this post was submitted on 28 Oct 2025
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traingang
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Viaducts aren't even that expensive, its just expensive in america and other western countries because their construction industries have turned into massive embezzlement complexes where layer after layer of subcontractors and consultants all need their cut. 12 years and 30 billion dollars later the 12 construction workers they've actually hired manage to finish the work right on time for it to need repairs.
The other issue is that where a normal country has a regulatory state that says where you can and can't build and with what materials at which hours, instead the US has a system of public review periods and civil litigation. So a few concerned citizens or reluctant landowners can jam up the works for months and months through lawsuits, requesting additional reviews, etc.
When I was getting a homeless shelter permitted we had to fight the neighbors and their friends in city government for multiple years, and the whole time my team was getting city funding to fight them those whole two years, i think it cost the city 300k in staffing costs on our end alone (not to mention the city employees who got paid even more to Stonewall us)
We ended up breaking ground without a permit because breaking the law had fewer consequences than following it.
That was for one shelter. Now imagine a whole train system with 200 nimby communities along its route.
And also imagine that none of the people working on it actually care whether it happens, so they'd never break the law to put an end to the infinite work glitch