Megaproject expert Bent Flyvbjerg–who is now at Oxford University–has a new book called, coincidentally, the Oxford Handbook of Megaproject Management. His introduction, which he was nice enough to make available on line, introduces the Iron Law of Megaprojects along with “ten things you need to know about megaprojects,” at least if you think you are going to try to manage one.
The Iron Law is, simply, “Over budget, over time, under benefits, over and over again.” He says that 90 percent of megaprojects go over budget and most end up under performing.
The chemical overnight viagra component name Tadalfil is excessively found in Forzest. People these levitra generika probe days are facing a lot of problem in their life and this indeed ruins their relationship as well. One needs to take the supplement 1 hour prior performing the sex; since, it the pills take around 40 minutes to come into buy generic levitra response. Many other erectile dysfunction drugs available such as amerikabulteni.com levitra 40 mg, levitra, got a better response from this medication. The “ten things you need to know go” into a little more detail:
- Megaprojects are inherently risky due to complexity and long time horizons;
- Projects are often led by inexperienced planners who keep changing over the course of the project;
- Decision making involves many actors and stakeholders with conflicting interests;
- Technologies and designs are often non-standard, which not only makes projects more difficult but persuades managers that their projects are unique and so they don’t learn from others’ experiences;
- People often commit to projects at an early stage leaving alternative analyses weak or absent;
- Large sums of money lead to rent-seeking behavior and optimism bias;
- Project scope is likely to change significantly over time;
- Projects are particularly vulnerable to black swans;
- Planners rarely account for complexity and black swans, which is why projects go over budget and under perform;
- As a result, misinformation about benefits, costs, and risks is the norm throughout project development.
Although Flyvbjerg defines megaprojects as projects whose costs are in billions of dollars, many of these rules also apply to much smaller projects if they are undertaken by agencies or entities that are not used to such projects. For example, neither the Norfolk light rail nor the Austin commuter rail lines would qualify as megaprojects, but both were beyond the skills and capabilities of the agencies that undertook them, and as a result the agencies nearly went bankrupt, the general managers lost their jobs, and the cities that rely on their transit services ended up getting poorer service.
Truly, you really only need to know one thing about megaprojects, and that is: Don’t do them. This is especially true for governments, but also for the private sector. It is much better to do things incrementally or to undertake projects that can yield rewards immediately without having to wait for the investment of billions of dollars. Of course, if Apple or Google want to spend some of their surplus billions on megaprojects, that’s up to them. It’s quite a different story when politicians use other people’s money.
That word megaproject, denotes an idea that it’s gargantuan in scale, but scale is a topic based on present technology at the time. The Hoover dam was a megaproject. It was finished ahead of schedule and on budget. Not only on budget but they turned it into a masterpiece of Art Deco design.
http://i.imgur.com/2s36pgS.jpg
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/24/0a/b4/240ab4e4220dbee8f49b6ee80ea98718.jpg
But this was an era when the government was………..I don’t know, competent…………more competent.
While the Suez canal was 1,900% over budget by the time it was finished….The Panama canal was finished 6 months ahead of schedule. So megaprojects aren’t a matter of cost they’re a matter of usefulness. The best way to justify a megaproject is to ratio it’s cost to person service. A hydroelectric dam is more useful to millions than a train to a few thousand. California’s high speed rail budget is greater than the GDP of Guatemala. The UK’s 2nd gen HSR project is equivalent to the entire GDP of Kenya. From 2004-2008 China spent more on infrastructure in real terms than the whole of the 20th century. And that’s gonna come back to bite them in the future.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MCmC9Un8Vy8
Buildings are being constructed in China basically to fall down and be built again. Most of the buildings going up now in China have lifetimes of just 20 to 30 years, essentially rendering cities virtually disposable. The Three Gorges Dam has plenty of issues, though it generates enough electricity to power Switzerland. It has necessitated the relocation of over a million people, and its construction has come at a huge environmental cost. Lately, a change in the reservoir’s water level has resulted in dangerous landslides and the lack of sediment deposits down river will likely cause Shanghai (a city built on this muck) to sink. China has made colossal infrastructure investments over the past decade, but it’s becoming clear that their intentions may have been misplaced. A 2008 stimulus plan allotting $600 billion to infrastructure projects helped China maintain economic growth throughout the recession. But now it seems that not only might the construction have been a bit too shoddy, but national debt incurred by the projects has begun to weigh heavily on China’s shoulders. Like Japan who in the 80’s sank billions into large infrastructure projects with little net return, both nations serve as a reminder that a blank check for engineering firms is no solution to the nations infrastructure problem.
Infrastructure plans should have a golden rule. NO spending on any new infrastructure until whatever current systems they have are repaired. Since DC’s Redline will never be repaired, we’ll never have to worry about DC ever spending money on rail ever again. Since New York’s IRT never will either.
One thing is for sure, if Trump succeeds in Draining the Swamp the massive layoff of federal workers means a decline in Metrorail passengers since for the most part it was designed to expensively shuttle federal workers to and from DC. The Metrorail was built for two reasons, shuttling federal bureaucrats unimportant enough to warrant a limousine. And bicentennial pride. Some pride, 40 years later Metrorail is the ugliest fucking installation ever made. http://i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/150528203645-dc-metro-photo-exlarge-169.jpg In fairness Metrorail interior was designed to reduce the surface area that could potentially be vandalized.
Meanwhile the communists made the most beautiful subway ever made.
http://i2.cdn.cnn.com/cnnnext/dam/assets/160316153821-moscow-metro-stations-david-burdeny-arbatskaya-super-169.jpg
I guess when you threaten artists with gulags they’ll do anything on budget. Gotta hand it to the Russians they really knew how to patron the arts, the US not so much, we got crucifixes submerged in urine. They built subway stations that look like the Czar’s basement.
The Antiplanner wrote:
Truly, you really only need to know one thing about megaprojects, and that is: Don’t do them. This is especially true for governments, but also for the private sector. It is much better to do things incrementally or to undertake projects that can yield rewards immediately without having to wait for the investment of billions of dollars. Of course, if Apple or Google want to spend some of their surplus billions on megaprojects, that’s up to them. It’s quite a different story when politicians use other people’s money.
MD-200 (InterCounty Connector) was projected to cost about $2,400 million for about 17.5 miles of freeway-class road (and improvements to intersecting roads), and it did (actually coming in complete less than that, according to the Federal Highway Administration, the final cost was $2,386 million), which works out to about $136.2 million per mile.
The project was built by private-sector contractors, but the state of Maryland managed the engineering, design and construction. Most of the construction cost was funded by state toll revenue bonds which were presumably purchased by private-sector investors (only a relatively small part of the construction cost was funded from tax dollars), and it is managed by the state’s toll road agency, MDTA.
Compare and contrast MD-200 with the Metrorail Silver Line, across the Potomac River in Fairfax and Loudoun Counties, Virginia but in the same labor market. The (current) estimated cost for the Silver Line (about 23 miles of new track) is about $5,760 million. That works out to about $250.4 million per mile, a difference of about $114 million more than the ICC per mile.
Should the Antiplanner amend what he wrote above to read like this?
Truly, you really only need to know one thing about rail transit megaprojects, and that is: Don’t do them.
The best rule I ever learned about project management is:
Cheap, Fast, Good: Pick any two.
For mega projects it might be closer to pick any one and a half.
”
The Panama canal was finished 6 months ahead of schedule.
” ~ LazyReader
Which Panama Canal project and whose schedule?
IIRC France started the original Panama Canal in the 1880s and abandoned it a decade later.
The US, with an eye on the canal, was involved in Panama ( wrongly ? ) breaking off from Columbia.
The project had gotten rolling before Panamanian independence. But shovels in the dirt didn’t start until after it, taking a decade to complete a project that was only supposed to take 8 to start. That’s 20+% off.
Or maybe this is in reference to the current Panamex expansion that was supposed be completed a few years ago and has now only recently wrapped up?
I don’t mean to be petty. There may be a legitimate case that the US 1st pass at building the Panama Canal was 6 months ahead of time. But there’s also a valid case to be made that every Panama project has been significantly over budget, both in terms of money and calendar time.