Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
It is probably some of each. Someone I know from my former work life, exec level, well-respected, went to work for the MTA. Governor at the time (AC) sent word that he wanted XYZ done. The man I know spoke up to say why he thought that might be a problem as far as use of public money. Gov phoned his superior that day and said "Get rid of him." The man is now working in the private sector.
I do agree with Bugsy Pal that unions and their influence play a significant part.
This is why I mentioned Russia or china, people would be sent to prison for not getting **** done in time.
But here, government projects are milked to death.
And yes I am very frustrated about this. I’ve been waiting for this project for many years.
The tubes were dug in late 60s no? Trains from Long Island should have been going to midtown from the get go,
The truth is that contractors milked this project to death over decades. Politicians allowed it. People got rich on your dime. The governor named a bridge after his father for gods sake.
When you fail a project, someone has to be held accountable right? Not in USA, here it’s called capitalism. That’s how you make money, build mansions and have a Ferrari collection.
This thread is about transit programs, gone wrong, I’m not governorships gone wrong. More likely, if senior levels have been more involved, things would have gone better. I doubt this was gubernatorial misfeasance; the corruption was likely at far lower levels.
I think saying it's just malfeasance as in someone personally profits from this is certainly part of it, but it's far from the only part of it. I also disagree that it's the far lower levels that's the main issue. Higher-ups set the guidance, the tone, the expectations, and direct the mechanisms for punishment. This doesn't mean there isn't low-level corruption, but how it festers and doesn't get daylighted is a responsibility that resides further up the chain.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Dave 92 LSC
This is why I mentioned Russia or china, people would be sent to prison for not getting **** done in time.
But here, government projects are milked to death.
And yes I am very frustrated about this. I’ve been waiting for this project for many years.
Russia will have people sent to prison or executed, but it won't necessarily be for not getting things done and things are most certainly not getting done in Russia and it's pretty apparent that people have been richly rewarded for their corruption. The thing has been a corrupt mess for a while now and at a far more intense scale. Lumping Russia and China together for government projects and infrastructure seems bat**** crazy to me. They're at very different levels of efficiency despite both being autocratic. And again, there are a lot of countries with developed economies, high quality of life and development indices, and heavily unionized workforces with democratically elected governments that get a lot more done in regards to infrastructure. There are multiple issues here that are compounded, and I do share your frustration.
Last edited by OyCrumbler; 01-05-2023 at 08:47 AM..
I think saying it's just malfeasance as in someone personally profits from this is certainly part of it, but it's far from the only part of it. I also disagree that it's the far lower levels that's the main issue. Higher-ups set the guidance, the tone, the expectations, and direct the mechanisms for punishment. This doesn't mean there isn't low-level corruption, but how it festers and doesn't get daylighted is a responsibility that resides further up the chain.
You have a point there. I think Robert Moses provides the best example, flawed personally as he may have been. Robert Caro, in The Power Broker spills a lot of ink as to how poor a sibling to his brother he was. He also focuses a lot on workers being low-paid. But the other extreme, modern construction through the 2010's, featured litigation relating to the wage difference between carpenters and dock builders" where carpenters are paid $70.11 per hour, compared with dock builders that make $92.47 per hour.
Moses got things done; modern construction gets money spent with little to show for it.
Russian infrastructure projects in the last decade or so haven't done well, but that's likely due to some pretty naked corruption going on there on a much larger scale.
Really? Outside of the obvious corruption, I think once the funds are allocated there, it was my impression that the stuff actually does get built. They build the Crimea bridge in record time, the ring road around St. Petersburg, and a bunch of big bridges in difficult terrain in Siberia/Far East.
Just in the last 10 years, Moscow metro got like 30 new subway stations, at the price of a fraction of what MTA spends, much more modern and higher quality than what MTA builds, and much cheaper, even if you include the corruption premium.
Quote:
Originally Posted by OyCrumbler
Russia will have people sent to prison or executed, but it won't necessarily be for not getting things done and things are most certainly not getting done in Russia and it's pretty apparent that people have been richly rewarded for their corruption.
Russia doesn't have a death penalty de-facto (although it has always been on the books, so the "threat" is there). Outside of political extra-judicial assassinations and maybe the current war situation that is.
I think no one was actually legally executed by the state ever in modern Russia. Probably the reason why Putin has to resort to his covert methods.
The major reason why things "aren't getting done" in Russia is due to leadership in Moscow having different priorities.
Really? Outside of the obvious corruption, I think once the funds are allocated there, it was my impression that the stuff actually does get built. They build the Crimea bridge in record time, the ring road around St. Petersburg, and a bunch of big bridges in difficult terrain in Siberia/Far East.
Just in the last 10 years, Moscow metro got like 30 new subway stations, at the price of a fraction of what MTA spends, much more modern and higher quality than what MTA builds, and much cheaper, even if you include the corruption premium.
Russia doesn't have a death penalty de-facto (although it has always been on the books, so the "threat" is there). Outside of political extra-judicial assassinations and maybe the current war situation that is.
I think no one was actually legally executed by the state ever in modern Russia. Probably the reason why Putin has to resort to his covert methods.
The major reason why things "aren't getting done" in Russia is due to leadership in Moscow having different priorities.
They concentrated almost all their resources on a very small group of projects across the entire country while the vast majority of the country stagnated and projects scaled back and delayed. This is mostly Moscow area (with a large amount of the Metro expansion being incorporation of existing passenger rail into Moscow Metro), a tiny bit of St. Petersburg and a few other cities, the Crimean bridge as a military goal and that Vladivostok bridge to nowhere as a Potemkin bridge of sorts.
That is an extremely different tack from China which while uneven in magnitude, still built out massive infrastructure projects across the country in many different places even if you were to consider it in proportion to population size.
Russia doing a much worse job than China on infrastructure is not an argument I'm using to say MTA is doing a good job or that the US is doing great on infrastructure. Russia and the US can be both be ****ty at this at the same time and in both different and overlapping ways, and they both did a lot less and a lot worse than China did.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
