Post: #26

I think you give the US too much credit. There was a section of I-95 leading north out of Baltimore that was supposed to be refitted with express lanes for about 25 miles, if I recall correctly. They started this shit show when I began college in 2008, and it wasn't finished until (I think) 2015. The kicker? It was only half as long as intended. How the fuck do you take 7 years to build a few miles of interstate?

Post: #27

Have you seen how slow shit like this is in Latin America, they have a few guys leaning on a shovel when in Canada there would be a guy on a backhoe or excavator and do it in like 5% of the time.

Post: #28

Took a major roadtrip this summer in the south. SE London, Windsor, Wiltshire, Bath, Oxford, Stonehenge, Wittering, Portsmouth, South Hampton, Bognor Regis, and back to Heathrow, all over the South. Driving a relatively short distance compared to US standards took entire days, and were mentally and physically exhausting. The thing I noticed is that the roads are heavily traveled, everywhere in the south. There was construction everywhere, not unlike the Northeast of the US. It was like the entire NY tristate region, for the entire trip. Not sure what its like in the north, but in the south, there are just so many people on the roads, anything that disrupts the flow of traffic is magnified 1000x. The article about the trains in SE London is totally true. It really just reminded me of NYC, so not that taken aback.

Post: #29

(09-09-2016 06:21 PM)Sidney Crosby Wrote:  Have you seen how slow shit like this is in Latin America, they have a few guys leaning on a shovel when in Canada there would be a guy on a backhoe or excavator and do it in like 5% of the time.

Mexican cops standing around in groups, doing nothing - YES

Mexican construction workers standing around doing nothing - NO, unless 1) you count the one chick who is standing on the side, holding a clipboard, or 2) it's their lunch hour and they're sleeping on the sidewalk

Post: #30

(09-07-2016 08:26 PM)StrikeBack Wrote:  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.

Haha.

How many roadside workers does it take to a dig a hole?

1 to dig and 7 to lean on their shovels and 'supervise'.

The cunts get paid $35+ an hour as well, or they get contracting gigs and pay immigrants $15 p/h cash in hand.

It's prominent in most commonwealth countries, I find.

Post: #31

I have an update on this: councils are currently trialing a scheme where they charge companies by the hour/day to do works in public areas.

It can't come soon enough. Hopefully this will be implemented very soon.

Post: #32

Metrolink, Manchester's light rail system, has been an aberration in the system over the past few years as brand new lines have opened ahead of schedule - over a year early in one case.

Otherwise, yeah - pretty shitty track record.

Post: #33

I've worked in both the public and private sector. A lot of people who work in the public sector are diversity hires and a lot of them would never make in the private sector.

You will find a lot of black women working in local government offices in the UK, whereas they are rare in the private sector. A lot of of them are also lesbians...there's a similar thing with the DMV in California. At one place I worked most of the managers were women and half of them were incompetent - they only got promoted because they had been there for a while, not because they were good at their jobs.

A lot of public sector buyers are useless too, I know a contractor who consistently overcharged the local council and got away with it for years. Anybody who allowed this to happen in the private sector would get fired pretty quickly.

Saying all that, the roads in UK are still better quality than those in greater Los Angeles.

One fucked up example is the UK Highways Agency - they're the organisation in charge of Britain's roads. I had a job interview with them and they informed me that no parking spaces would be available because of their environmental goals...so the organisation that runs the roads is against idea of people using their cars?!

Post: #34

(09-23-2017 03:58 PM)Praetor Lupus Wrote:  Metrolink, Manchester's light rail system, has been an aberration in the system over the past few years as brand new lines have opened ahead of schedule - over a year early in one case.

Otherwise, yeah - pretty shitty track record.

God save us from people who mean well. -storm