Quote:
Originally Posted by Jaroslaw
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Isn't Macquarie Australian?
Anyway, some of these drivers of higher domestic transit costs have already been mentioned:
1. "Buy America" requirements for minimum percentage of domestic materials and labor including all final assembly (this subsequently impacts the relative ability to take advantage of economies of scale, in contrast to similar requirements for road projects i.e. Veolia has a large office in Chicago, but not much in the way of tunnel engineering/construction expertise staffed here).
2. Very high regulatory costs in the planning and environmental impact stages - both in terms of time, labor, and resulting project modifications, which in turn increase design costs and often construction costs based on mitigating those impacts.
3. The obvious one, union construction labor costs.
A big part of the 'problem' or 'cause' is really just a combination of the domestic political culture and some specific federal regulations. If it's to change, those would be the targets - definitely not a lowly local transit operator or even a metropolitan planning agency.