The story behind Flexport founder's supply chain tweets(finance.yahoo.com)
finance.yahoo.com
The story behind Flexport founder's supply chain tweets
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/real-story-behind-tech-founders-225037288.html
14 comments
Seems a little crazy that ships can charge truckers for the empties not being returned when they won't even take the empties back? I feel like that one stuck out to me as a bit odd
It's a misleading statement. The terminal isn't accepting the empty. That's a different business from the shipping line.
What likely happens is that the shipping line is sending these charges out automatically (global systems, huge company, etc). Which are then usually disputed as the terminal isn't accepting the empty.
The story makes it out that a shipping line is behaving more strangely than what happens in practice.
What likely happens is that the shipping line is sending these charges out automatically (global systems, huge company, etc). Which are then usually disputed as the terminal isn't accepting the empty.
The story makes it out that a shipping line is behaving more strangely than what happens in practice.
This right here is where I'm scratching my head. Demurrage sinks many an export/import-er -- and it feels rather brash to leave ports with no empties back on the ship.
Something feels amiss in the long term business relationship ship liners are trying to foster at the moment.
> The real issue, Schrap says, is just that the shipping companies won’t take their empty containers back: “The ocean carriers need to come sweep out the empties.” Adding insult to injury, the ocean carriers bill truckers a late fee every day for unreturned empty containers, Schrap said, even if they won’t accept them at the port. “It makes you want to pick up your laptop and Frisbee it out into the backyard,” Schrap said. “That’s the frustration running through our veins.”
This is a financial bazooka aimed at small importers/exporters. Forget the empties stacking up as an eye sore, this is the crisis -- charging late fees on something the ship liners won't take back.
Something feels amiss in the long term business relationship ship liners are trying to foster at the moment.
> The real issue, Schrap says, is just that the shipping companies won’t take their empty containers back: “The ocean carriers need to come sweep out the empties.” Adding insult to injury, the ocean carriers bill truckers a late fee every day for unreturned empty containers, Schrap said, even if they won’t accept them at the port. “It makes you want to pick up your laptop and Frisbee it out into the backyard,” Schrap said. “That’s the frustration running through our veins.”
This is a financial bazooka aimed at small importers/exporters. Forget the empties stacking up as an eye sore, this is the crisis -- charging late fees on something the ship liners won't take back.
>Something feels amiss in the long term business relationship ship liners are trying to foster at the moment.
"Long term" in MBA speak is an evil curse. They want to make the numbers for the Quarter, they don't give a hoot about anything past that... that's for Future MBA to worry about.
"Long term" in MBA speak is an evil curse. They want to make the numbers for the Quarter, they don't give a hoot about anything past that... that's for Future MBA to worry about.
I love the term you coined “Future MBA”. Seems like one can run a pretty interesting/witty/funny blog or Twitter account about Present MBA screwing over Future MBA to underline the ever present quarter by quarter decision making in corporate America.
I'd go with painting it as, MBAs make the quarterly return look good despite the overwhelming odds, and if the Present MBA makes things worse long-term, that's just an interesting challenge for the Future MBA to excel in navigating around.
Current CTO vs. Future CTO was an ongoing joke in every bank with an AS/400 in the basement. They were all planning a complete refresh of the tech stack... to begin right after they retired or moved to another company. Future CTO has to earn their pay too.
Shippers could actually use some MBAs to clean up their operations. It’s definitely not an industry that has been associated with professional managers and has been boom-bust forever.
Demurrage is only an issue if logistics are badly managed. Easier said then done, especially now I know. And still the number of companies, especially in eCommerve just ignore how important logistics is mind boggling. People tend to ignore how much of Amazon's success is owed dud to worldclass supply chain and logistics management.
> Demurrage is only an issue if logistics are badly managed.
Oh man, we could sit around the fire and tell stories all night on this topic.
It's even better when your customer is the primary logistics on the other end, especially when they wanted a better price and they forget to bring the container back for a couple days.
That was our rookie mistake, not having logistics across the lake or not doing exworks.
Oh man, we could sit around the fire and tell stories all night on this topic.
It's even better when your customer is the primary logistics on the other end, especially when they wanted a better price and they forget to bring the container back for a couple days.
That was our rookie mistake, not having logistics across the lake or not doing exworks.
Admitedly, containers were more fun back when you could get two weeks demurrage free. That stopped being athing long before covid, so, when they charged for unloading taking longer then 2 hours. I had a consulting gig where I tried to sell the cliwnt on using a cross dock facility near the port to get stuff out of boxes, on pallets and then on trucks. Failed to to disuade him from using some container railway yard, all of that managed by his tradituonal forwarder without much overaight, before the whole project broke down end of 2020.
If they won't take back the empties, what do they expect to be done with them? Where are they getting containers to fill in the first place? What is going on?!
The demand for shipping throughput is so high that it is cheaper to have the Chinese build new containers and have them filled and waiting at the docks than pay the extra time to have the empties loaded in the US then unloaded in China. This will change at some point, but until then there's no point in bringing the empties back. It's literally not worth the hassle.
Honestly, it might go on long enough that figuring how to smelt the containers might be viable given the high cost of metals.
Honestly, it might go on long enough that figuring how to smelt the containers might be viable given the high cost of metals.
A container must cost at least a couple thousand dollars... a ship carries, what, 1000 or so? That's roughly 2 million dollars being "thrown away". Maybe they can build them for half that in China? I suppose if the turnaround time is in months, this makes sense. Someone will make a tidy profit returning the containers at some point (although I have no idea what their lifecycle is like).
Ultralarge ships (top 161 in the world edit: that number of ships is a decade old, sorry) all carry at least 5,000 40' containers (and up to 10,000). That sounds like a lot, but right now the Chinese factories are cranking out about the 600,000 a quarter. (Note, I'm talking about 40' containers, but the industry talks about 20' so you may find double my numbers on a search.)
They seem to cost about 2,500-4,000 to purchase new, so theoretically they could make 20-28MM loading them with empties (if they were worth the same as new). I don't know how long it would take to load the ships with cargo, but there are currently $24MMM (that's 24 billion) in goods anchored outside the port of LA waiting to be unloaded. So 3 orders of magnitude higher. How much of a premium must load/unload capacity be at right now?
If we weren't truck limited, we could just move all the empties far away and stockpile them until they can be profitably returned. But I know people who have tens-of-thousands of dollars in tons of raw materials (think universal inputs) stacked in a warehouse they have to vacate soon and they cannot even give it away because of transportation costs. They're going to have to pay someone to take away the things they (correctly assumed) they could buy for almost nothing last year and would be worth more today.
They seem to cost about 2,500-4,000 to purchase new, so theoretically they could make 20-28MM loading them with empties (if they were worth the same as new). I don't know how long it would take to load the ships with cargo, but there are currently $24MMM (that's 24 billion) in goods anchored outside the port of LA waiting to be unloaded. So 3 orders of magnitude higher. How much of a premium must load/unload capacity be at right now?
If we weren't truck limited, we could just move all the empties far away and stockpile them until they can be profitably returned. But I know people who have tens-of-thousands of dollars in tons of raw materials (think universal inputs) stacked in a warehouse they have to vacate soon and they cannot even give it away because of transportation costs. They're going to have to pay someone to take away the things they (correctly assumed) they could buy for almost nothing last year and would be worth more today.
Note that containership capacity is specified in "TEU" (twenty-foot equivalent units), based on the original shipping container specification, but that the vast bulk of containers are forty feet in length.
So the Maersk E-class capacity of 10k--14k TEU translates to 5k--7k containers of the size you're probably used to seeing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-class_container_ship
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-foot_equivalent_unit
So the Maersk E-class capacity of 10k--14k TEU translates to 5k--7k containers of the size you're probably used to seeing.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/E-class_container_ship
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twenty-foot_equivalent_unit
> Note that containership capacity is specified in "TEU" (twenty-foot equivalent units), based on the original shipping container specification, but that the vast bulk of containers are forty feet in length.
I did in fact note that:
>> (Note, I'm talking about 40' containers, but the industry talks about 20' so you may find double my numbers on a search.)
I did in fact note that:
>> (Note, I'm talking about 40' containers, but the industry talks about 20' so you may find double my numbers on a search.)
I found your comment confusing and inaccurate on the point of container measures.
There's a specific standard for describing sizes (TEU), and, confusingly, an overwhelmingly prevalent size actually used and which most people will be familiar with of precisely twice that length (40'). The ships you referenced would be carrying 5--10k TEU, not 5--10k 40' containers.
Its' a minor point in the context of the Flexport story, but the inaccuracy seemed worth clarification. That is all.
There's a specific standard for describing sizes (TEU), and, confusingly, an overwhelmingly prevalent size actually used and which most people will be familiar with of precisely twice that length (40'). The ships you referenced would be carrying 5--10k TEU, not 5--10k 40' containers.
Its' a minor point in the context of the Flexport story, but the inaccuracy seemed worth clarification. That is all.
The ships I referenced were carrying 10-20k TEU, and therefore 5-10k 40' containers. I did all the conversions to 40' lengths from TEU, because it seemed like it would otherwise confuse people. Hence my note about the numbers people looked up being twice what I was quoting.
If you feel like I'm inaccurate after that clarification, then let's continue. I'd hesitate to continue a nomenclature argument online, but since it changes the numbers I've been talking about be a factor of 2, it seems worth resolving.
If you feel like I'm inaccurate after that clarification, then let's continue. I'd hesitate to continue a nomenclature argument online, but since it changes the numbers I've been talking about be a factor of 2, it seems worth resolving.
Less inaccurate than unclear.
Explanation appreciated.
Explanation appreciated.
To add: 14k TEU capacity is considered tiny nowadays. The biggest vessels are 20k+ TEU (e.g. 22k).
A 40' container is either 2 or 2.25 TEU. The .25 is when the container is a bit higher than standard. Though nowadays loads of containers are a bit higher. The extra .25 is ignored in various cases (basically when it doesn't matter).
A 40' container is either 2 or 2.25 TEU. The .25 is when the container is a bit higher than standard. Though nowadays loads of containers are a bit higher. The extra .25 is ignored in various cases (basically when it doesn't matter).
Actually just under 24k for the Evergreen A-class ships (23,992), I'm just discovering:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evergreen_A-class_container_sh...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_container_ship...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Evergreen_A-class_container_sh...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_container_ship...
But if there are no trucks to unload the ship, since they're all occupied with empties, who's unloading the ship? Wouldn't this mean delays in unloading, and thus incentive for the shipping companies to take the empties back?
Perhaps there's a cheap housing made of shipping containers initiative in this opportunity?
From what I can tell, a used 40ft container costs almost $4000 and weighs over 4 tonnes empty, and given scrap steel prices, that's about $2000 worth of scrap metal (potentially more, depending on the port and the month...)
> "People ask me what I think the answer is," he said, "and I tell them: Move Christmas to April, because that's when you're gonna get your stuff."
Alternatively, shop locally; Buy less stuff that is going to be thrown out. Celebrate Christmas on time.
Alternatively, shop locally; Buy less stuff that is going to be thrown out. Celebrate Christmas on time.
> Alternatively, shop locally
I have very bad news about how most of that local stuff gets there. Even locally made stuff is having a hard time getting raw materials shipped in, as it’s sitting in a dock alongside all the finished consumer goods everyone else wanted.
I have very bad news about how most of that local stuff gets there. Even locally made stuff is having a hard time getting raw materials shipped in, as it’s sitting in a dock alongside all the finished consumer goods everyone else wanted.
Alternatively, move Christmas to China!
>Buy less stuff that is going to be thrown out.
There has to be a word, maybe from a different language, that describes the feeling/fear of giving someone a gift they will throw out. It's a feeling that is intertwined with the anxiety of getting rid of a gift someone has given me. I've resorted to giving people edibles (the regular kind, not the psychoactive kind), but it feels thoughtless.
There has to be a word, maybe from a different language, that describes the feeling/fear of giving someone a gift they will throw out. It's a feeling that is intertwined with the anxiety of getting rid of a gift someone has given me. I've resorted to giving people edibles (the regular kind, not the psychoactive kind), but it feels thoughtless.
What Covid has shown for global nomads like me is that being together is the greatest gift. Contributing by bringing food and having a fun and memorable* time is not thoughtless; it is the way.
*in a good way
*in a good way
Lottery tickets are a fun and inexpensive gift. I always get my nephews scratchers. The surprise is fun, the chances of them winning something are high, and everybody likes money.
FYI this is a gift that requires knowing the recipient well. One of my aunts got me and my sister some scratchers one year and we were pretty disappointed, a few minutes later and we managed to turn $30 into $3. Maybe we would enjoy it more if we were gamblers? But we would never buy a lotto ticker or a scratcher ourselves.
I liked those as a little kid (up to maybe 14), once I was slightly smarter, I would have hated them.
I allowed myself one proper lottery ticket in my life and finally bought it when I was 32. Sadly I didn’t win anything.
I allowed myself one proper lottery ticket in my life and finally bought it when I was 32. Sadly I didn’t win anything.
I used to bring a giant package of toilet paper to housewarming parties, just so I knew it would be used. Also, not everyone buys enough to last the whole party.
Been a while since I got invited to one, but I'm sure that's unrelated.
Been a while since I got invited to one, but I'm sure that's unrelated.
> I've resorted to giving people edibles (the regular kind, not the psychoactive kind), but it feels thoughtless.
But...it's the thought that counts.
Why would a gift of food/drink/whatever be less thoughtful? Particularly if it's homemade, isn't it moreso?
But...it's the thought that counts.
Why would a gift of food/drink/whatever be less thoughtful? Particularly if it's homemade, isn't it moreso?
I bought a bunch of Japanese KitKats as gifts last year, but it was more of a "oh shit it's the middle of November and I haven't gotten anything yet" so that's where the feeling thoughtlessness comes from. It did feel better than giving someone something they might not use though.
> I've resorted to giving people edibles (the regular kind, not the psychoactive kind), but it feels thoughtless.
Please don't think this is thoughtless! I personally much prefer consumables (or experiences) as gifts over "stuff".
Please don't think this is thoughtless! I personally much prefer consumables (or experiences) as gifts over "stuff".
The word is obligation.
If you are giving obligations, then find something else to give that has no obligation attached but is still desirable. Consumable items or experiences that are desirable due to high quality or rarity or other specialness are a good default.
If people are giving you obligations, then gently ask for gifts that don’t need any ongoing future commitment from you.
If you are giving obligations, then find something else to give that has no obligation attached but is still desirable. Consumable items or experiences that are desirable due to high quality or rarity or other specialness are a good default.
If people are giving you obligations, then gently ask for gifts that don’t need any ongoing future commitment from you.
Considering the big issue as per the article seems to be empty containers, I wondered why the containers were not collapsible and whether that was a "thing". For those wondering about that, this article[0] seems to have some good information.
I also feel so dumb to just realize: Container. Dock. Docker.
[0]: https://piernext.portdebarcelona.cat/en/logistics/will-the-u...
I also feel so dumb to just realize: Container. Dock. Docker.
[0]: https://piernext.portdebarcelona.cat/en/logistics/will-the-u...
Foldable containers are investigated every few years. It's usually not worth it. There's a few savings in one area and enough costs in other areas to kill the business case.
The idea comes up at every "innovation" session. After which the responsible department shows then the last study they did (study is repeated every few years).
The idea comes up at every "innovation" session. After which the responsible department shows then the last study they did (study is repeated every few years).
[deleted]
We keep hearing about this issue from one port, but the shipping crisis is global. Are other big ports (rotterdam/singapore/...) having the same issue?
US ports are highly inefficient. They don't work 24/7. That's rather unique. Same for how the terminal is organized.
I'd suggest checking Felixstowe. Various years ago they were quick. They changed their terminal system. After that they were utterly slow (still are). Due to UK importing way more than what they export, Felixstowe always has way more empties going back than full containers.
However, Felixstowe works 24/7, plus they apply pressure on shipping lines the various times they are overwhelmed with empties.
I'd suggest checking Felixstowe. Various years ago they were quick. They changed their terminal system. After that they were utterly slow (still are). Due to UK importing way more than what they export, Felixstowe always has way more empties going back than full containers.
However, Felixstowe works 24/7, plus they apply pressure on shipping lines the various times they are overwhelmed with empties.
Does anyone know how much US port shenanigans and supply chain drama affect Canada for consumer goods? Seems like items on my wishlist are still regularly being restocked in US storefronts vs Canada.
I predict another supply chain shortage in about 6-8 months because all the empties were taken away (by the Ocean carriers, due to the new fees)... Chesterton's fence for the win!
justinator(4)
I like this attitude:
"I let him know I'm here as a resource, I'm not an activist, I'm not trying to be a pain in his ass," Petersen added. "I think it's a feature that government moves slowly; you don't want them to do rash things with taxpayer money. But it's a problem in the middle of a crisis."
Most people see potholes on their street and publicly complain that the government is terrible and works too slowly, instead of helping their local government become less terrible by working with them.
Most people see potholes on their street and publicly complain that the government is terrible and works too slowly, instead of helping their local government become less terrible by working with them.
Seattle has a phone app called "Find it, Fix it" as well as a dedicated phone number for reporting potholes and other problems. You take a picture of a pothole, maybe a description and send it off. The city promises most potholes get fixed within 3 days of receiving a report. They even have a website map showing all requests and the potholes that have been filled within the last 90 days.
https://seattlecitygis.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/ind...
https://seattlecitygis.maps.arcgis.com/apps/webappviewer/ind...
Lots of cities have apps like that, and before they existed there were "mayor's hotlines."
Boston has one, run by the mayor's hotline staff. They are exceptionally good at closing your issue without the issue being fixed.
Apparently they file another ticket in the job system of the relevant city department (each department has their own completely unique system), say "done!" and close your ticket, even though the relevant department might never do anything and you have no idea of the status of that ticket, nor any way to find out. There is no way to report that the issue still exists or comment or anything. By design. They want something that looks good. Issue reported, city addressed it, done.
Multiple times I have had an issue with something broken or non-functional, filed a ticket, had it closed as "fixed", sometimes it even says something like "fixed by a crew on blah blah", and I go back, take another picture, open a yet another ticket. I mention that it's the second or third or fourth time I've reported the same issue. Doesn't matter. Nobody cares.
Down in NYC if you fill out a noise complaint on the city's hotline, the cops show up 30 minutes later.
Boston is a city "run" by people who got the job through patronage, and are chair-warming assholes waiting for their pensions to kick in. It has something like three times the number of employees per capita compared to most other cities, and yet nothing gets done unless you know the right someone.
Boston has one, run by the mayor's hotline staff. They are exceptionally good at closing your issue without the issue being fixed.
Apparently they file another ticket in the job system of the relevant city department (each department has their own completely unique system), say "done!" and close your ticket, even though the relevant department might never do anything and you have no idea of the status of that ticket, nor any way to find out. There is no way to report that the issue still exists or comment or anything. By design. They want something that looks good. Issue reported, city addressed it, done.
Multiple times I have had an issue with something broken or non-functional, filed a ticket, had it closed as "fixed", sometimes it even says something like "fixed by a crew on blah blah", and I go back, take another picture, open a yet another ticket. I mention that it's the second or third or fourth time I've reported the same issue. Doesn't matter. Nobody cares.
Down in NYC if you fill out a noise complaint on the city's hotline, the cops show up 30 minutes later.
Boston is a city "run" by people who got the job through patronage, and are chair-warming assholes waiting for their pensions to kick in. It has something like three times the number of employees per capita compared to most other cities, and yet nothing gets done unless you know the right someone.
Meanwhile, in nearby Portland, the people are (were, this is from 2017, I don't live there any more) fixing potholes that the government would not.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-15/portland-...
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-03-15/portland-...
> Most people see potholes on their street and publicly complain that the government is terrible
yet the 320,000 person city next door here has a TWO YEAR backlog of street fixes, I was told. Property taxes are as high as any place in the USA. There is no shortage of money, retirement 401k and medical care for city workers. Of course they also play the sub-contractor game a bit, not as bad as corporate on that one.
yet the 320,000 person city next door here has a TWO YEAR backlog of street fixes, I was told. Property taxes are as high as any place in the USA. There is no shortage of money, retirement 401k and medical care for city workers. Of course they also play the sub-contractor game a bit, not as bad as corporate on that one.
We can't afford it. Roads are a massive treadmill of maintenance.
To step back, why do we have so many square feet of road space? Why do we keep expanding highways when it is proven that it does not help? The automobile and its inefficient infrastructure is bankrupting this country. We keep building more roads rather than investing in transportation infrastructure which is far cheaper in the long run.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORzNZUeUHAM
To step back, why do we have so many square feet of road space? Why do we keep expanding highways when it is proven that it does not help? The automobile and its inefficient infrastructure is bankrupting this country. We keep building more roads rather than investing in transportation infrastructure which is far cheaper in the long run.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORzNZUeUHAM
> Why do we keep expanding highways when it is proven that it does not help?
Expanding highways increases throughput almost everytime. Certainly, it rarely ends congestion. It often reduces congestion, but that depends on how far the capacity is behind the actual demand.
In most places I've lived, road expansion is a response to increased demand from increased population, either through density or sprawl (but usually both). If you let population increase without increasing tranport capacity, you get congestion. That's true for roads and mass transit. Ideally, as the population grows, you expand both. But, expanding roads is often simpler, as you can do it in parts, addressing bottlenecks one at a time, whereas mass transit isn't very effective with piece-wise solutions; I can't easily drive to a highway transit station, take that 10 miles, then drive to my final destination, I need at least one of the local trips to be on transit/walkable and have parking available or have favorable conditions for biking (weather, physical ability, room on transit, managable hills).
Expanding highways increases throughput almost everytime. Certainly, it rarely ends congestion. It often reduces congestion, but that depends on how far the capacity is behind the actual demand.
In most places I've lived, road expansion is a response to increased demand from increased population, either through density or sprawl (but usually both). If you let population increase without increasing tranport capacity, you get congestion. That's true for roads and mass transit. Ideally, as the population grows, you expand both. But, expanding roads is often simpler, as you can do it in parts, addressing bottlenecks one at a time, whereas mass transit isn't very effective with piece-wise solutions; I can't easily drive to a highway transit station, take that 10 miles, then drive to my final destination, I need at least one of the local trips to be on transit/walkable and have parking available or have favorable conditions for biking (weather, physical ability, room on transit, managable hills).
> road expansion is a response to increased demand from increased population, either through density or sprawl
Though it's the road expansion itself that often leads to more sprawl.
It's worth noting that congestion in mass transit leads to better service. (Well, if you have a halfway competent transit agency, anyway.) More riders leads to more fares leads to more frequent service leads to getting you where you need to be more quickly.
Road congestion doesn't have the same effect. Maybe it's a toll road in which case you have some increased revenue, but often it isn't - so congestion is typically net negative for drivers.
Though it's the road expansion itself that often leads to more sprawl.
It's worth noting that congestion in mass transit leads to better service. (Well, if you have a halfway competent transit agency, anyway.) More riders leads to more fares leads to more frequent service leads to getting you where you need to be more quickly.
Road congestion doesn't have the same effect. Maybe it's a toll road in which case you have some increased revenue, but often it isn't - so congestion is typically net negative for drivers.
Though it's the road expansion itself that often leads to more sprawl.
Every trip taken is an economic activity that would not have otherwise occurred. Traffic is commerce. Sprawl allows the middle class to continue to exist. More people, more property taxes, more fuel taxes, more money for roads.
Every trip taken is an economic activity that would not have otherwise occurred. Traffic is commerce. Sprawl allows the middle class to continue to exist. More people, more property taxes, more fuel taxes, more money for roads.
A tale of two cities:
In city A, I walk from my apartment to the corner store
In city B, there's no corner stores in my subdivision. There's a gas station 5 miles away, about half a mile within the subdivision, but mostly on a major road or highway.
Both trips are "economic activity," but one is extremely inefficient. What should be a painless transaction is full of friction and is detrimental to other users of the major road.
In city A, I walk from my apartment to the corner store
In city B, there's no corner stores in my subdivision. There's a gas station 5 miles away, about half a mile within the subdivision, but mostly on a major road or highway.
Both trips are "economic activity," but one is extremely inefficient. What should be a painless transaction is full of friction and is detrimental to other users of the major road.
In city B, you have a private backyard, an outdoor kitchen with grill, a private pool, and you only have to drive to the store once a month because you have room for a real freezer and pantry. And you pay less per month than city A.
> Sprawl allows the middle class to continue to exist. More people, more property taxes, more fuel taxes, more money for roads.
City B often has significantly higher infrastructure costs[0] than City A, while generating fewer tax receipts[1]. This is only possible because City A is picking up the bill for City B; after all if you’re consuming more and paying less, someone else has to be picking up the difference. Those extra trips are generating sales tax and gas tax, yes, but usually not enough to cover the cost of the road.
Sprawl and the suburbs aren’t the generators of wealth and prosperity as you imply, but rather the thing we’ve decided to spend our wealth and prosperity on. You in fact have cause and effect backwards: it’s not that sprawl created enough economic activity to happen for a middle class to form, but rather enough economic activity existed elsewhere in order for the middle class to be able to live in suburban sprawl.
0 - https://usa.streetsblog.org/2015/03/05/sprawl-costs-the-publ...
1 - https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/11/11/poor-neighbor...
City B often has significantly higher infrastructure costs[0] than City A, while generating fewer tax receipts[1]. This is only possible because City A is picking up the bill for City B; after all if you’re consuming more and paying less, someone else has to be picking up the difference. Those extra trips are generating sales tax and gas tax, yes, but usually not enough to cover the cost of the road.
Sprawl and the suburbs aren’t the generators of wealth and prosperity as you imply, but rather the thing we’ve decided to spend our wealth and prosperity on. You in fact have cause and effect backwards: it’s not that sprawl created enough economic activity to happen for a middle class to form, but rather enough economic activity existed elsewhere in order for the middle class to be able to live in suburban sprawl.
0 - https://usa.streetsblog.org/2015/03/05/sprawl-costs-the-publ...
1 - https://www.strongtowns.org/journal/2020/11/11/poor-neighbor...
And you have a much greater environmental impact with all that driving, detached homes being worse at retaining heat than attached ones, etc. How many years do we have left to slash our emissions again?
> And you pay less per month than city A.
That's a consequence of us basically not building anything like city A for the last several decades.
> And you pay less per month than city A.
That's a consequence of us basically not building anything like city A for the last several decades.
How many years do we have left to slash our emissions again?
How many years to we have to keep listening to the "stop living your ugly human lives" rhetoric before we realize that the "save the trees" activists caused insane amounts of pollution and death through uncontrolled wildfires, the "anti-nuke" activists directly caused global warming, and the idea of an individual carbon footprint was a creation of oil companies to distract from systemic solutions to systemic problems?
You solve problems of scale at scale. If people want something en masse, you figure out how to make that thing efficient. If people want something that is currently bad, figure out how to make it good. The more energy we can consume sustainably per capita, the better. Now make that energy carbon-free, at the system level.
If you want people to pack into cities like sardines, make it actually better, quieter, cleaner, and cheaper, even for people with kids and dogs and hobbies and kayaks. My years lived in various parts of supposedly good cities have been noisier, dirtier, tinier, slower (it takes up to two hours to go a few miles by any mode of transportation -- that's a lot of wasted fuel) and more expensive than elsewhere.
You don't tell people to lower their energy, you build desirable technologies that use less energy automatically, and most importantly, raise the energy consumption level that is sustainable by building more carbon-free power ASAP.
How many years to we have to keep listening to the "stop living your ugly human lives" rhetoric before we realize that the "save the trees" activists caused insane amounts of pollution and death through uncontrolled wildfires, the "anti-nuke" activists directly caused global warming, and the idea of an individual carbon footprint was a creation of oil companies to distract from systemic solutions to systemic problems?
You solve problems of scale at scale. If people want something en masse, you figure out how to make that thing efficient. If people want something that is currently bad, figure out how to make it good. The more energy we can consume sustainably per capita, the better. Now make that energy carbon-free, at the system level.
If you want people to pack into cities like sardines, make it actually better, quieter, cleaner, and cheaper, even for people with kids and dogs and hobbies and kayaks. My years lived in various parts of supposedly good cities have been noisier, dirtier, tinier, slower (it takes up to two hours to go a few miles by any mode of transportation -- that's a lot of wasted fuel) and more expensive than elsewhere.
You don't tell people to lower their energy, you build desirable technologies that use less energy automatically, and most importantly, raise the energy consumption level that is sustainable by building more carbon-free power ASAP.
You really ought to watch that video linked upthread before continuing this argument.
You're misguided. I appreciate what you're saying, but simply put, you're incorrect.
The video, and its channel, as well as its original source, are all fascinating and a highly recommended watch regardless. And they should put some of your fears at ease...
You're misguided. I appreciate what you're saying, but simply put, you're incorrect.
The video, and its channel, as well as its original source, are all fascinating and a highly recommended watch regardless. And they should put some of your fears at ease...
> You solve problems of scale at scale.
Yes. One good step would be to allow density everywhere so more people who want to live in dense environments can afford to do so. After all, there's more demand for walkable places than there are walkable places: https://cityobservatory.org/the-myth-of-revealed-preference-...
> make it actually better, quieter, cleaner, and cheaper
Trying over here. My local government is not very amenable to this, unfortunately.
> it takes up to two hours to go a few miles by any mode of transportation
In a city that actually cares about efficiently moving people seriously, that'd be absurdly slow. It takes far less time than that to bike a few miles. Yes, most American cities don't have the infrastructure for that. Again: trying.
But all that aside:
> You don't tell people to lower their energy, you build desirable technologies that use less energy automatically, and most importantly, raise the energy consumption level that is sustainable by building more carbon-free power ASAP.
This is an important part of the solution, yes, but time is not on our side here. I think it's foolish to think that we can reduce our emissions as much as we need to while maintaining our lifestyles exactly as they are. Maybe if we'd taken the problem seriously decades ago that would have been the case, but now it's going to involve at least some level of inconvenience.
An example: it takes a long time for all the cars on the road to turn over. Even if we assume that electric cars will become massively more popular and available in the next decade, and even if we assume that 100% of the electricity to power those comes from green energy, we still wouldn't be on track to halve emissions from passenger vehicles by 2030, because a significant percentage on the vehicles on the road would still be gas powered. Some element of this is going to have to involve less driving. And that's just one source of emissions.
Yes. One good step would be to allow density everywhere so more people who want to live in dense environments can afford to do so. After all, there's more demand for walkable places than there are walkable places: https://cityobservatory.org/the-myth-of-revealed-preference-...
> make it actually better, quieter, cleaner, and cheaper
Trying over here. My local government is not very amenable to this, unfortunately.
> it takes up to two hours to go a few miles by any mode of transportation
In a city that actually cares about efficiently moving people seriously, that'd be absurdly slow. It takes far less time than that to bike a few miles. Yes, most American cities don't have the infrastructure for that. Again: trying.
But all that aside:
> You don't tell people to lower their energy, you build desirable technologies that use less energy automatically, and most importantly, raise the energy consumption level that is sustainable by building more carbon-free power ASAP.
This is an important part of the solution, yes, but time is not on our side here. I think it's foolish to think that we can reduce our emissions as much as we need to while maintaining our lifestyles exactly as they are. Maybe if we'd taken the problem seriously decades ago that would have been the case, but now it's going to involve at least some level of inconvenience.
An example: it takes a long time for all the cars on the road to turn over. Even if we assume that electric cars will become massively more popular and available in the next decade, and even if we assume that 100% of the electricity to power those comes from green energy, we still wouldn't be on track to halve emissions from passenger vehicles by 2030, because a significant percentage on the vehicles on the road would still be gas powered. Some element of this is going to have to involve less driving. And that's just one source of emissions.
The practical choice isn't really between more and less inconvenience. The choice is between less inconvenience and nothing being done at all. It's a political problem, not just a scientific and engineering one, and any engineering approach to solve it that is not also politically viable (which is likely to be the case for anything that significantly affects quality of life for a lot of people) is not going to happen in a democracy.
people can live suburban lives without the US' suburban sprawl. We manage it in Europe without anywhere near as much space. York (UK) is a lovely though small-ish city that's mostly suburban, but also mixed development and highly walkable. The problem isn't that Americans want gardens and big houses; it's that the US is built around the car, so suburbs are plonked down in the middle of nowhere off some arterial road.
Sprawl allows the middle class to continue to exist? There are plenty of places that don't have nearly the level of sprawl that we have in the US; does the middle class not exist there? (Japan, for example.)
More money for roads? If the population increases but is pushed to the periphery, requiring new roads to support them, aren't we just digging ourselves in deeper? How does that pay for the existing roads?
More money for roads? If the population increases but is pushed to the periphery, requiring new roads to support them, aren't we just digging ourselves in deeper? How does that pay for the existing roads?
"Sprawl allows the middle class to continue to exist? There are plenty of places that don't have nearly the level of sprawl that we have in the US; does the middle class not exist there? (Japan, for example.)"
I can't really speak to the existence of the middle class but I'll just leave this here: "An astonishing fact: 92 percent of Japanese [like many countries including the US] consider themselves middle-class, according to a labor ministry report published in 2019. That seems to clash with another fact: that nearly 40 percent of Japan’s work force is employed on a part-time or temporary basis, earning less and more vulnerable to layoffs than regular company employees."
Anyway, this is interesting: https://resources.realestate.co.jp/rent/what-is-the-average-... A 1K/1DK (1 bedroom) apartment in the Central Six wards of Tokyo averages 106,000Y per month. The other 17 wards average 72,000Y. A 1K/1DK apartment in Saitama (https://resources.realestate.co.jp/rent/what-is-the-average-...) is 49,000Y. That's ~30-45 min by car or 40 min to 1hr by train (according to Google); i.e. kinda sprawly.
I can't find a median wage for Japan, but the average seems to be about 300,000Y per month, meaning that apartment in the Central Six is out of reach, the other wards would be doable, and outside Tokyo proper would be very doable.
I can't really speak to the existence of the middle class but I'll just leave this here: "An astonishing fact: 92 percent of Japanese [like many countries including the US] consider themselves middle-class, according to a labor ministry report published in 2019. That seems to clash with another fact: that nearly 40 percent of Japan’s work force is employed on a part-time or temporary basis, earning less and more vulnerable to layoffs than regular company employees."
Anyway, this is interesting: https://resources.realestate.co.jp/rent/what-is-the-average-... A 1K/1DK (1 bedroom) apartment in the Central Six wards of Tokyo averages 106,000Y per month. The other 17 wards average 72,000Y. A 1K/1DK apartment in Saitama (https://resources.realestate.co.jp/rent/what-is-the-average-...) is 49,000Y. That's ~30-45 min by car or 40 min to 1hr by train (according to Google); i.e. kinda sprawly.
I can't find a median wage for Japan, but the average seems to be about 300,000Y per month, meaning that apartment in the Central Six is out of reach, the other wards would be doable, and outside Tokyo proper would be very doable.
But the reason Japan doesn't have this kind of sprawl is that buildings are depreciating assets in Japan with an expected lifespan between 20 and 40 years, which both creates regular opportunities to build higher occupancy buildings and eliminates the paralyzing financial incentives for restricting housing supply [0].
In the US, real estate is the dominant store of wealth for a plurality of Americans, which is why we see such fierce opposition to development. Dense accumulations of people affords great economic opportunities which attract more people, but people need somewhere to live, and if the supply of housing is held far below the demand, prices rise and push out people who can't afford said prices. So people who can't afford sufficient housing within commuting range of economic opportunities within their abilities can either A) forgo the benefits of metropolitan living, B) search the fringes of the metropolitan area for places they can afford/are allowed to build, or C) become homeless.
It would be great if we could just nationally eradicate the regulations, ordinances, zoning codes, etc that cities and towns use to prevent development, but I don't think the 10th amendment allows for that kind of law. And without more housing, there will be sprawl.
[0] https://www.rethinktokyo.com/2018/06/06/depreciate-limited-l...
In the US, real estate is the dominant store of wealth for a plurality of Americans, which is why we see such fierce opposition to development. Dense accumulations of people affords great economic opportunities which attract more people, but people need somewhere to live, and if the supply of housing is held far below the demand, prices rise and push out people who can't afford said prices. So people who can't afford sufficient housing within commuting range of economic opportunities within their abilities can either A) forgo the benefits of metropolitan living, B) search the fringes of the metropolitan area for places they can afford/are allowed to build, or C) become homeless.
It would be great if we could just nationally eradicate the regulations, ordinances, zoning codes, etc that cities and towns use to prevent development, but I don't think the 10th amendment allows for that kind of law. And without more housing, there will be sprawl.
[0] https://www.rethinktokyo.com/2018/06/06/depreciate-limited-l...
If you want to see no zoning in action go to Houston, TX. You can build anything anywhere. You will find a stately mansion next door to a gas station and a titty bar. The result has been the rise of MasterPlan communities and developments. See SugarLand, TX. Imagine your homeowners association with the power to regulate and control businesses in it's area as well.
That's not true. It's correct that Houston's building restrictions aren't referred to as "zoning", but Houston absolutely has regulations and ordinances that produce the same effect [0][1].
[0] https://youtu.be/TaU1UH_3B5k [1] https://www.houstontx.gov/planning/DevelopRegs/
[0] https://youtu.be/TaU1UH_3B5k [1] https://www.houstontx.gov/planning/DevelopRegs/
Thanks for the correction. I had heard the story from friends who moved there years ago.
No worries, I had heard the same after a chemical plant in Houston exploded and devastated some nearby residential property. It wasn't until some of the urban planning youtube channels I watch (including the one I linked) focused on Houston that I learned the details behind the "Houston has no zoning regulations" factoid.
You pretty much just described a ponzu scheme. If we perpetually need more than we will never have enough as we head towards/are in a negative feedback loop of sustainable maintenance.
> Certainly, it rarely ends congestion.
It never ends congestion.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braess%27s_paradox
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downs%E2%80%93Thomson_paradox
Want to reduce congestion? Improve transit, build higher density communities, and demolish highways.
It never ends congestion.
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Induced_demand
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Braess%27s_paradox
* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Downs%E2%80%93Thomson_paradox
Want to reduce congestion? Improve transit, build higher density communities, and demolish highways.
The answer has to be more nuanced than that. Before 2004 the Cuesta Grade near SLO was 4 lanes and permanently congested at commute time. After widening to 6 lanes in 2004, I've rarely noticed congestion at typical congestion times.
It's possible to overbuild roads where there isn't demand for them. But for major metropolitan areas, there are large numbers of people who want to go to similar categories of destinations, and their choice of specific destination is constrained by convenience. If expanding a road reduces congestion (and thus time to reach somewhere), more people will travel farther distances to get there until a new congestion equilibrium is reached.
You could design cities so people could walk to local neighborhood shops instead of ripping coal on a highway to get to Walmart. Skip public transit, just a local bodega in a lot of neighborhoods would cut car trips by a ton.
> Expanding highways increases throughput almost everytime. Certainly, it rarely ends congestion. It often reduces congestion,
That turns out not to be the case. Road widening almost always worsens congestion. http://plazaperspective.com/road-widening/
People never complain about throughput. People complain about trip times, and road widening never helps that.
That turns out not to be the case. Road widening almost always worsens congestion. http://plazaperspective.com/road-widening/
People never complain about throughput. People complain about trip times, and road widening never helps that.
Here's some stats from a Los Angeles area project.
http://boardarchives.metro.net/BoardBox/BB2015/2015_05_May/1...
Have a look around page 18. Time with congestion was reduced by about 2 hours daily from before the project to after the project. There's also several charts of trip times in there, although some of them are comparing different times of the year which is less apples to apples IMHO. If exhibit 4-133 from the report after the slides is a good comparison, the congestion was effectively eliminated; however the before is during construction, and it's a single day, so that's a bit hard to take at face value; I'm guessing they didn't have any/enough saturday data from the 2009 before construction data set to compare with.
http://boardarchives.metro.net/BoardBox/BB2015/2015_05_May/1...
Have a look around page 18. Time with congestion was reduced by about 2 hours daily from before the project to after the project. There's also several charts of trip times in there, although some of them are comparing different times of the year which is less apples to apples IMHO. If exhibit 4-133 from the report after the slides is a good comparison, the congestion was effectively eliminated; however the before is during construction, and it's a single day, so that's a bit hard to take at face value; I'm guessing they didn't have any/enough saturday data from the 2009 before construction data set to compare with.
> That's true for roads and mass transit. Ideally, as the population grows, you expand both
Difference is that mass transit benefits substantially from scale, with cost per rider dropping with ridership increases. Road networks, not so much.
Kickstarting the process is a little tricky. But just about every other developed country has managed it, I’m sure the US can figure it out too.
Difference is that mass transit benefits substantially from scale, with cost per rider dropping with ridership increases. Road networks, not so much.
Kickstarting the process is a little tricky. But just about every other developed country has managed it, I’m sure the US can figure it out too.
The real cause is that we sell road access for $0.
So the same thing happens as when you sell bread for $0. Supply runs out, you have long lines, and everyone is unhappy.
Road pricing would make driving enormously much better, but it's counterintuitive and radical, so I doubt we'll see it in my lifetime.
So the same thing happens as when you sell bread for $0. Supply runs out, you have long lines, and everyone is unhappy.
Road pricing would make driving enormously much better, but it's counterintuitive and radical, so I doubt we'll see it in my lifetime.
The worse problem is that road pricing is effectively a regressive tax. It most hurts the people who need it most, and are least able to afford it.
Although, with electronic toll devices, you could at least potentially give toll credits to low-income folks.
Although, with electronic toll devices, you could at least potentially give toll credits to low-income folks.
The current system of promoting cars above all other forms of transportation is more regressive than road pricing would be. Vehicle ownership and miles traveled are positively correlated with income. People with lower income are more likely to be reliant on underfunded public transportation that gets stuck in traffic (i.e. busses) caused by higher income drivers. Not to mention all the other externalities like pollution that cars cause, which disproportionately affect lower income neighborhoods.
So would you favor selling bread and other necessities for $0 by the same argument?
Toll roads?
Textbook regressive tax, even more so in this day and age where the less well off you are the more likely you are to have to live further out. You can always find someone poorer who commutes by bus to underpin an anecdote but going from renting an apartment within the public transit network to owning a car, renting outside the public transit network and commuting in is a big level up for most people because despite the commute arguably being worse it gives you flexibility when choosing your next jobs so your next steps up come easier.
Paying for what you consume is not a tax!
This argument is only applied to road consumption for some reason.
Note that is road pricing makes traffic flow at the speed limit rather than crawling during rush hour, people can commute from much further away.
This argument is only applied to road consumption for some reason.
Note that is road pricing makes traffic flow at the speed limit rather than crawling during rush hour, people can commute from much further away.
>Paying for what you consume is not a tax!
Everybody is already paying for it in their taxes. Furthermore everybody is also paying per use for the energy used, time and cost of vehicle ownership.
How would you like it if the city started charging per use at the park beside your house? Maybe then you'd see how comically asinine it is to repressively tax public infrastructure that we have already decided is a net positive.
And I'll preempt the obvious low effort retort by saying that city public transit should also be free at the point of use.
>Note that is road pricing makes traffic flow at the speed limit rather than crawling during rush hour, people can commute from much further away.
Yeah, if you're a doctor or lawyer or techie and can justify the cost relative to your increased earnings from commuting. The drywaller and the janitor have just as much right to sit in a traffic jam as you do.
Increasing the cost per use for public good when not coupled to an increased cost to provide that good (last I checked bitumen prices didn't skyrocket) ALWAYS boils down to kicking the poors out so that whosoever left can have a better experience. This approach is completely antithetical to the reasoning behind spending money on these public goods in the first place.
Making everyone endure the same crap equally ensures that the people who can most effectively load balance to something else or a different commute time do.
Everybody is already paying for it in their taxes. Furthermore everybody is also paying per use for the energy used, time and cost of vehicle ownership.
How would you like it if the city started charging per use at the park beside your house? Maybe then you'd see how comically asinine it is to repressively tax public infrastructure that we have already decided is a net positive.
And I'll preempt the obvious low effort retort by saying that city public transit should also be free at the point of use.
>Note that is road pricing makes traffic flow at the speed limit rather than crawling during rush hour, people can commute from much further away.
Yeah, if you're a doctor or lawyer or techie and can justify the cost relative to your increased earnings from commuting. The drywaller and the janitor have just as much right to sit in a traffic jam as you do.
Increasing the cost per use for public good when not coupled to an increased cost to provide that good (last I checked bitumen prices didn't skyrocket) ALWAYS boils down to kicking the poors out so that whosoever left can have a better experience. This approach is completely antithetical to the reasoning behind spending money on these public goods in the first place.
Making everyone endure the same crap equally ensures that the people who can most effectively load balance to something else or a different commute time do.
> Everybody is already paying for it in their taxes. Furthermore everybody is also paying per use for the energy used, time and cost of vehicle ownership.
Sure, but they're not paying for using up the finite resource of road usage at high demand times. If too many people use the road at the same time, it ceases to function as a transportation route, and no one gets good use of it.
You can think of it as "equality" when a common resource is destroyed equally for rich and for poor, but it's not good for anyone, and there are better ways.
> The drywaller and the janitor have just as much right to sit in a traffic jam as you do.
I'll spell out my point more clearly: If roads that today creep along at 30mph at rush hour start going 70mph, the drywaller can choose to live in a cheaper area further away, pay a bit extra for commuting, and still come out ahead.
Final point: It's common misunderstanding, but roads are NOT public goods: https://fee.org/articles/are-roads-really-public-goods/
Sure, but they're not paying for using up the finite resource of road usage at high demand times. If too many people use the road at the same time, it ceases to function as a transportation route, and no one gets good use of it.
You can think of it as "equality" when a common resource is destroyed equally for rich and for poor, but it's not good for anyone, and there are better ways.
> The drywaller and the janitor have just as much right to sit in a traffic jam as you do.
I'll spell out my point more clearly: If roads that today creep along at 30mph at rush hour start going 70mph, the drywaller can choose to live in a cheaper area further away, pay a bit extra for commuting, and still come out ahead.
Final point: It's common misunderstanding, but roads are NOT public goods: https://fee.org/articles/are-roads-really-public-goods/
Your entire angle of approaching this reeks of "everyone else should take the bus so I can leave the office at 4:59 and not hit traffic".
>Sure, but they're not paying for using up the finite resource of road usage at high demand times. If too many people use the road at the same time, it ceases to function as a transportation route, and no one gets good use of it.
Time and money can be converted.
If you don't wanna share the road with everyone else then commute at different times or use a different mode.
The people who's time is most valuable also tend to have the most money and options for other commute options.
>: If roads that today creep along at 30mph at rush hour start going 70mph, the drywaller can choose to live in a cheaper area further away, pay a bit extra for commuting, and still come out ahead.
You have to price out the bottom to get things flowing at peak speeds all the time.
Furthermore, expecting any transit system, rail, road, anything, to not be saturated at peak hours is unrealistic. Increasing supply or decreasing demand just reduce the time the network is saturated. Rush hour is like like dumping a bucket into a sink, you're gonna get a little standing water while the drain does its thing.
>Final point: It's common misunderstanding, but roads are NOT public goods: https://fee.org/articles/are-roads-really-public-goods/
What a BS article. His requirement of "nonrivalrous consumption" exudes damn near every other example of something that is generally considered a public good.
>Sure, but they're not paying for using up the finite resource of road usage at high demand times. If too many people use the road at the same time, it ceases to function as a transportation route, and no one gets good use of it.
Time and money can be converted.
If you don't wanna share the road with everyone else then commute at different times or use a different mode.
The people who's time is most valuable also tend to have the most money and options for other commute options.
>: If roads that today creep along at 30mph at rush hour start going 70mph, the drywaller can choose to live in a cheaper area further away, pay a bit extra for commuting, and still come out ahead.
You have to price out the bottom to get things flowing at peak speeds all the time.
Furthermore, expecting any transit system, rail, road, anything, to not be saturated at peak hours is unrealistic. Increasing supply or decreasing demand just reduce the time the network is saturated. Rush hour is like like dumping a bucket into a sink, you're gonna get a little standing water while the drain does its thing.
>Final point: It's common misunderstanding, but roads are NOT public goods: https://fee.org/articles/are-roads-really-public-goods/
What a BS article. His requirement of "nonrivalrous consumption" exudes damn near every other example of something that is generally considered a public good.
I think we've reached the end of fruitful discussion.
The "nonrivalrous consumption" part is genuinely how the term is defined in Economics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good_(economics)
The term has since been morphed/co-opted into meaning something like "good for the public" in political discourse, deeply frustrating economists, and making these kinds of discussions difficult to have.
The "nonrivalrous consumption" part is genuinely how the term is defined in Economics: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_good_(economics)
The term has since been morphed/co-opted into meaning something like "good for the public" in political discourse, deeply frustrating economists, and making these kinds of discussions difficult to have.
You can afford it, but you don't want to. Increase the taxes on vehicles and on fuel and earmark these taxes for transportation infrastructure. If too many people would just fill up their tanks in a neighboring state require a miles logger instead. Technically it's easy to fix but this is a people's problem.
require a miles logger instead
That's a huge non-starter warranting much harsher language than is reasonable for HN.
That's a huge non-starter warranting much harsher language than is reasonable for HN.
Why? It ties taxation to usage and is uniform between dino-burners and electrics. Every street-legal vehicle already has one, so the question is really how to get an authenticated reading once per year/period.
I assume you are talking about annual mileage charge (based on odometer readings) and it was read as constant GPS tracking to charge continuously based on mileage.
Annual odometer reporting is totally fine, of course. I read "logger" as "continuous data logger." That's never going to be acceptable.
I assume you already carry a continuous data logger in your pocket. At least it's voluntary. ;)
I don't know what the most practical solution is while still being respectful of people's privacy. It could be a combination of GPS and an odometer or just one of these or something else. It doesn't have to leave the car and only the total number each year is important. You just need to somehow make sure the results weren't tampered with.
I don't know what the most practical solution is while still being respectful of people's privacy. It could be a combination of GPS and an odometer or just one of these or something else. It doesn't have to leave the car and only the total number each year is important. You just need to somehow make sure the results weren't tampered with.
Keeping people from messing with the odometers is really important already. I doubt the tax cheating will be the motivators.
If this is a solved problem all the better, then the tech is ready. Now only the people problem, which is the biggest hurdle, is left. If you think raising taxes for the people that use the shared resource is a good solution of course. I think letting the users that use a shared resource pay for it is an acceptable solution, but not everyone thinks that.
> Why do we keep expanding highways when it is proven that it does not help?
We're stuck inside of a ponzi scheme
We're stuck inside of a ponzi scheme
Narrow gauge railway siding for every house! ;-)
(And I'm just half joking, that would be insanely cool!)
(And I'm just half joking, that would be insanely cool!)
That was pretty much the standard in the late 19th and early 20th century. The lines were often economically non-viable and were shut down in the 30s, but on the eve of WWI you had villages of under 1000 people with their own train stations (as small as 20sqm), gauges so narrow you had to walk sideways to fit between the rails (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2_ft_and_600_mm_gauge_railways), and sometimes closer to trams than regular rails with the rails bolted straight onto road surface.
There were even dedicated estate railways!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_narrow-gauge_railways#...
Not enough milk in the estate kitchen ? Send a maid with a train to the village to restock!
Also on north Germany they have a 60 cm railway connecting an island at low tide:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%BCttmoorsiel-Nordstrandis...
Or the famous Kurobe Gorge Railway in Japan at 762 mm that goes via hard moutain terrain and 40+ (!) tunnels:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurobe_Gorge_Railway
(We travelled it once, can recommend, superb experience!)
Still apparently even if you switch to electric cars and/or trolley buses tire and road surface abrasion is still apparently a significant pollution hazard.
I guess metal wheels on metal rails are less of an issues, so it might make sense to use rail based wehicles more heavily, especially with modern technology improvements (automatic routing/switching, battery powered trains, etc.).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/British_narrow-gauge_railways#...
Not enough milk in the estate kitchen ? Send a maid with a train to the village to restock!
Also on north Germany they have a 60 cm railway connecting an island at low tide:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/L%C3%BCttmoorsiel-Nordstrandis...
Or the famous Kurobe Gorge Railway in Japan at 762 mm that goes via hard moutain terrain and 40+ (!) tunnels:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kurobe_Gorge_Railway
(We travelled it once, can recommend, superb experience!)
Still apparently even if you switch to electric cars and/or trolley buses tire and road surface abrasion is still apparently a significant pollution hazard.
I guess metal wheels on metal rails are less of an issues, so it might make sense to use rail based wehicles more heavily, especially with modern technology improvements (automatic routing/switching, battery powered trains, etc.).
> We can't afford it. Roads are a massive treadmill of maintenance.
They are not. They are less than 10% of budget of most municipalities. We can easily afford the road, even at today’s highly inflated construction costs.
They are not. They are less than 10% of budget of most municipalities. We can easily afford the road, even at today’s highly inflated construction costs.
Okay, what percentage of the budget would they be if we were fixing them fast enough that we didn't have a constantly growing backlog of repairs?
That depends on the the practices in that place. Many places have little no significant backlog and low expenditures. It’s all a matter of how the municipality contracts out the work, who gets the work and how, what work is prioritized etc.
Got an example? I'd like to see a low-density city that's actually been consistently able to pay for its road maintenance.
And not a place that only has relatively new roads, mind you: somewhere that's already had to go through the process of repaving them as they deteriorate at least once or twice.
And not a place that only has relatively new roads, mind you: somewhere that's already had to go through the process of repaving them as they deteriorate at least once or twice.
Sure. For example, consider the municipality of Wenatchee, in eastern Washington. In 2021, street maintenance is 3.5% of entire municipal budget. Another 6% is for capital improvements for road infrastructure (e.g. installing new traffic lights, new sidewalks, etc), but capital improvements do reduce maintenance in areas where capital improvements were done, so let’s say that 5% of entire municipal budget goes for road infrastructure maintenance. That’s hardly a large maintenance burden.
As it happens, most places that are not having some unrelated problems, like eg. being depopulated after industrial collapse, can easily cover the road maintenance, considering how little they spend on it, compared to other items in the budget. If you don’t believe me, now it’s your turn to look at the data: pick a municipality with terribly maintained road, and tell me what percentage of their budget is spent on road maintenance.
As it happens, most places that are not having some unrelated problems, like eg. being depopulated after industrial collapse, can easily cover the road maintenance, considering how little they spend on it, compared to other items in the budget. If you don’t believe me, now it’s your turn to look at the data: pick a municipality with terribly maintained road, and tell me what percentage of their budget is spent on road maintenance.
> why do we have so many square feet of road space?
Because that's what voters want. If true self-driving cars ever become a reality, there's going to be a big demand spike for more and bigger roads.
Because that's what voters want. If true self-driving cars ever become a reality, there's going to be a big demand spike for more and bigger roads.
> If true self-driving cars ever become a reality, there's going to be a big demand spike for more and bigger roads
Why would there be a need for more roads? It seems like the opposite would be true: self-driving cars don't need safe following distance to each other. They could form a massive train (the more you look at self driving cars, the more they look like trains), with 1 inch of space between each vehicle. Highway lanes are so wide, that small self-driving vehicles could sit 2-across, with an inch of space between them. On-demand self-driving-cars could cut the total number of cars on the road by a big factor. Self-driving cars might never crash, so they won't need all those tons of safety equipment that each car lugs about, saving a pile of net energy.
Why would there be a need for more roads? It seems like the opposite would be true: self-driving cars don't need safe following distance to each other. They could form a massive train (the more you look at self driving cars, the more they look like trains), with 1 inch of space between each vehicle. Highway lanes are so wide, that small self-driving vehicles could sit 2-across, with an inch of space between them. On-demand self-driving-cars could cut the total number of cars on the road by a big factor. Self-driving cars might never crash, so they won't need all those tons of safety equipment that each car lugs about, saving a pile of net energy.
I don't think most people conceptualize commutes in terms of distance, but rather time. So if commutes are now faster, people will move further out into areas that previously were less developed ie require new/more roads.
> They could form a massive train ... with 1 inch of space between each vehicle.
Okay, now a deer or a moose runs onto that road during a short gap in traffic. What happens next?
> the more you look at self driving cars, the more they look like trains
Sure, really big trains, with a tiny fraction of the carrying capacity.
Okay, now a deer or a moose runs onto that road during a short gap in traffic. What happens next?
> the more you look at self driving cars, the more they look like trains
Sure, really big trains, with a tiny fraction of the carrying capacity.
Self driving cars will eventually be significantly less expensive than current vehicles. They will be small and electric inexpensive to operate and trips will be very cheap.
When the cost of a trip drops, more trips will be made. If self-driving succeeds to the point where I can send my car to pick up my dry cleaning or food without needing to be in the car, then expect the number of vehicles on the road to go up a lot.
We might be able to pack two times as many cars on the road and make intersections way more efficient, but that won't be enough.
When the cost of a trip drops, more trips will be made. If self-driving succeeds to the point where I can send my car to pick up my dry cleaning or food without needing to be in the car, then expect the number of vehicles on the road to go up a lot.
We might be able to pack two times as many cars on the road and make intersections way more efficient, but that won't be enough.
Fixing a pothole is significantly more work than most people think it is.
Process for fixing a pothole so that it stays fixed until the next time the road is resurfaced: 1) Identify the size and depth of the pothole; if it's more than just replacing asphalt (i.e., the subsurface is damaged) than it's a significantly more involved job, otherwise... 2) Identify the appropriate asphalt mixture for the road's wear and tear, since a busy road will need a different type of asphalt from a less-traveled road. 3) Get the crew out to the pothole. 4) Clean the pothole and surrounding road so that the new asphalt patch can stick to the existing asphalt. 5a) Apply the tack coat, which will help the asphalt stick to the existing asphalt and to the subsurface. 5) Lay in and roll the asphalt. To create a seamless patch with the existing road, it will be necessary to "creep up" on the proper amount of asphalt, so this step will be repeated a number of times. 7) Block out the patch for at least 24 hours so that the asphalt can properly cure. (More expensive asphalt mixtures can be driven on within a day) 8) Send a work crew back the next day to take down the traffic cones blocking out the patch.
Process for fixing a pothole so that it stays fixed until the next time the road is resurfaced: 1) Identify the size and depth of the pothole; if it's more than just replacing asphalt (i.e., the subsurface is damaged) than it's a significantly more involved job, otherwise... 2) Identify the appropriate asphalt mixture for the road's wear and tear, since a busy road will need a different type of asphalt from a less-traveled road. 3) Get the crew out to the pothole. 4) Clean the pothole and surrounding road so that the new asphalt patch can stick to the existing asphalt. 5a) Apply the tack coat, which will help the asphalt stick to the existing asphalt and to the subsurface. 5) Lay in and roll the asphalt. To create a seamless patch with the existing road, it will be necessary to "creep up" on the proper amount of asphalt, so this step will be repeated a number of times. 7) Block out the patch for at least 24 hours so that the asphalt can properly cure. (More expensive asphalt mixtures can be driven on within a day) 8) Send a work crew back the next day to take down the traffic cones blocking out the patch.
One of the reasons might be because a lot cities in america are going bankrupt just trying to maintain all the car centric infrastructure that has been built:
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLJp5q-R0lZ0_FCUbeVWK6...
> There is no shortage of money, retirement 401k and medical care for city workers.
Because this is a common anti-labor narrative which often turns out to be false, I should ask: Do you have any good sources or that?
> Property taxes are as high as any place in the USA. There is no shortage of money
Property taxes are just one form of revenue, and may not be nearly sufficient.
Because this is a common anti-labor narrative which often turns out to be false, I should ask: Do you have any good sources or that?
> Property taxes are as high as any place in the USA. There is no shortage of money
Property taxes are just one form of revenue, and may not be nearly sufficient.
a quick look at the "sunlight" document on city salaries, shows about 12,000 employees of the city overall
construction coordinator: starting $76k per year, grades $80k to $98k per year
construction & maintenance supervisor II: starting $98k per year, grades $100k to $120k per year
construction field inspector: starting $81k per year, grades $81k to $100k per year
pavement management supervisor: starting $77k per year, grades $80k to $94k per year
every listed position has 401k retirement and health care benefits. why waste time proving this when urban decay is a constant, documented situation? certainly some cities have failed budgets from the 2008 era, thats true, but not in this case.
this is the same city that was voted "worst unfixed potholes in the continental US" recently in some media outlet
construction coordinator: starting $76k per year, grades $80k to $98k per year
construction & maintenance supervisor II: starting $98k per year, grades $100k to $120k per year
construction field inspector: starting $81k per year, grades $81k to $100k per year
pavement management supervisor: starting $77k per year, grades $80k to $94k per year
every listed position has 401k retirement and health care benefits. why waste time proving this when urban decay is a constant, documented situation? certainly some cities have failed budgets from the 2008 era, thats true, but not in this case.
this is the same city that was voted "worst unfixed potholes in the continental US" recently in some media outlet
Thank you. I'm not sure what the data means to you. Those look like reasonable salaries to me, though I don't work in those fields.
> why waste time proving this when urban decay is a constant, documented situation?
Urban decay is a meme, like urban crime. Crime is, generally speaking, at generational lows (shootings and murders are up, but that's nationwide, not urban, and those are only a fraction of crimes), but some people imagine cities infested with it.
There are certainly urban problems with infrastructure, but using memes doesn't tell me what we're talking about.
IME the common narrative is that lots of people, especially these days, want to cut taxes and then complain about reduced services.
> why waste time proving this when urban decay is a constant, documented situation?
Urban decay is a meme, like urban crime. Crime is, generally speaking, at generational lows (shootings and murders are up, but that's nationwide, not urban, and those are only a fraction of crimes), but some people imagine cities infested with it.
There are certainly urban problems with infrastructure, but using memes doesn't tell me what we're talking about.
IME the common narrative is that lots of people, especially these days, want to cut taxes and then complain about reduced services.
the city mentioned in consistantly "top 10 most dangerous cities to live in the US"; there are gunshots in neighborhoods multiple times per week, with corresponding fatalities .. sometimes those not involved at all are shot, too.. similar environment to parts of Chicago I hear
What do 'parts of Chicago' have to do with it? I'm lost on the relationship. Unless your point is that both are memes, as I was saying above somewhere.
> I'm not sure what the data means to you.
wages for labor in the US have stayed flat or decreased overall, since the late 1980s.. these figures are competitive for high-tech or other specialized work. The roads are not only not well-maintained, this is a top-10 worst city in the US roads place.. so wages+benefits go up and yet the work result is worse than comparable other cities
wages for labor in the US have stayed flat or decreased overall, since the late 1980s.. these figures are competitive for high-tech or other specialized work. The roads are not only not well-maintained, this is a top-10 worst city in the US roads place.. so wages+benefits go up and yet the work result is worse than comparable other cities
> these figures are competitive for high-tech or other specialized work
They are about what I'd expect. Should they be underpaid like much of labor? Is it the worker's fault that the roads are in bad shape? I doubt it.
They are about what I'd expect. Should they be underpaid like much of labor? Is it the worker's fault that the roads are in bad shape? I doubt it.
> want to cut taxes
local taxes such as sales and property tax, state income tax, plus federal tax, make this city objectively to be some of the highest total tax in the USA for working people (probably related to the high city wages for ordinary positions)
local taxes such as sales and property tax, state income tax, plus federal tax, make this city objectively to be some of the highest total tax in the USA for working people (probably related to the high city wages for ordinary positions)
California has roving black-outs [0], New Jersey can't have clean water [1], New York subways are disgusting. [2]
But I'm told over and over again: "you get what you pay for."
I just don't believe it anymore.
Per your bit about roads, many have tried to decipher why the US has such expensive road construction and its not at all clear. We're a very bizarre outlier. It's more than just being affluent. [3,4]
I'm venting a bit but its tragic that such a rich nation can't properly build anything anymore. Heck, Flint Michigan got hundreds of millions of dollars _and still doesn't have clean water_. [5] Most bizarre to me is that nobody seems that interested in where the money goes. NYC spent $1.25 billion on a mental health outreach program that has had no publicly visible effects or milestones. [6] It was made permanent this year. [7]
I'm told over and over again that the problem is "not enough money" but where the hell is it going to in the first place? Why does nobody care to answer this question?
[0]: https://www.politico.com/states/california/story/2020/08/18/...
[1]: https://patch.com/new-jersey/newbrunswick/high-pfoa-levels-m...
[2]: https://www.amny.com/transit/nyc-subway-stations-garbage-dum...
[3]: https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2021/08/wh...
[4]: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/07/why-we-cant-figure-o...
[5]: https://www.npr.org/2019/04/25/717104335/5-years-after-flint...
[6]: https://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/too-much-money-chir...
[7]: https://nypost.com/2021/05/06/de-blasio-rebrands-wifes-1b-th...
But I'm told over and over again: "you get what you pay for."
I just don't believe it anymore.
Per your bit about roads, many have tried to decipher why the US has such expensive road construction and its not at all clear. We're a very bizarre outlier. It's more than just being affluent. [3,4]
I'm venting a bit but its tragic that such a rich nation can't properly build anything anymore. Heck, Flint Michigan got hundreds of millions of dollars _and still doesn't have clean water_. [5] Most bizarre to me is that nobody seems that interested in where the money goes. NYC spent $1.25 billion on a mental health outreach program that has had no publicly visible effects or milestones. [6] It was made permanent this year. [7]
I'm told over and over again that the problem is "not enough money" but where the hell is it going to in the first place? Why does nobody care to answer this question?
[0]: https://www.politico.com/states/california/story/2020/08/18/...
[1]: https://patch.com/new-jersey/newbrunswick/high-pfoa-levels-m...
[2]: https://www.amny.com/transit/nyc-subway-stations-garbage-dum...
[3]: https://marginalrevolution.com/marginalrevolution/2021/08/wh...
[4]: https://nymag.com/intelligencer/2019/07/why-we-cant-figure-o...
[5]: https://www.npr.org/2019/04/25/717104335/5-years-after-flint...
[6]: https://www.manhattan-institute.org/html/too-much-money-chir...
[7]: https://nypost.com/2021/05/06/de-blasio-rebrands-wifes-1b-th...
There are no costs to such cost overruns. Most of those politicians get reelected by the voters. And the contractor/consultant beneficiaries of the cost overruns fund those politicians and their campaigns.
I'm having trouble tracking it down, but a few years ago congress set up an investigation into why costs are high. The investigation, which basically consisted of calling up various experts, asking them to talk for free, and compiling what they said, reported that the issue was so complicated it needed a better funded study. To my knowledge, that better funded study has not occurred.
At a very broad I recall some of the items identified were:
- Illegal collusion between contractors capable of expensive jobs
- Illegal collusion between contractors and consultants hired by cities to help pick winning bids
- No expertise in government due to cutbacks, so no ability to vet a proposal or understand the progress made (see above)
- No accountability in government
- No accountability for contractors in in contracts
- Poorly thought out legislated process on choosing bidders
- Inefficiencies in mandated working conditions (think multiple people sitting around watching a hole)
- Government/private enterprise corruption
These are all over simplified high level points. The dynamics here get quite complex. For example, local government often signs a contract with a local contractor wherein they are able to put in stop work orders as desired without owing payment for the time. This is very expensive for the contractors, they must pay to move heavy machinery to another job or wait while paying their workers. Delays can add millions in cost/lost revenue for the contractor. The contractor thus has to drastically increase prices to hedge against these delays.
These issue touch every level of government: city, county, state, and federal. Sadly we no longer have a functional body politic capable of addressing issues of that scale.
At a very broad I recall some of the items identified were:
- Illegal collusion between contractors capable of expensive jobs
- Illegal collusion between contractors and consultants hired by cities to help pick winning bids
- No expertise in government due to cutbacks, so no ability to vet a proposal or understand the progress made (see above)
- No accountability in government
- No accountability for contractors in in contracts
- Poorly thought out legislated process on choosing bidders
- Inefficiencies in mandated working conditions (think multiple people sitting around watching a hole)
- Government/private enterprise corruption
These are all over simplified high level points. The dynamics here get quite complex. For example, local government often signs a contract with a local contractor wherein they are able to put in stop work orders as desired without owing payment for the time. This is very expensive for the contractors, they must pay to move heavy machinery to another job or wait while paying their workers. Delays can add millions in cost/lost revenue for the contractor. The contractor thus has to drastically increase prices to hedge against these delays.
These issue touch every level of government: city, county, state, and federal. Sadly we no longer have a functional body politic capable of addressing issues of that scale.
Thanks for the long reply!
Money laundering through road construction is apparently _very popular_ but I can't see what changed and why its not as popular abroad. Shouldn't the same conditions for this exist elsewhere?
Somebody direct me to a few papers on the subject but I frankly don't have the time to read them.
Money laundering through road construction is apparently _very popular_ but I can't see what changed and why its not as popular abroad. Shouldn't the same conditions for this exist elsewhere?
Somebody direct me to a few papers on the subject but I frankly don't have the time to read them.
Hard to say, but I can at least speak to contributions from a lack of government expertise mixed with private corruption. I've seen this in my own local government.
Generally no one employed by the city knows how to look at an expense report from a construction job and check it for plausibility; this allows some outrageous pricing for things like a few tons of bricks. Sometimes they'll hire a consultant to check the books, but often that consultant is chummy with the contractor.
In other countries where government is trusted a bit more, it's much more normal to have an engineer and a construction project manager on staff to look at a report and tell you you're getting bilked.
Generally no one employed by the city knows how to look at an expense report from a construction job and check it for plausibility; this allows some outrageous pricing for things like a few tons of bricks. Sometimes they'll hire a consultant to check the books, but often that consultant is chummy with the contractor.
In other countries where government is trusted a bit more, it's much more normal to have an engineer and a construction project manager on staff to look at a report and tell you you're getting bilked.
California had roving blackouts because the electric companies turned off power to customers so that it could disable electric equipment in wildfire-prone areas. The blackout you noted from last year was the first one in two decades related to supply issues, and the 2020 supply issues were due to power companies deliberately delaying starting up gas-firing plants after the sun went down in an effort to blame renewables for the problem.
Notably, after the CPUC threatened fines, the supply-related blackouts didn't happen again.
Notably, after the CPUC threatened fines, the supply-related blackouts didn't happen again.
The first part of your statement is "California has roving blackouts because transmission equipment isn't being upgraded to prevent fires". I don't think it's the condemnation avoider you think it is.
> There is no shortage of money, retirement 401k and medical care for city workers.
Fixing roads (the proper way, but also slapping a bucket of asphalt in the hole and flattening it) is a physically demanding job. You need to go out there and work no matter if it's cold, raining or snowing, so the applicant pool for such a job is extremely small to begin with.
The ever-growing "academization" of society (aka Boomer parents and media telling their children that only having a college degree will lead to a good life) eliminates even more of the applicant pool for all trade jobs... and the result of that is that even with some trades offering high five to sometimes six figures worth of wages, many openings go unfilled for years.
Fixing roads (the proper way, but also slapping a bucket of asphalt in the hole and flattening it) is a physically demanding job. You need to go out there and work no matter if it's cold, raining or snowing, so the applicant pool for such a job is extremely small to begin with.
The ever-growing "academization" of society (aka Boomer parents and media telling their children that only having a college degree will lead to a good life) eliminates even more of the applicant pool for all trade jobs... and the result of that is that even with some trades offering high five to sometimes six figures worth of wages, many openings go unfilled for years.
> "I let him know I'm here as a resource, I'm not an activist, I'm not trying to be a pain in his ass,"
> helping their local government become less terrible by working with them
Activists act, that's all it means - lots of different people doing lots of different things - they setup soup kitchens, they find housing, they run for office, they help their local government, they push it. They do exactly what Petersen is doing. Lots of different people doing different things, some effective, some not.
Petersen seems so lost in a political narrative that Peterson is poisoning a relationship with and denying all the energy and good things for our community. Petersen is, in fact, an activist.
> helping their local government become less terrible by working with them
Activists act, that's all it means - lots of different people doing lots of different things - they setup soup kitchens, they find housing, they run for office, they help their local government, they push it. They do exactly what Petersen is doing. Lots of different people doing different things, some effective, some not.
Petersen seems so lost in a political narrative that Peterson is poisoning a relationship with and denying all the energy and good things for our community. Petersen is, in fact, an activist.
> I like this attitude: "I let him know I'm here as a resource, I'm not an activist, I'm not trying to be a pain in his ass,"
You like it? That's just a smart, well spoken way to show subservience. "I'm not an activist" ... what does that even mean? Considering what he did, the only thing that could mean in this context is "I don't consider it my place to ask for anything, all my suggestions are just ideas, not demands or anything like that".
It's bowing and scraping to power at it's most plain. It was the right thing to do in this context, necessary to talk to the people he was talking to. But you like it? It just made me sad.
You like it? That's just a smart, well spoken way to show subservience. "I'm not an activist" ... what does that even mean? Considering what he did, the only thing that could mean in this context is "I don't consider it my place to ask for anything, all my suggestions are just ideas, not demands or anything like that".
It's bowing and scraping to power at it's most plain. It was the right thing to do in this context, necessary to talk to the people he was talking to. But you like it? It just made me sad.
>Most people see potholes on their street and publicly complain that the government is terrible and works too slowly, instead of helping their local government become less terrible by working with them.
The story here is that a CEO with 80k followers on social media tweeted about a problem, got it echoed by other prominent people with large followings and the government called him to talk about how to fix it.
I'm a normal guy with an average job and wage w/ no real social media following. There is essentially nothing I can do to get local government to repair the potholes on my street - so I complain.
The story here is that a CEO with 80k followers on social media tweeted about a problem, got it echoed by other prominent people with large followings and the government called him to talk about how to fix it.
I'm a normal guy with an average job and wage w/ no real social media following. There is essentially nothing I can do to get local government to repair the potholes on my street - so I complain.
Oakland has a crew of Pothole Vigilantes that fix potholes, Batman style: https://www.potholevigilantes.com/
Motto: "IT WOULD BE GREAT IF THE GOVERNMENT DID ITS JOB. UNTIL THEN, WE ARE HERE TO FIX OAKLAND’S STREETS"
What "helping their local government become less terrible" might mean in this case I have no idea.
Motto: "IT WOULD BE GREAT IF THE GOVERNMENT DID ITS JOB. UNTIL THEN, WE ARE HERE TO FIX OAKLAND’S STREETS"
What "helping their local government become less terrible" might mean in this case I have no idea.
They took a slightly different approach to getting potholes fixed here in the UK:
Middlesbrough Council fills potholes after penis graffiti protest
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tees-48068866
Middlesbrough Council fills potholes after penis graffiti protest
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-tees-48068866
... and gun shots regularly in many neighborhoods, too.. while the city workers, managers and managers-of-managers are being paid top salary , retirement package and medical benefits for themselves and their family .. how can you think this is cool?? dystopian
Your complaint is that people working on difficult problems receive a decent salary and medical coverage? That seems... misplaced.
no actually, many people do work on "difficult problems" and do their work, while the City described, has an army of workers who are well paid, yet do not keep up with basic tasks. It seems that fixing roads is one of the oldest jobs in the civilized world, and that the city workers have found a way to get paid, and also do less and less. Their pay is quite good compared to other forms of work, while "gig work" and other abuses increase. Medical coverage is a massive shortcoming in the current US system and very much in California, so the medical benefits paid to the very same workers are an obvious sore point. What part of that is not clear?
Wait until you hear what people think about programmers. Bunch of lazy entitled #$#@$ADF getting paid 6 figures to make yet another social media website or regulatory arbitrage play. And they get health care, free food, and unlimited vacation on top of that, even though their app is buggy most of the time! The nerve of those guys, who do they think they are!?
Fixing roads isn't as easy as you think it is. Oakland's roads are heavily used, which means that a pothole fix isn't just a matter of pouring some asphalt into the pothole. That's a temporary fix that will only last a few weeks before the patch fails. You need to clean the pothole and surrounding surface, lay in tack, lay in and roll the asphalt to make a clean patch, and you need to keep the asphalt blocked off for a day for it to cure. Oh, and you need to use the proper type of asphalt to handle the level of road traffic, and you can't get this type of asphalt at Lowes or Home Depot.
Fixing roads isn't as easy as you think it is. Oakland's roads are heavily used, which means that a pothole fix isn't just a matter of pouring some asphalt into the pothole. That's a temporary fix that will only last a few weeks before the patch fails. You need to clean the pothole and surrounding surface, lay in tack, lay in and roll the asphalt to make a clean patch, and you need to keep the asphalt blocked off for a day for it to cure. Oh, and you need to use the proper type of asphalt to handle the level of road traffic, and you can't get this type of asphalt at Lowes or Home Depot.
When I hear about a job function that used to be good, but are now crap, and are embedded in a bureaucracy... I wonder what it is about the system that has changed to incentivize worse work.
Unless you have some inside knowledge that these individuals are to blame, it seems to me that approaching it as a systems problem, with curiosity, would result in being closer to the root cause.
Workers being well paid and having health care should be the norm. Gig workers being exploited doesn't mean we should spit vitriol at workers who aren't exploited - even if they are exploiting the system (which is not clear in this case).
Unless you have some inside knowledge that these individuals are to blame, it seems to me that approaching it as a systems problem, with curiosity, would result in being closer to the root cause.
Workers being well paid and having health care should be the norm. Gig workers being exploited doesn't mean we should spit vitriol at workers who aren't exploited - even if they are exploiting the system (which is not clear in this case).
> approaching it as a systems problem, with curiosity, would result in ....
yes, agree
yes, agree
> has an army of workers who are well paid, yet do not keep up with basic tasks.
has it occured to you that despite this "army of workers", it might not actually be enough people to keep up with the basic tasks? We've had 40 years of the dominant American cultural message being that government is the problem, and in such a climate it would hardly be surprising if government is fundamentally underfunded and understaffed.
How would you appraise the correct level of resources to "keep up with basic tasks" ?
has it occured to you that despite this "army of workers", it might not actually be enough people to keep up with the basic tasks? We've had 40 years of the dominant American cultural message being that government is the problem, and in such a climate it would hardly be surprising if government is fundamentally underfunded and understaffed.
How would you appraise the correct level of resources to "keep up with basic tasks" ?
I think that the reality of city-based finance in the USA is quite mixed, and that failed, failing and increasingly failed city administration, in cities of more than 100,000 people say, is widespread. I talked to some go-getter Code-for-America type consultants, and they said it was common to get retained to show numbers on the city budget, and that the depth and clarity of dot-com style numbers, overviews and flow analysis, would stun the city administrators, and not-a-few cases, cause an immediate cease-work order when embarassing or egregious budget allocations came to obvious light. My overall, gut reaction is that it is highly variable on a case-by-case basis, the amount money passing through city hall. In the case that started my rant, there is plenty of money. Yet maintenance not only does not grow with city growth, but falls behind further. Not always, but common now.
More than anything else, this is marketing "done right".
The original tweets:
https://twitter.com/typesfast/status/1451543776992845834
(It was slightly buried in the article, ~2 links away)
(It was slightly buried in the article, ~2 links away)
Someone I know in the industry told me these changes were being planned before his tweets went viral, and that it was going to happen soon anyway (like the height restrictions change). I think the press credits the Flexport CEO too much for this. He's popular so his tweets went viral but it sounds like they were planning it already. (And that's why it was included in his tweet in the first place - he probably heard this change being talked about too with the people he was talking with.) I mean I'm glad his tweets called attention to it but I think the press makes the story sound too simplistic, like his tweets caused the change, when really the causation is: 1) the changes were being planned, 2) the industry was talking about it, 3) the Flexport CEO heard about it, 4) the Flexport CEO tweeted about it and that went viral, 5) the changes were implemented.
The changes happened hours after the Tweets, after the crisis had been ongoing for months.
Unless you think Ryan had amazing ability to time his virality, I think the obviously probable answer is that the mayor responded to a viral tweet.
Unless you think Ryan had amazing ability to time his virality, I think the obviously probable answer is that the mayor responded to a viral tweet.
This can be easily proven by disclosing the paper trail for this decision.
The paper trail should be public anyway since it is a public policy.
Until this is proven, we shall continue crediting the Flexport CEO for this change.
The paper trail should be public anyway since it is a public policy.
Until this is proven, we shall continue crediting the Flexport CEO for this change.
Definitely not an expert in this field, but don't his solutions come off as a tad naive? Get the military to do this, get the railways to do that, build a temporary 500 acre yard, get ships to carry off containers somewhere. Surely he must understand that such large undertakings will have many consequences and cannot be "done" just like that. The solutions also seem to be sort of a band-aid, to create a temporary buffer until the situation somehow resolves on its own. But doesn't that only delay the inevitable as the buffers fill up again and they are left to deal with even greater number of empty containers, when the fundamental problem seems to be that nobody wants empty containers in the first place?
It feels like there is some missing incentive in the system somewhere, to get empty containers go to where they are needed, but businesses operating with their pre-pandemic, highly optimized models are slow to adapt. The biggest question of all though is that, is the shipping crisis even that big an issue to warrant such dramatic reactions? If indeed and there is political will to tackle it, this might better channeled to ramp up local industries to fill the gaps and reduce dependency on shipping in the first place. There is no better time to do it. The pandemic has shown clearly the risks of a globally coupled economy, and the shipping crisis is nothing compared to the environmental crisis that is on its way. But you wouldn't catch the owner of a shipping company say that.
It feels like there is some missing incentive in the system somewhere, to get empty containers go to where they are needed, but businesses operating with their pre-pandemic, highly optimized models are slow to adapt. The biggest question of all though is that, is the shipping crisis even that big an issue to warrant such dramatic reactions? If indeed and there is political will to tackle it, this might better channeled to ramp up local industries to fill the gaps and reduce dependency on shipping in the first place. There is no better time to do it. The pandemic has shown clearly the risks of a globally coupled economy, and the shipping crisis is nothing compared to the environmental crisis that is on its way. But you wouldn't catch the owner of a shipping company say that.
The LA Times covered this is an article about his tweets, but in a nutshell: the problem is the shipping companies. They wouldn't pick up empty containers coming back to the ports, so the containers were stuck in the container storage yards outside the ports. Because these storage yards were full, trucking companies couldn't pick up new (full) containers with rigs on location; they had to bring in new rigs. But their aren't enough drivers right now due to COVID and trucking being a generally crappy low-paying job.
The first incentive implemented was to start fining the shipping companies for sitting on their (full) containers. However, this is an indirect incentive, intended to motivate the shipping companies to solve the container lifecycle problem in a market-efficient manner. If this incentive doesn't work, the next incentive will more directly address the problem: shipping companies will be fined for empty containers left at the container storage facilities.
The first incentive implemented was to start fining the shipping companies for sitting on their (full) containers. However, this is an indirect incentive, intended to motivate the shipping companies to solve the container lifecycle problem in a market-efficient manner. If this incentive doesn't work, the next incentive will more directly address the problem: shipping companies will be fined for empty containers left at the container storage facilities.
Sounds about right. Space is limited and must always be rented. It's surprising that's not already the case.
But why don't the shipping companies want to pick up containers? Was this always the case, or what changed?
They have super high value cargo sitting at the remote port wanting to be moved. Loading empties takes time and pays little, so they profit optimize by not waiting for them to be loaded, and instead abandon them to clog the port so they can get out a few hours earlier and do their next run faster.
Is it profit-maximizing when they have to wait a week to unload when they come back with the same ship or a different ship?
If not, you think that they would eventually work it out
If not, you think that they would eventually work it out
... and get clogged themselves next time they come in?
It could be a tragedy of the commons effect.
If one company alone were to max out on empties, the port would still be clogged.
If one company alone were to max out on empties, the port would still be clogged.
It takes time to load them, and shipping rates from Asia to the US are at an all time high, so they want to hurry back.
Is it speculation or fact that the ships are heading back empty?
[deleted]
Not empty, but significantly below what they could carry.
Of course it’s naive.
He observed problems and then offered solutions to the observed problems. His diagnosis was “too many containers”
Twitter does not lend itself to failure analysis techniques like five whys, but I feel like even one or two whys would have been helpful here
Why is there a back up in the port?
Too many empty containers.
Why are there too many empty containers?
…the answer to that is not a lack of storage space it’s about why the containers aren’t getting picked up/taken back
He observed problems and then offered solutions to the observed problems. His diagnosis was “too many containers”
Twitter does not lend itself to failure analysis techniques like five whys, but I feel like even one or two whys would have been helpful here
Why is there a back up in the port?
Too many empty containers.
Why are there too many empty containers?
…the answer to that is not a lack of storage space it’s about why the containers aren’t getting picked up/taken back
If the terminal is really slow the first thing a shipping like will leave behind is empty containers. US terminals are dead slow and often do not work 24/7. Their union is unique, it seems to be a show of power instead of making sensible decisions.
There's a huge backlog of vessels that need to be handled. Usually you have space on the vessel to bring back the empties, normally the reason not to do that is if it takes too much time to bring them on board (terminal is slow or vessel was late). If it was due to too many vessels it could've been solved by sending a vessel purely for empties. But there's a huge backlog in vessels to be handled. Productivity increases usually take quite a while to materialize.
There's a huge backlog of vessels that need to be handled. Usually you have space on the vessel to bring back the empties, normally the reason not to do that is if it takes too much time to bring them on board (terminal is slow or vessel was late). If it was due to too many vessels it could've been solved by sending a vessel purely for empties. But there's a huge backlog in vessels to be handled. Productivity increases usually take quite a while to materialize.
To summarize:
is the shipping crisis even that big an issue
this might better channeled to ramp up local industries to fill the gaps
don't his solutions come off as a tad naive?[deleted]
"The chief executive of the Harbor Trucking Assn., which represents the trucking companies dealing with these issues every day, says that any little bit helps, but the measure doesn't change all that much. For one thing, allowing the stacks to climb higher doesn't guarantee they'll do so.
"“I applaud Mayor Garcia for taking some leadership in all this, but the challenge is procuring the equipment to stack that high,” Matt Schrap said. Most yards don’t have the top loaders necessary, let alone the skilled operator and space to safely and efficiently stack containers.
"The real issue, Schrap says, is just that the shipping companies won’t take their empty containers back: “The ocean carriers need to come sweep out the empties.” Adding insult to injury, the ocean carriers bill truckers a late fee every day for unreturned empty containers, Schrap said, even if they won’t accept them at the port. “It makes you want to pick up your laptop and Frisbee it out into the backyard,” Schrap said. “That’s the frustration running through our veins.”"
But yes, "Bureaucracy and red tape abounds. We need to let the free market work".
"Local politicians are betting that a new fee on containers idling at the docks — charged to the ocean shipping companies themselves — will get some boxes moving. Starting in November, any container meant for a truck that sits at either port for more than nine days will incur a $100 fee, followed by escalating fees of $100 more each day. If a container is meant to go on a train, those fees kick in after just six days on the dock.
"But the new fee doesn't apply to empty containers. Schrap, the Harbor Trucking Assn. chief executive, said that he was baffled by the omission. The reason that pickup slots are going unused is the empty containers taking up space on the back of trucks, he said. "This fee is a shot across the bow at the ocean carriers because they need them to be engaged," Schrap said, "but it's mind-boggling to me that this is not being applied to empty containers.""
So, ... yeah.
"“I applaud Mayor Garcia for taking some leadership in all this, but the challenge is procuring the equipment to stack that high,” Matt Schrap said. Most yards don’t have the top loaders necessary, let alone the skilled operator and space to safely and efficiently stack containers.
"The real issue, Schrap says, is just that the shipping companies won’t take their empty containers back: “The ocean carriers need to come sweep out the empties.” Adding insult to injury, the ocean carriers bill truckers a late fee every day for unreturned empty containers, Schrap said, even if they won’t accept them at the port. “It makes you want to pick up your laptop and Frisbee it out into the backyard,” Schrap said. “That’s the frustration running through our veins.”"
But yes, "Bureaucracy and red tape abounds. We need to let the free market work".
"Local politicians are betting that a new fee on containers idling at the docks — charged to the ocean shipping companies themselves — will get some boxes moving. Starting in November, any container meant for a truck that sits at either port for more than nine days will incur a $100 fee, followed by escalating fees of $100 more each day. If a container is meant to go on a train, those fees kick in after just six days on the dock.
"But the new fee doesn't apply to empty containers. Schrap, the Harbor Trucking Assn. chief executive, said that he was baffled by the omission. The reason that pickup slots are going unused is the empty containers taking up space on the back of trucks, he said. "This fee is a shot across the bow at the ocean carriers because they need them to be engaged," Schrap said, "but it's mind-boggling to me that this is not being applied to empty containers.""
So, ... yeah.