Post: #1

It's been a solid year for me living in the UK. The honeymoon period has worn off and now there are oddities i see consistantly all around me.

For starters, engineering works take a god awful long time. There's a section of a major arterial road in Oxford that started construction back in July of 2015. This stretch of road is about a mile in length, yet the "estimated completion" signs say it will be finished around September of 2018! Mind you traffic through this section is painful and makes traveling in Boston and LA seem like a dream!

Same goes for this Thameslink program crap. They decided to close down London Bridge Station this month and it won't re-open until 2018! This is one of the busiest stations. I assumed that trains would roll right through and my commute would be cut down. Nope! I'm sitting here outside london bridge now because of "congestion". Make no notice of the fact that trains go right past a perfectly open station platform at London Bridge.

Do you want to hear a joke?

Network rail/Skanska workers working!

You'll never see anybody doing any real work on these projects either. Yet they cost several hundred million pounds.

Contrast this with america, there was 20 mile stretch of i90 that was stripped and re-paved in two months between a very busy stretch of exits where i used to live.

What gives? Does the UK use these projects as GDP boosters over a long period of time to hide lack luster GDP growth? Seems like everyone is getting a raw deal with this.

Post: #2

They're supposed to. The longer government projects drag out, the more money they can siphon off the tax payer. Public works projects are not there to make a profit, they are there to be as expensive as possible, to line to pockets of cronies with "consulting fees". It's not at all true that everyone's getting a raw deal, only net taxpayers are, others are making out like bandits.

Post: #3

The health and safety clip board middle management and the inverse pyramid. That is 10 chiefs to each indian (over management). However the big problem is that 90% of the time there isn't actually anyone doing any work.

Recently they have spent more time/money on motorway projects putting up heat warming "my daddy works here" signs on road projects. Those stick in the craw when you have literally never seen anyone doing any work on the stretch, in all the times you have been through.

Another problem is utter and deliberate disdain for the motorist. Don't forget road altering projects are often done to deliberately make car driving more unpleasant (road narrowing etc). Basically the powers that be actively want you to have a bad time. The police will close a whole motorway if there is an accident and trap everyone on the road for many hours. They could not give a shit about car drivers. They're just a source of income.

As Phoenix says if you ever have any business dealings with the roads, the amount of money floating about is absolutely staggering. Even several steps down the ladder from the people who are really killing it you can make a killing off it. I made a load of cash off helping put up traffic information screens at service stations. I was charging my blokes out at 2-3x what I was paying them and they didn't blink and I was the sub contractor for the company that were, presumably, charging the govt. even more on top of the piss take prices I was getting (happy days).

The actual state of roads in the UK is absolutely shite compared to what it used to be. It's somewhat disguised by the better suspension of modern cars, but it's more akin to driving on a tarmaced african dirt road at times. Obviously other countries have worse roads, but fuck me, if you can't have a decent road in the Uk, what are we here for. Not the fucking weather and the beautiful women.

Post: #4

The UK government doesn't directly employ anyone who actually does the work. In recent years they've taken what were functional if inefficient civil service departments, messed around with them a lot, and made them into "executive agencies". But none of these agencies actually does the work either. They work with partners, who work with subcontractors, who may further subcontract.

The key point, that anyone who's worked with them will agree with: the public sector is shit at writing contracts. Even with very highly paid government lawyers in the loop, they are so terrified of making a decision that they leave themselves 'wiggle room', not realising that they are giving commercial entities options for getting paid more for less. That's when the person in charge isn't angling for a career change and giving favours to butter up their new employer.

It's sickening when you see how they throw out tax money.

"I'd hate myself if I had that kind of attitude, if I were that weak." - Arnold

Post: #5

Quote:Obviously other countries have worse roads, but fuck me, if you can't have a decent road in the Uk, what are we here for. Not the fucking weather weather and the beautiful women.

Next up: fish & chips and tea at 5 o' clock turning into shit too?

Post: #6

(09-07-2016 04:33 AM)Handsome Creepy Eel Wrote:  

Quote:Obviously other countries have worse roads, but fuck me, if you can't have a decent road in the Uk, what are we here for. Not the fucking weather weather and the beautiful women.

Next up: fish & chips and tea at 5 o' clock turning into shit too?

Sorry I wrote weather twice. It's that good evidently

Post: #7

Interesting article about how screwed up the London train franchise is:

http://www.londonreconnections.com/2016/...-roulette/

Quote:For those living and working in London and the South East it has become almost impossible to be unaffected, either directly or indirectly, by the trouble-hit GTR franchise. Understandably there is anger and frustration at what is going on.

The problems on Southern that have led to a controversial emergency timetable being introduced are often portrayed in very simple terms. At its simplest, it would appear to be a petty dispute over who should shut the doors on the train. This simply does not stand up to scrutiny, however, as a complete explanation when considering all that is going on. A dispute about trains involving the guard’s function would not, for example, explain why there have been substantial service withdrawals in inner London on routes where the trains are driver only operated. Nor would it explain the numerous daily cancellations into stations like Moorgate (Great Northern) which is entirely served by driver only operated trains.

It's a catalogue of failure and outdated practices, which individually cause inconvenience, but together cause chaos. Oh look, it's yet another commercial contract written by a government department.

"I'd hate myself if I had that kind of attitude, if I were that weak." - Arnold

Post: #8

(09-07-2016 03:26 AM)Phoenix Wrote:  They're supposed to. The longer government projects drag out, the more money they can siphon off the tax payer. Public works projects are not there to make a profit, they are there to be as expensive as possible, to line to pockets of cronies with "consulting fees". It's not at all true that everyone's getting a raw deal, only net taxpayers are, others are making out like bandits.

That's how it works in Canada too. Especially with the consultant scam. Government projects are awash in backroom pseudo-academics "studying" the issue and coming up with "action plans." These consultancy firms are staffed with plenty of women with top-notch Linkedin profiles and a Bachelors or a Masters but yet, strangely, spend eight or nine hours a day in meetings or sending emails to each other and not actually coming up with much "action" or even a plan.

Then when it's finally time to actually make or build something, it's contracted out and whichever company drags it along for the maximum amount of time and taxpayer money while putting in sub-standard work. This x 3 if it's a military contract, which is highly sought after because companies know they can get top dollar for absolute garbage work and any negative feedback is muted or not followed up by the government.

Post: #9

(09-07-2016 07:22 AM)Benoit Wrote:  Interesting article about how screwed up the London train franchise is:

http://www.londonreconnections.com/2016/...-roulette/

Quote:For those living and working in London and the South East it has become almost impossible to be unaffected, either directly or indirectly, by the trouble-hit GTR franchise. Understandably there is anger and frustration at what is going on.

The problems on Southern that have led to a controversial emergency timetable being introduced are often portrayed in very simple terms. At its simplest, it would appear to be a petty dispute over who should shut the doors on the train. This simply does not stand up to scrutiny, however, as a complete explanation when considering all that is going on. A dispute about trains involving the guard’s function would not, for example, explain why there have been substantial service withdrawals in inner London on routes where the trains are driver only operated. Nor would it explain the numerous daily cancellations into stations like Moorgate (Great Northern) which is entirely served by driver only operated trains.

It's a catalogue of failure and outdated practices, which individually cause inconvenience, but together cause chaos. Oh look, it's yet another commercial contract written by a government department.

Thank you for mentioning this! I'm thankfully not nearly as affected since i ride Southeastern but the whole Southern rail strike comes off as a complete joke to me.

Post: #10

I've often heard people joking about how if 3 council workmen are at work, that means one doing some aimless drilling, one sitting in a digger sleeping and the other one making tea. That might just be a local thing though.

The root of the problem is that there is no real incentive for the contractors to finish the job quickly.

Post: #11

(09-07-2016 04:06 AM)Benoit Wrote:  The key point, that anyone who's worked with them will agree with: the public sector is shit at writing contracts.

(09-07-2016 10:26 AM)britchard Wrote:  The root of the problem is that there is no real incentive for the contractors to finish the job quickly.

Obviously. That's because, under democracy, there's no down-side. In the market, if you write shit contracts and contract out at stupid costs, you'll get eaten alive by the competition and disappear soon enough. There's no way for the government to disappear. The individuals in it will be gone in 4 years or so, so why would they give a shit?

Public works take forever, cost stupid money, and often have shitty quality, for the same reason fire makes smoke. There's no reason to be surprised, that's simply how that thing works.

Post: #12

Public sector workers have no idea about the value of money. They have never had to generate profit, or build something up from the acorn stage. They are spending other people's money, which doesn't encourage them to be thrifty. Equally, contractors often get paid when they fall behind schedule for delivery, etc etc. There's no incentive on the guys spending the money to obtain market value, and there is no incentive on the guys doing the work to deliver on time or ahead of schedule. Often it is profitable to fall behind whilst you wait for another contract to come through. It's an extremely wasteful system. One of the many ravages of the creeping socialist state.

When I was living in China nearly 10 years ago, the government would dig up the same stretches of road and re-lay it every few months, bussing in different groups of peasants from the countryside to complete the work each time. It was before the Olympics, so perhaps part of the intention was to ensure all citizens participated in the productivity boom associated with it. Whatever the reason, it was insanity to watch.

Post: #13

Quite often there are no real reasons for these projects to take place. However if they don't spend up their budget, then they won't be receiving the same figure in the following annual year.

Post: #14

Beast, you're an American driving on our roads? Hows them roundabouts doing for you? Do you like our B roads?

The main reason works take so long is in part due to Health & Safety, but also the money investment. Sure we can do a China and have 100 diggers cut down bridges or relay roads with 100 vehicles cutting up old road surfaces and relaying fresh tarmac in time for the morning commute.

The cost and organisation would be off the charts and no company would want the risk. Unless there is some sort of excruciating demand for it within a short period, you won't get it done quick.

Everything has to be checked, overseen and made ready by different people according to a plan. We work 8-4 on most sites and are not allowed to work in certain times due to the noise and residential areas.

Motorways are subject to daylight hours and what is safe. During winter the number of hours is reduced so you won't see many, if any workers working at full pace near to fast moving traffic.

The reason China and other countries have obscene worker death numbers is because they're idiots and life is cheap. Here a serious injury can shut a site for the day or longer if the HSE wills it.

Post: #15

(09-07-2016 03:41 PM)Foolsgo1d Wrote:  Beast, you're an American driving on our roads? Hows them roundabouts doing for you? Do you like our B roads?

I didn't know how to drive stick before coming here. Let's just say when I rented my first rental truck to move into London, I learned mighty quick!

Roundabouts are easy. I own an automatic car. I loathe the fact that they're going to make me re-do the entire driving test. It's so stupid.

I'm glad i'm not the only one that notices that the UK government tries to make driving as painful as possible. It blew my mind when I was stuck on the M11 one time for a fucking accident. Cops decided to close the damn road way down. Are you freaking kidding me? Why would you do that? These idiots don't realize how much money they cause when they close down a large stretch of such a roadway.

I love this place with its warm beer, afternoon tea, sticky toffee cake, and sunday roast.

However, sometimes this is all I have to say when weird shit happens:

Post: #16

I just finished a two year government project here in Canada, which is still run like England in many ways.

My part of the project was budgeted at $70k. In my line of work, in the private sector, this was estimated at taking 6-8 weeks. This is what I budgeted, estimated and this is what I held fast to.

It took two years, and my rough estimate cost is about $450k. What happened to the other $380k? Well, four times during the project, the useless projects managers (there were 7 of them!) had contract extensions. At this announcement, they would all be excited and plan to go out and drink wine to celebrate (they were ALL women).

Another cost of this is the additional project costs for allowing a project to run like this. For example, scaffolding was budgeted by me to be up for 5 days of the project. We used it for 3 days and it sat up for 6 months. Construction managers are going grey and having heart attacks, as our government likes to use Public/Private partnerships. So all the accountability rides on the private sector, and the public sector gets someone to blame come election time. Multiply this by 100 and its easy to see how money just pours into the projects.

But hey, we have the pink hard hats the government demanded now, all in the form of project managers. They want 50% women (hahah) in construction. Tiny projects like mine are running 6.5x over budget, and 25x times as long as it should. Its becoming the perfect storm for complete bankruptcy of the government, because [current year].

My friend worked on a project like this and told me that they had to cut so many corners in order to stay in business. They left out escalators, shortened stations, etc in order to not run into bankruptcy by having to make the bureaucrats happy.

The feminist pandering is so dangerous, that it is literally breaking down the ability of the WORKERS to actually build and maintain things in the west.

Post: #17

In the US, construction projects, both private and public, can take forever as well. Endless cycles of public meetings with NIMBY activists (Not In My Back Yard). Before work can begin, signs are posted on the proposed site describing the project and inviting input from the public during a defined period of time months in advance. It's a miracle that anything gets built at all.

Here in Mexico, construction is booming by comparison and things happen quickly. The public isn't always alerted about what is about to happen in their neighborhood, including power outages and water shutoffs. Permits may not even be requested. The sidewalk and even the street may be commandeered as a workspace. Trees that interfere with the project are cut down without oversight. Work sites get shut down just as quickly for violations (real or manufactured). A stop-work order sticker gets slapped on the entry, with a fine for breaking the seal. I once saw a small retail location go up in a single day. Workers tend to be jack-of-all-trades types, so although they aren't particularly good at any one skill, a single worker may be able to handle carpentry, cement, plumbing, electrical, painting and more. Building codes are ignored or non-existent. This makes things go faster as well. Delays are more likely to be caused by the project running out of money than by any bureaucratic obstacles.

I see the advantages and disadvantages of both systems. The ideal surely lies somewhere in the middle.

Post: #18

This is the same in Australia. Too many chiefs for every indian, and even the indians are lazy as fuck. You'd see 6-7 of them standing around doing nothing while maybe one would do a little bit of work, at any given time. If it's a road project, you will have a couple of chicks doing nothing except standing there holding a sign, and getting paid just as much as the men.

Post: #19

It is done for two reasons:

1 - To piss off motorists.

2 - To extract as much money from the UK tax payer as is humanly possible.

Post: #20

I think all you people miss the important reason for while this shit takes so long and is of poor quality, the English cant execute a plan for the life of them.

You have the people at the top crafting these grand strategy plans and projects and then when give the plan to a bunch of dipshits who dropped out of school at age 14, have been going in and out of welfare because they havent given a fuck about doing a good job in 2 decades, you get shit work output. There isnt even follow up to see if these people are doing what they're supposed to and there are barely any quality checks. The amount of times I've heard the answer "we have a man on it" as a response to "are you guys sure this is working?" is phenomenal. It's a massive cultural blind spot to the Brits and something you'll only pick up if you lived there.

Public projects are even worse since its other people's money they're fucking with and they care even less about doing it on time, or right, or at all for that matter.

Post: #21

Ah UK bashing. A Fun sport.

For many years we had a bus lane on the M4. Who the fuck gets on the bus on a motorway? No one. The worst part is it was in the fast lane. So that fast lane can only do 55MPH. The middle lane 70 and the slow lan 55-70mph. Absolutely ridiculous. I think they've scrapped that idea now.

Then the M1 which has has never ending road works from 2014. With average speed cameras due to reduced lane sizes. There's no one ever working and then theres the signs. Someone else mentioned the 'My daddy works here' but the ones that really piss me off is the 'My mummy works here'. No kid, your mum don't work here, she's never work here. Stop making shit up.

Railways I'm far more sympathetic too. I very rarely use them but they try to do maintenance work when it causes as little disruption as possible. So they do it at christmas. Kind of makes sense as a lot of businesses will be closed so economically it cause less disruption but it is absolute travel chaos if you need to use them then.

I use a car if I need to go anywhere but I don't really like driving. I get road rage real bad and almost every other car on the road is driving by a wanker, bitch, slut, cunt, etc.

Only the other week I took a short cut up a lane that was so badly potholed it blew a hole in my tyre and I had to change the damn thing at midnight.

Post: #22

(09-07-2016 04:41 PM)The Beast1 Wrote:  

(09-07-2016 03:41 PM)Foolsgo1d Wrote:  Beast, you're an American driving on our roads? Hows them roundabouts doing for you? Do you like our B roads?

I didn't know how to drive stick before coming here. Let's just say when I rented my first rental truck to move into London, I learned mighty quick!

Roundabouts are easy. I own an automatic car. I loathe the fact that they're going to make me re-do the entire driving test. It's so stupid.

I'm glad i'm not the only one that notices that the UK government tries to make driving as painful as possible. It blew my mind when I was stuck on the M11 one time for a fucking accident. Cops decided to close the damn road way down. Are you freaking kidding me? Why would you do that? These idiots don't realize how much money they cause when they close down a large stretch of such a roadway.

I love this place with its warm beer, afternoon tea, sticky toffee cake, and sunday roast.

However, sometimes this is all I have to say when weird shit happens:

Such an American...tourist.

Step out of the M25 and you will see a different England/UK I guarantee you. Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool, Newcastle, Nottingham, Sheffield. All within easy reach from Euston station.

An American just opening his gob in these places is instant wet pussy regardless of socio-economic ability. Granted you're a good looking fella that is

And we call them vans or 4x4, not trucks. If you drove a truck into London on your first go then hats off to you.

Minimum speeds are here and there even during night time when no workers are about. I don't think inept bureaucracy is unique to the British Isles but they sure do like to abuse their powers.

Few years ago there was a scare on a Mega Bus where some random woman phoned in a possible terrorist attack with chemical/biological implications. The police and army shut the whole motorway and made each passenger come out 1 by 1.

They could have sent in a couple guys to see what the situation was but they found a good training exercise and abused their powers.

Post: #23

(09-08-2016 08:24 AM)Foolsgo1d Wrote:  

(09-07-2016 04:41 PM)The Beast1 Wrote:  

(09-07-2016 03:41 PM)Foolsgo1d Wrote:  Beast, you're an American driving on our roads? Hows them roundabouts doing for you? Do you like our B roads?

I didn't know how to drive stick before coming here. Let's just say when I rented my first rental truck to move into London, I learned mighty quick!

Roundabouts are easy. I own an automatic car. I loathe the fact that they're going to make me re-do the entire driving test. It's so stupid.

I'm glad i'm not the only one that notices that the UK government tries to make driving as painful as possible. It blew my mind when I was stuck on the M11 one time for a fucking accident. Cops decided to close the damn road way down. Are you freaking kidding me? Why would you do that? These idiots don't realize how much money they cause when they close down a large stretch of such a roadway.

I love this place with its warm beer, afternoon tea, sticky toffee cake, and sunday roast.

However, sometimes this is all I have to say when weird shit happens:

Such an American...tourist.

Step out of the M25 and you will see a different England/UK I guarantee you. Manchester, Leeds, Liverpool, Newcastle, Nottingham, Sheffield. All within easy reach from Euston station.

An American just opening his gob in these places is instant wet pussy regardless of socio-economic ability. Granted you're a good looking fella that is

And we call them vans or 4x4, not trucks. If you drove a truck into London on your first go then hats off to you.

Minimum speeds are here and there even during night time when no workers are about. I don't think inept bureaucracy is unique to the British Isles but they sure do like to abuse their powers.

Few years ago there was a scare on a Mega Bus where some random woman phoned in a possible terrorist attack with chemical/biological implications. The police and army shut the whole motorway and made each passenger come out 1 by 1.

They could have sent in a couple guys to see what the situation was but they found a good training exercise and abused their powers.

Ha, i lived outside of Oxford for about 6 months in a small burb town. I sometimes roll into Brighton to visit a friend of mine. I enjoy the countryside.

England has all sorts of nice things about it even in the countryside, your women aren't one of them!

Post: #24

(09-08-2016 09:00 AM)The Beast1 Wrote:  Ha, i lived outside of Oxford for about 6 months in a small burb town. I sometimes roll into Brighton to visit a friend of mine. I enjoy the countryside.

England has all sorts of nice things about it even in the countryside, your women aren't one of them!

If the woman in and around the university town of Oxford aren't to your tastes, then you must have exceptionally high standards.

Post: #25

(09-07-2016 10:44 AM)Phoenix Wrote:  

(09-07-2016 04:06 AM)Benoit Wrote:  The key point, that anyone who's worked with them will agree with: the public sector is shit at writing contracts.

(09-07-2016 10:26 AM)britchard Wrote:  The root of the problem is that there is no real incentive for the contractors to finish the job quickly.

Obviously. That's because, under democracy, there's no down-side. In the market, if you write shit contracts and contract out at stupid costs, you'll get eaten alive by the competition and disappear soon enough. There's no way for the government to disappear. The individuals in it will be gone in 4 years or so, so why would they give a shit?

Public works take forever, cost stupid money, and often have shitty quality, for the same reason fire makes smoke. There's no reason to be surprised, that's simply how that thing works.

Very well said. This is the inherent problem with socialism and large government that I can't understand why people don't see.

The uk is in effect a very socialist state as nearly 50% of GDP is the government.