point of diminishing returns.
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Sep 17, 2012 19:47
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I don't think anyone making an informed argument is saying it's the endgame solution to all pollution, but the biggest impact will probably be in the mindset of everyone. It's actually already taking effect, and I imagine it's not going to be very long before consumers are primarily demanding super-low / zero emission vehicles. Plus, it may be an overall small proportion of pollution, but I imagine that a lot of it ends up having a worse effect because of where people drive. The biggest impacts will be in cities that are less into heavy industry and more into white collar work, where the portion of air pollution caused by cars is probably much more than 5%.
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Sep 17, 2012 20:05
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Coming back to pedestrian crossings - I encountered this spot recently and it blew me away - I didn't know these existed, but it's such a simple solution to the problem. This is a pedestrian crossing of a six-lane undivided roadway, with heavy traffic, at an unsignalized intersection. The solution is to put little flag-holders with about 10 slots and 5 flags on each side of the intersection. There are signs (unfortunately facing away from the intersection) telling people how to use it. You pick up the flag, and stick it out while still standing safely on the curb, and wait for the traffic on your left to stop. Then you start proceeding, making sure the other direction of traffic stops too. It's amazing how much faster the driver response is with an orange flag - it's absolutely clear that your intent is to start crossing the roadway. It's also nice because the parked cars can obscure the pedestrians at this location - so the flag helps you be seen without exposing yourself to traffic. I'm curious how often the flags need replacing (and / or just being ferried back to the side with less demand - you can see in this photo almost all the flags are on the west side - but smart helpful pedestrians can help out by taking a handful with them). Overall seems like a nice low-cost alternative to a HAWK Beacon. Anyone have experience with these? http://maps.google.com/maps?q=Conne...159.38,,0,10.21
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Sep 17, 2012 20:20
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Chaos Motor posted:Now if we could only convince DOTs and PubWorks to implement LCCA, TCO, and other efficiency measures into their bidding process. Hey guys! What costs you $1 / unit today, but $0.01 / unit every day for the next year, is FAR more expensive than the item that costs you $2 / unit today! Hello!
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Sep 17, 2012 20:30
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Are there any measures in place (anywhere, really) to prevent unscrupulous contractors from bidding low or bidding short with the expectation of cost/time overruns?
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Sep 17, 2012 21:19
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Jasper Tin Neck posted:LCCA is already incorporated into the benefit-cost ratios of transport projects. The problem is that maintenance costs are wildly unpredictable and polluting is still way too cheap to have an impact on cost assessments. Call up our local Public Works departments and tell them that, would ya!? I can't tell you how many have said that they ONLY look at up-front costs when considering a project or material.
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Sep 17, 2012 21:28
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Grundulum posted:Are there any measures in place (anywhere, really) to prevent unscrupulous contractors from bidding low or bidding short with the expectation of cost/time overruns? I would think that running late on public construction projects would net the contractor a fine per day or similar, right? I believe that's mostly the case around my country anyway.
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Sep 17, 2012 21:50
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Chaos Motor posted:Now that everyone's busy hating on automobiles and highways, here's a photostream of the work that we did on I-35 on Sept 8th. I'm glad to see how well it worked out (aside from the grout)! Seems like the workers jumped right in. What's the f'c of your mix, at installation? SquadronROE posted:Once again an interesting question comes up during my drive to and from work. I noticed this morning that traffic was slowing down VERY considerably, and it was because the sun was blinding everyone going in one direction. It took a 70mph road down to 40mph. Is the location of the sun during morning/evening commutes taken into account when designing things like bridges or other grades? I'd imagine not, because it's such a small percentage of time when this is the case, but was curious. The Sun's position varies throughout the year, so it's not taken into consideration. A quick look at where the Sun rises and sets here tells me there's about a 45-degree range on each side of the compass that would have that issue, and I don't think it would be remotely cost-effective to only build roads and bridges in certain orientations. We do, however, put backplates on east- and westbound signal heads, to make them more visible against a low Sun. SquadronROE posted:As well, how are beltways funded? For example, we have Interstate 26 coming into town, and a beltway (Interstate 526). However, 526 is just a beltway and is not truly "inter-state". So would it be funded by state/local? Or are beltways considered a Federal project anyway? Typically, they're on the National Highway System (NHS), which provides the same degree of Federal funding as an Interstate would. Even non-NHS roads are eligible for a good percent Federal funding, depending on the type of work being done. Volmarias posted:That's true, but my point is that improving autos is kind of reaching a point of diminishing returns. The important part isn't so much that there's LESS pollution, it's that all that pollution is point sources, and easily treatable. If you want to start sequestering carbon, or even just scrubbing sulfur, it's a lot easier and more effective to do it to a giant smokestack than a million tailpipes. It is a drop in the bucket, though, as far as global climate change is concerned. Go carbon-neutral or go to hell (literally). Devor posted:Coming back to pedestrian crossings - I encountered this spot recently and it blew me away - I didn't know these existed, but it's such a simple solution to the problem. Wow, I've never heard of those before! It's low-tech, to be sure, but sounds like it could work. I can think of three problems off the top of my head: * Someone with limited mobility couldn't use it * Theft is always something we have to consider - who replenishes flags when they run out? * Heavy directional flow could mean all the flags end up on one side of the road I think it's really clever, and could certainly make the crossing safer if there's no money for a more foolproof system. The crossing itself is more visible, even without peds, just thanks to the flags' presence. Grundulum posted:Are there any measures in place (anywhere, really) to prevent unscrupulous contractors from bidding low or bidding short with the expectation of cost/time overruns? In theory, yes! It almost never works out, and here's why: Contractors love to front-load their bids. They bid high on items that they'll get paid for right away, like signs and drums, then bid low on later items, like curbing and pavement markings. The overall bid is the same, but they get their money early and earn interest. Some of them even grab the early cash and then "go bankrupt" by sticking all the money in an off-shore bank account. Heck, some even flee the country. - Our protection against this is that our software checks for unbalanced bidding. It's not great, and we're prone to make exceptions anyway, but it's better than nothing. Contractors love to under-cut others by using the cheapest possible materials and working during hours when they're not allowed to work, which runs the legit contractors out of business. - For the materials, it's all supposed to go through us, but "us" is often a consultant. Consultants can be easily bought, as happened on the I-84 job in Cheshire and cost us millions to fix. For the timetables, we have liquidated damages that are supposed to be assessed when they work outside allowed hours. Those damages are based on volumes and wage rates from 1996, so they're way too low to begin with. Plus, we almost NEVER enforce them, so it's completely moot. Most contractors want to finish the job as early as possible (it's cheaper for them), but some take forever. - Like Hippie Hedgehog said, there are liquidated damages on contract length. They're substantial, too; for a small bridge replacement, it's thousands to tens of thousands of dollars per calendar day. However, it's very easy to push that blame onto someone else (a subcontractor or supplier), and get an extension. I don't recall any of my projects ever collecting LDs, even the ones that went WAY over time. Edit: Here is one great story for you about a shady contractor. This was back in the early 1990s, when I-91 in Hartford was being completely re-done. There were about a half-dozen billion-dollar jobs. Tons of money tossed around. Bid opening comes, and one specific contractor wins EVERY SINGLE project, by a good margin. The other contractors are extremely pissed, understandably, because they know there's no way he can build it for that price. Construction begins, he grabs as much money as he can for the easy stuff, then flees the country and leaves the biggest project - I-91 I-84 interchange - dangling in the breeze. So now the State's on the hook, the construction zone's abandoned, but the lanes are still closed down, and I think we had to part it out to a bunch of different contractors and wound up paying a ton more than we would have if we'd taken the second-highest bid. The guy's brother re-organized the company and is still one of the most corrupt guys in the state. Still gets contracts, too, including design-build-operate for the parking garage at Bradley, courtesy of John Rowland, who gave it to him in exchange for kickbacks. poo poo never changes. Cichlidae fucked around with this message at 22:25 on Sep 17, 2012 |
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Sep 17, 2012 22:18
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Hippie Hedgehog posted:I would think that running late on public construction projects would net the contractor a fine per day or similar, right? I believe that's mostly the case around my country anyway. Interestingly enough, because of the grouting issue, I have first-hand experience with this. We are awaiting confirmation from KDOT on $300 per hour per lane per mile of unscheduled / over-scheduled closure. Now that doesn't mean they DO assess at $300, but that they can. Cichlidae posted:I'm glad to see how well it worked out (aside from the grout)! Seems like the workers jumped right in. What's the f'c of your mix, at installation? Yeah man, except for the very last step of grouting, everything was a cakewalk! You can tell it's designed right when you don't have to tell the installers anything. I did not have to intervene once, except to do the things I was supposed to do on my own ("grout flow control devices" == self-stick tar paper, lol), up until the point of the grout pump failure when suddenly every head spun in my direction and suddenly the call was mine to make. "I don't like it, I don't want to do it, and if I had any choice, I wouldn't, but we have to get the job done," I said, so ahead we went with their stock grout. The crew was really on the ball. They've done a million joint repairs, so for them, the only change was they had to be more careful on the cuts, and the dowels. Other than that, it was the same old same old, except we dropped in a finished slab instead of pouring one. They literally needed zero instruction on the procedure change and it all went right the first time. We clearly got the right guys, there. Of COURSE, the problem was with the crew that hasn't ever worked highway jobs before. I knew I should have sent over a pallet of grout for them to handle ahead of time. Live and learn, but it's an expensive lesson. Too bad it's such a specialized field (aka almost nobody does it, and most 'crews' are an immigrant with a beat up, dirty, pull-behind pump), and there's no crews in that field trained for highway mudjacking around here. F'c on the slabs is 8K PSI, 8.5K theoretical upper limit but let's be realistic, no cure is perfect. They come out of the forms at about 2500 PSI from one night of gain, but they sat around for three weeks because of delays, so they were pretty much full strength when they went in. The grout... we don't know about. We were told it's Type III 2500 PSI w/in 4 hours, but that's all we know so far. I've called the contractor half a dozen times now, but no word has come back. We really just need a spec sheet so we can do a comparative analysis with other mixes and figure out where we sit for long-term performance. Guys I ain't mad, I ain't gonna yell, just fuckin call me back and let's get it sorted!
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Sep 17, 2012 22:37
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Chaos Motor posted:Interestingly enough, because of the grouting issue, I have first-hand experience with this. We are awaiting confirmation from KDOT on $300 per hour per lane per mile of unscheduled / over-scheduled closure. Now that doesn't mean they DO assess at $300, but that they can. Late to the game so I apologize if this has been asked. Is their any way you could give out a rough cost, say for a spec similar to typ 8" PCCP (4500psi) over 6" aggregate? I'd guess your material costs are going to be higher than traditional pavement. However, I would think labor cost would be reduced with a contractor familiar with it. I could see a 3man crew being able to install these easily. QA/QC aspect is an upsell as it seems this would be way easier to control. However, overcoming the initial cost is the main issue. Both public and private entities in the KC area can't see past their nose. Though their are rumors of MoDOT getting deeper into life cycle cost analysis on pavements so who knows.
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Sep 18, 2012 04:08
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FISHMANPET posted:How many truly designed HRT networks do we have in America? Atlanta and Washington are the only that come to mind. Most of the cities on the east were privately built 100 years ago, same with Chicago and San Francisco. So while it's an interesting thought exercise and ends up not being very relevant. BART is pretty new compared to the systems you mentioned, and I'm pretty sure it's heavy rail. FISHMANPET posted:I don't know if we'll see any major new subway construction in our lifetimes, unless something seriously changes, either tunneling becomes a lot cheaper, or some peak oil stuff happens and city population and construction surges. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westside_Subway_Extension_(Los_Angeles_Metro)
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Sep 18, 2012 05:00
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fishhooked posted:Is their any way you could give out a rough cost, say for a spec similar to typ 8" PCCP (4500psi) over 6" aggregate? On this particular job, we're at about $29.30 per sq ft, versus the original contractor who won the bid at $12.80 per sq ft for the work using poured concrete. Our price makes certain assumptions about expenses, because some parties donated labor & materials. Oh, and our spec is 8K, no sense screwing around with different mixes when the good mix is cheap(er, relatively speaking) because it's used so much. quote:I'd guess your material costs are going to be higher than traditional pavement. However, I would think labor cost would be reduced with a contractor familiar with it. I could see a 3man crew being able to install these easily. Yeah, you're looking at about $20 per sq ft just in the slab, but realistically if you put together the right crew - which nobody has right now - you're looking at about $165 in labor, using local rates and a 45m install time. There's equipment costs that aren't covered looking at it just as mat'l & labor though. quote:QA/QC aspect is an upsell as it seems this would be way easier to control. However, overcoming the initial cost is the main issue. Both public and private entities in the KC area can't see past their nose. Though their are rumors of MoDOT getting deeper into life cycle cost analysis on pavements so who knows. The quality and life-cycle is built into the product, by investing in much higher quality materials. We overcome the initial cost in certain situations with a financing partner who makes VERY long term, low-rate investments - think retirement accounts - which are a perfect match for the kind of terms this financing needs. I had someone who runs budgets for a local PubWorks tell me straight up that LCCA is something only people my age care about. He ain't gonna be around when it matters, he said. Short sighted bullshit. As for MoDOT's adoption of it, that's probably out of necessity, since their investments in asphalt's cheap up-front have bitten their rear end in half for ten years running. Chaos Motor fucked around with this message at 05:25 on Sep 18, 2012 |
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Sep 18, 2012 05:20
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Whoa strange stuff going on with all those contracter issues, are these all done cost-plus or something? Really sounds like how things got done here in the Netherlands 30 years ago. These days every semi complicated job is molded in some kind of PPP agreement where there's alliances of engineering firms, general contractors and specialized guys bidding on all kinds of incentivized cost, performance and quality targets. You can imagine the field day lawyers and 'independent' consultants are having with that poo poo.
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Sep 18, 2012 15:50
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Mandalay posted:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Westside_Subway_Extension_(Los_Angeles_Metro) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Avenue_Subway If they ever actually finish the loving thing, that is. I hope they do, since I take the 4/5/6 line every day and it's the most crowded in the city.
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Sep 18, 2012 18:19
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Koesj posted:Whoa strange stuff going on with all those contracter issues, are these all done cost-plus or something? I'm sorry, was this comment directed at me? The way this job worked was we met with KDOT and asked them to evaluate our product. They agreed to test two slabs, and the contractor with the existing contract on the site agreed to perform installation as a modification of their contract. The producer agreed to provide the slabs at no cost for evaluation. The only contractor who got paid... were the guys whose pump broke. Since this was specialty work and only three firms called us back on it, and only one firm was really qualified to do the work, we didn't have much price leverage. And by much I mean zero price leverage. But pumps aren't expensive and neither are pump operators, so hopefully we can make sales directly to contractors and they can deal with the grouting issue internally by staffing their crews properly to install these things. No reason to have an outside contractor for a 15 minute operation.
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Sep 18, 2012 18:19
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Chaos Motor posted:I'm sorry, was this comment directed at me? The way this job worked was we met with KDOT and asked them to evaluate our product. They agreed to test two slabs, and the contractor with the existing contract on the site agreed to perform installation as a modification of their contract. The producer agreed to provide the slabs at no cost for evaluation. I thought he meant Cichlidae's "Contractors run away with $1B and welp" post
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Sep 18, 2012 19:00
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That's probably right.
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Sep 18, 2012 20:20
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