Choke Point of a Nation: The High Cost of an Aging River Lock

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/11/23/business/economy/desperately-plugging-holes-in-an-87-year-old-dam.html?_r=0

by jseliger • 10 years ago

67 56 10 years ago

nytimes.com

tomohawk2• 10 years ago

I wonder if this was one of those "shovel ready" projects.

http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/10/15/obama-lesson-s...

CalChris2• 10 years ago

The replacements locks, Olmsted Locks and Dam, began construction in December 1995. They're due to come online in 2018.

http://www.lrl.usace.army.mil/Missions/Civil-Works/Navigatio... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Olmsted_Locks_and_Dam

At $3B and 20 years in the making, maybe they're just a little more complex than a shovel.

duskwuff• 10 years ago

And it seems a little difficult to blame Obama for the slow progress of a project that began about the same time he was filing papers for his candidacy as an Illinois senator.

honkhonkpants3• 10 years ago

Any idea why it would take 20+ years to build? The largest lock in the world was built in 5 years.

tomohawk2• 10 years ago

Yes, the project was already under way. There was $768B allocated for shovel ready projects and this was 'only' $3B. If was merely a matter of money, it seems like this lock should be done now. Or, given the $768B, replaced with a different design and the failed one cast aside.

my_first_acct• 10 years ago

People living in the East Bay (SF Bay area) might be interested to know that the 4th bore of the Caldecott Tunnel (completed 2013) was the largest recipient of Federal stimulus funds for infrastructure in the US ([1] via [2]).

My own recollection is that the project was nearing the final planning stages in 2008, but the recession wiped out much of the state and local funding that had been earmarked for the project. The project was about to be cancelled, but Federal stimulus funding came to the rescue.

[1] http://www.sfgate.com/bayarea/article/Work-begins-on-Caldeco...

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caldecott_Tunnel#Fourth_bore

(Edit: in an earlier version, I claimed that the project was "shovel-ready" in 2008, but since construction didn't start until 2010, I was obviously not correct).

m_mueller7• 10 years ago

Is my interpretation correct that the main problem in US public infrastructure is that politicians can just move around the funding of already running projects? Or is it bad incentives when doing estimates such that it can't be planned properly?

I'm asking because in Switzerland we have just completed two huge infrastructure projects, one for 10B and one for 2B, with hardly any budget problems. Cost of 1km of rail tunnel is at a reasonable 140M (for two ways, one bore each). So we know it's possible, I'm just wondering what's the difference.

csours5• 10 years ago

Upvoted for adding to the discussion. Downvotes are not for disagreeing.

geoffpado• 10 years ago

Heads up: you're being downvoted yourself, because on HN, downvotes are (also) for disagreeing, according to pg: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=117171

gwern• 10 years ago

"Meanwhile, the old locks and dams are costing the country $640 million a year in delays and closures, according to the Army corps....Even with a tax credit, though, companies building roads or locks would want a return on their investment — most likely in the form of toll collection, said Mike Toohey, president of the Waterways Council, an advocacy group for the river shipping industry. His industry is “not in favor of a toll,” he said. Still, he is optimistic that spending on inland waterways will increase under a new administration."

What baffles me is the total dismissal of a private infratructure project which charges tolls. This would seem to be a perfect project for user-pays funding: the project offers a service with a specific, discrete in time and place, easily calculated value which is extremely large to the user who are supposedly suffering severely under the status quo. My only guess is that the lobbyist affiliation here is the whole story: the industries think they can get full taxpayer subsidies for the costs without having to pay much or any of it, and it's worth waiting for a government solution.

caf• 10 years ago

I suspect that if there are multiple river shipping companies but one monopoly lock operator, all of the economic surplus in the river transport industry will be captured by that monopoly operator.

Perhaps the solution is for the river shipping industry to form a co-op to build, own and operate the necessary infrastructure.

honkhonkpants3• 10 years ago

Good idea! The more people we get to buy into the cooperative the better it will be! If we get everybody to participate we can just call it "government".

sandworm1013• 10 years ago

Anyone and everyone gets nervous when people talk about tolls on infrastructure bottlenecks. This isn't a car bridge. There is no alternative route, at any price. Those using the lock would have no option but to pay. Such a monopoly in private hands will never be popular.

Tolls on interstate infrastructure have also traditionally been looked down upon. Charging people to move themselves or goods across state lines, even where arguably constitutional, rubs Americans the wrong way. Easing interstate commerce is a large part of why the federal government exists.

NegativeLatency2• 10 years ago

You should read Cadillac Dessert. Lots of water projects aren't profitable on their own (generally irrigation projects) and rely on hydroelectric revenues to appear financially viable.

Theodores• 10 years ago

This book probably is the best for understanding how this infrastructure was built in the first place. Isn't ever river dammed west of the Mississippi? That was a crazy amount of work that two rival govt. agencies did very much in competition until they ran out of rivers to build dams for.

So it is no surprise that this infrastructure - built in very different political circumstances to today - is not going to be maintained. When you look at all of it - infrastructure, America - none of it is going to be maintained when the oil runs out. Suburbia with those nice big highways wasn't ever going to be viable post oil. Hopefully Tesla can make U.S. suburbia viable.

tbihl3• 10 years ago

It seems to me that the US struggles not with spending levels on infrastructure, but with correct allocation. There's not enough focus on high throughput, high value trunks, because we throw far too much money at the environmental and cultural scourge that is the many-laned, unlimited access 45 mph roads frequently punctuated with stop lights.

It's true that there's that ASCE report from a few years back that decries how woefully underfunded our infrastructure is. But it also shows absurd things, like that we need to spend an extra 4.3 trillion on surface roads to save 3 trillion in potentially lost GDP over the next 25 years. The next most troublesome category of infrastructure from a funding gap perspective seems to be wastewater (~75% unfunded, but far smaller), which also stems from our failure to keep people in sufficiently dense development patterns.

Going back to the issue at hand, with the inland waterway: the same report puts the economic cost of underfunding waterways at half that of underfunding surface roads. But the underfunding for waterways is 2 orders of magnitude lower than that for surface roads... American infrastructure policy is akin to a dog perishing in a house fire because it's too busy chasing its own tail to step out the open front door.

I highly encourage people to think about page 5 of this ASCE report (http://www.infrastructurereportcard.org/wp-content/uploads/2...) and ponder the disparities.

coredog642• 10 years ago

ASCE is hardly a disinterested party here. More infrastructure projects means more money and influence for ASCE.

tbihl3• 10 years ago

To some extent I'm sure that's true, but I'm guessing that this report relies less on that, and more on mindless calculations of "could this be improved/built up/repaired?" while failing to step back and realize we're chasing an impossible end. It's what happens when people apply their codes and manuals, thinking that those things are purely factual, as if such a thing could ever be free of value judgments that need to be periodically reevaluated (in this case, the values are probably vehicle speed and throughout.)

twblalock• 10 years ago

I don't get why the US is so bad at infrastructure.

All other first-world countries have entrenched bureaucracies, and pork-barrel spending, and environmental reviews, and zoning, and NIMBY lawsuits, just like the US does. However, those other countries manage to get infrastructure built and maintained anyway. So, given that they face the same challenges the US does, why does the US do so much worse, even though the US has so much more money? Where is the distinction?

karlshea• 10 years ago

Extreme polarization and obstructionism that turns infrastructure spending into wedge issues (especially around trains)

Someone• 10 years ago

A combination of:

1. US military spending is 1/6 of the federal budget.

2. US population density is low (less than a quarter of that of China, less than a third of that of the EU; https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_territor...), giving it more mountains, rivers and longer roads.

3. On the scale between "taxation is theft" and "I'm a happy tax-payer", the US population tends more to the first than at least some other countries. US citizens prefer having the money to buy a SUV over having the government build roads.

4. Rich countries have higher wages for everybody, making infrastructure work more expensive relative to the equivalent work in poorer countries (its hard to outsource road works)

5. A bit of imperial overstretch, where new infrastructure gets built without considering the cost of maintaining it (looking at the water situation, is it really a good idea to build out Vegas and Phoenix? Shouldn't Miami be slowly abandoned?) This may be a side-effect of more direct democracy; long-term considerations are trumped by "if I want to keep my job, I can't see 'I'm sorry, we cannot afford that'".

wutbrodo• 10 years ago

Sparsity, size, diversity, the state/federal dichotomy. All of these affect the way politics play out and are distinctions (to varying degrees) between the US and other first world countries.

dandare• 10 years ago

Can someone ELI5 please how can infrastructure project exceed budget 4x and plan by 20 years? Was the plan a deliberate fraud or are the estimation methods in terestrial engineering even more imature than in software engineering?

csours5• 10 years ago

They used an experimental technique, for one thing.

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/19/us/19dam.html

http://www.circleofblue.org/2014/world/despite-delays-billio...

stretchwithme3• 10 years ago

Companies that use this infrastructure should be paying the costs of maintaining it. If this system were privately owned, not maintaining it would mean lost revenue. With the government doing it, there isn't such a clear and direct incentive to spend the money.

Well, I don't think the river is going to be privatized any time soon, so government should change how it obtains revenues for this maintenance. It should be charging fees sufficient to do the required maintenance.

In fact, it should be charging fees that raise the most revenue. That also means keeping fees low enough to keep the traffic it has.

It seems like this is too much to expect from legislative bodies to fine tune. Perhaps the states involved should create an entity that they own to manage these issues, just as New York and New Jersey have down with the Port Authority. Each state would own a percentage based on how much of the Ohio River runs through their state and other relevant considerations. And get a corresponding share of proceeds, if any.

nickff2• 10 years ago

The problem is that any 'fee' is subject to political economy. The government may begin by charging the monopoly rent, but will soon grant exceptions to favored groups. After that, the government will raise fees on disfavored groups, and redirect revenue to 'where it is most urgently needed'. The locks will then fall into disrepair, users will find other alternatives, and by the time the government goes on another infrastructure-repairing frenzy, it will be much too late.

stretchwithme3• 10 years ago

Yes, its still going to be government.

I'd rather resources be managed privately but I just don't river traffic being managed privately in this country. Even if a private company managed it by contract, there would be the inevitable kickbacks to the pols making the decision.

Which is why I also advocate reducing the concentration of power our system has created. Specifically, I'd like to see proportional representation replace winner-take-all elections, even in the executive branch.

tacostakohashi• 10 years ago

Hmm, I don't suppose you've ever actually used any of the facilities provided by the PANYNJ?

stretchwithme3• 10 years ago

You mean like the World Trade Center?

burfog• 10 years ago

To compare capacity, this is only about 22 freight trains per day. (assuming 100 cars per train)

Why are we doing this again? Trains are way more versatile. We can switch trains onto tracks that go all over the place, not just where we have rivers.

Trains can't cross the ocean, but barges don't either. Trains do however carry containerized freight, which is easily loaded into container ships. This is another win for trains.

csours5• 10 years ago

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/19/us/19dam.html

30% less fuel usage than trains.

ansonhoyt• 10 years ago

I missed where the article mentions the efficiency figure. Can you point me to it? I read it and looked for "30", "rail", "train", "fuel", "efficiency", etc.

Choke Point of a Nation: The High Cost of an Aging River Lock

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