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SchiendelmanHNSource author
Lessons learnedExperience excerpt · English

We tried this early on with sound transit in Washington state, and because engineering work is boom …

… We tried this early on with sound transit in Washington state, and because engineering work is boom and bust on a project by project basis, the model just doesn't work. The good people left for better jobs, and we were left with a team that basically couldn't produce, leading to massive delays on the next set of projects.

Original discussionHow Madrid built its metro cheaply184 source comments · at import
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TH
thatmfHN

> Unlike infrastructure projects in Britain or America, which are heavily reliant on external consultants to handle all stages of the project, this group of well-paid in-house engineers led much of the Madrid Metro expansion. The team stayed largely the same throughout the different projects, meaning that they were able to learn from their experience and apply it to future projects. Imagine that: building expertise in-house and within the governmental org results in better planning and management and thus outcomes.

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0Z
0zer0HN

I think it is for this reason that Switzerland has a fixed budget for their railway construction. And it seems to pay off, Swiss railway is exceptional.

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inglor_czHN

What about renting them out to other cities? There are dozens of cities in Europe alone that are planning extensions of their metro systems, or even building ones from scratch (Cluj-Napoca in Romania, recently. Krakow in Poland soon.) A morbid equivalent from the Middle Ages: bigger medieval cities had their own headsman, and they solved the risk of underemployment by sending him on external "jobs" to smaller towns where executions were rare.

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