Big Dig - One of Engineering's Greatest Mistakes? 379
Enggirl1 writes "Design News discusses Boston's Big Dig and begs the question - is it one of engineering's greatest failures? The article reveals that forums and blogs are popping up all over the Internet as vehicles for engineers and contractors to discuss, under the guise of anonymity, their skepticism, thoughts and reactions to one of the biggest infrastructure failures in the news today." From the article: "One blogger, whose profile notes that he is an ICC Reinforced Concrete Special Inspector and an ICC Pre-stressed Concrete Special Inspector, among other specialties, says he has nearly 20 years of experience performing both placement and post-placement inspections of rebar, post-tensioning systems, concrete, masonry, etc. He says if structural engineers who specify epoxy for dowels and the like believe that the work is being done correctly then they live in a world unfamiliar to him."
Maybe not engineering's failures... (Score:5, Interesting)
From the sound of things, I'd guess it's not an engineering failure so much as a management failure. The things I know about public construction are scary. Like when an engineer can't finish a design under the schedule that management wants, management steps in after hours, "throws in numbers" and tosses together a design, then sends it out with the engineer's seal on it. Or when an engineer refuses to sign off on an incomplete or incorrect design, the manager brings in a new graduate because they're more "cooperative" (read: will sign anything to get a paycheck) and they go ahead and build it that way.
The cost and political pressure in public engineering projects often leads to engineers being the least powerful people that have input in the design (i.e. ass backward).
Re:Maybe not engineering's failures... (Score:5, Interesting)
Cheap, Illegal Labor != Good Quality (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Cheap, Illegal Labor != Good Quality (Score:3, Interesting)
Does anyone have any info on this?
Re:Cheap, Illegal Labor != Good Quality (Score:3, Insightful)
You do the math.
Re:Cheap, Illegal Labor != Good Quality (Score:4, Insightful)
While a normal company, operating in a free market, there might be strong pressures to use the cheapest labor possible - This is a total and complete non-issue with projects like the Big Dig. Big public works projects are a love affair between big government, big buisness, and big labor, and the labor part isn't going to let illegal immigrants mess with the gravy train. Normal economics do not apply.
That being said, even if your fantasy was true and the Big Dig was being entirely staffed by people gathered on the streets of mexico city and secretly shipped in via cargo container... that was not the problem. There are more than enough native born white skinned morons in America to fuck things up big time without having to blame things on illegal immigrants.
Re:Cheap, Illegal Labor != Good Quality (Score:5, Insightful)
You create a false dichotomy, because there are many American construction workers who can't read the instructions for assembly.
Quality isn't an illegal immigration issue. Doesn't matter if it's a Mexican illegal or American just off the farm, if they don't have the skills its the problem with the construction company. They didn't do a sufficient job of ensuring their laborers had the skills and ensure the quality of work. Illegal immigrants are just a pool of labor, the impact they have is on the value of labor in certain industries. Those who make hiring decisions are the ones responsible for sacrificing service and quality for price.
get what you pay for (Score:4, Informative)
With that said,back on subject, that entire big dig project has a long history of controversy and accusations of weirdness around it. I am (somewhat) surprised it has taken this long to start to fall apart.
As to the illegals versus legals and so on, it's a crapshoot. I have worked on jobs with illegals that were a menace,totally incompetent and dangerous to be around, hired merely because it was a body to throw at a job for cheap pay obviously. A few have been quite good from recollection, most are pretty common, some skills, but a lot of enthusiasm. They come from a culture of lower resources, recycling old junk more, cob jobbing as normal, etc. I think it is just too large a variable to really be able to quantify it adequately. What can't be denied though, is that hiring illegals in a general sense is a cost cutting measure so the boss class can skim a few more bucks off the project, and when that becomes the primary focus on a job, the job suffers. Jobs should cost what they cost, not the lowest crap possible then cut corners from that point. You get your "problems" then. When you have something as important as a big dig styled project, you shouldn't screw up. If it is deemed to be unaffordable to do correctly, don't do it.
If your new garage roof sags and leaks after a few years because you hired the local cut rate guy with his "crew" of casual pickups from the home depot parking lot..well, it's no big deal to anyone but you and not a major threat. Something like the big dig is a totally different situation.
Inherent Skills (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:get what you pay for (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:get what you pay for (Score:4, Insightful)
Anyway, your union rep talking points might feel good, but anecdotes about farm boys and who you'd trust with your firstborn in a Home Depot parking lot do not a rational argument make.
Bzzt (Score:3, Interesting)
But the Big Dig used almost 100% union labor. Good luck trying to join a union if you are in the US illegally.
Re:Cheap, Illegal Labor != Good Quality (Score:3, Insightful)
There's hardly a need to go to such complicated explanations. It's enough that the instructions are tedious, and that the 'right' way to do it is more time consuming than the 'fast' way to do it. Combine time consuming work with tight schedules and penalties for failing deadlines, and guess what you get...
To paraphrase on of the engineers in the linked article; if the engineers on the project actually thought epoxied bolts are insta
Re:Cheap, Illegal Labor != Good Quality (Score:5, Insightful)
First, it's not a city project. It's a Federal highway project.
Secondly while there are a large number of illegals in the construction industry, this has nothing to do with the project. The project wasn't done with day laborers and cheap fly-by-night contractors. It was done 100% union labor with major engineering firms directing.
Finally, it's too early to call the project a failure. The fatality was the result of a single bad design element, after all. From a traffic standpoint, the artery works far better than I expected. The question is, what other design elements are faulty? The waterproofing issues I think were ones that the engineers doing the actual grunt work ere expecting, although politics forced management to take an excessively hopeful view. The bolt failure that killed the unfortunate worman is a bigger concern. It's not so major a concern in itself, because the design in question was used only on one section of the project, a connector tunnel to funnel turnpike to airport traffic off the main artery. Furthermore, it is likely that this will be resolved; it will be expensive, but no in the overall context of the project.
The concern is that this raises questions about the management process that directed the project's engineering. Are there other design elements which had similar faults?
There's no question the fatality was a result of bad engineering. You don't put a design element in that requires perfect craftsmanship to install, and that kills somebody if it fails. The bolts in question fail on both counts. First of all you have a situation where workers are supposed to drill in a uncomfortable and dirty environment. Then they're supposed to clean the hole very carefully so they're expoxying the bolt to rock, not milliions of dust particles. And the workers are supposed to do this overhead. And in an almighty rush. Even the best and most conscientious workers cannot be trusted to do this at better than 99% perfection, and 99.99% perfection wouldn't be enough.
The second problem is that you don't design things that fail in ways that kill people. Civil engineers do this all the time: when this beam fails, the floor should sag not collapse. The bolt that failed held up a concrete panel. The panel was a nonstructural component that was there to create an air return plenum. The plenum was needed because you'd poison any motorist who had a break down or was stuck down there in a traffic jam. The dividing element had to meet a number of safety requirements, the most important had to do with fire. That's why you couldn't use a lightweight panel. But the design should have resulted in a visible but non-fatal failure on failiure of any single element, not a cascade of bolts pulling out of the ceiling. And you have to plan that if one bolt is bad, all the bolts around them are bad too. Remember that worker who's drilling overhead holes and supposedly cleaning them perfectly before applying the nasty and finicky expoxy mixture. Imagine he's had a bad day. If he fails on one bolt, you have to assume he fails on a series of them, maybe all the bolts he did on that shift.
So, this was one piece of bad design. The fact that it was in a non-structural element probably explains, if not excuses the bad design. You don't make mistakes on things like girder design because everyone is thinking about the possibility that bridge will collapse or the tunnel implode. It's a small, easily overlooked design element that, it turns out, given the right circumstances can kill somebody.
We computer guys understand this phenomenon well. It's an error that comes from complexity. This incident may become the Therac 25 error of the civil engineering world. If the right engineer had been assigned to look at this at the right time, it wouldn't have happened. The fact that the right engineer was never tasked with checking the design was a management error. It was a rush job.
For this reason, I expect there are other flaws of this sort in the project: small details that weren't got right.
Overreliance on safety factors is bad engineering. (Score:3, Informative)
It may be true in aerospace, but it is not, or should not be true in civil engineering.
In aerospace, if your manufacturing something, it is a repeatable process, subject to testing and inspection. Wh
Re:Cheap, Illegal Labor != Good Quality (Score:3, Interesting)
Not quite true.
Most of the big highway projects of the 50's and 60's were based on the work of Robert Moses on the Parkway & Expressway systems in New York City. Limite
Re:Cheap, Illegal Labor != Good Quality (Score:4, Insightful)
Having moved around the country a bit I found that in LA the construction has a lot of Latinos, in Atlanta it is largely African-Americans, and in Boston (where I now live) it is largely White people. While I don't expect any illegal aliens from Mexico worked on the Big Dig, there is a very large (white) Brazilian population here and I wouldn't be able to tell if they are on construction sites or if it's Boston natives. In any case, this area is heavily unionized, and I expect the government insisted on "higher skilled" union workers.
Having said that, and being half-Mexican myself, you're a moron if you think that some low paid white trash who thinks he's underpaid is going to do a better job than a Latino worker happy for the chance to make some money. Your comments remind me of Governor Ronald Reagan's idiotic comment about Mexicans thriving in the fields (for which my dad never forgave him). In any event, it is more likely that Bechtel and the like had their heads up their a@@ (you'd think after the Big Dig the gov't would have known better than to hire them in Iraq), while Italian-American owned construction companies were probably cutting corners on jobs they got based on connections.
Re:Cheap, Illegal Labor != Good Quality (Score:3, Insightful)
A public works project in Massachusetts isn't going to be hiring companies that employ illegal aliens... they usually mandate that you use union labor paid at the "prevailing wage" set by the union. Nobody is going to pay a illegal $75/hr to do masonry work in Boston.
Engineers are less regulated and are more likely to be at fault in this case. The government doesn't employ as many career engineers as they did in the past, and most design work is contracted out to politically connected
Re:Maybe not engineering's failures... (Score:5, Insightful)
Technically, this is not correct.
At least by the standard of "indictable offense".
The story is this: the original central artery was inadequately engineered from a traffic standpoint, as well as being put in a just plain stupid place. Boston is a historically maritime city; the artery sliced off the waterfront into a thin ribbon of land backed up against a ugly, dirty eleveated highway. San Franscisco is fortunate to escape this fate becuase of it's geography; imagine a huge elevated highway cutting off the Fisherman's wharf area, leaving a strip barely 100m wide in places.
The Boston Central Artery also cut off the North End from the rest of Boston. The turnpike connector to the artery was driven through neighborhood of Brighton, destroying a massive swath of the neighborhood and cutting it into pieces. At the same time there was a massive "urban renewal" project destroyed the historic West End neighborhood -- just the kind of neighborhood we now recognize as human scaled and economically vital. The pedestrian friendly brick neighborhood was razed to create a maze of giant concrete builings, the kind that look inviting as architect's models but turns out to be an icy, windswept urban wasteland.
These disruption of these massive engineering projects created a new generation of Democratic political activists. It may also be responsible for the neutering of Republican party in a state in one of its historical strongholds.
Which leads to the old artery's engineering inadequacy. It had been designed as part of a network of highways, which were now politically impossible to build. It was never designed to work without a proper bypass. The artery therefore created massive traffic jams, with their associated (but hard to measure) productivity costs and of course pollution. One section of eleveated highway feeding the artery was built because under the contracts it was cheaper to build than cancel, and then planners tried to keep it closed, because it simply would not work. However the political stink this raised made them reverse the decision, which resulted in daily traffic jams that were miles long.
Now we finally get to the issue of venality, if not corruption.
With the state Democratic party through the congressional delegation playing a major role in the Democratically dominated US House and Senate, activists who cut their teeth fighting the bypass set about fixing the problem of the ugly, dirty, stupidly sited Central Artery.
It turned out that days of the Democratic control of Congress were numbered. But the Republican Congress, which loved to rail against the Big Dig as a massive and wasteful pork barrel project, proved powerless to rein it in. Why couldn't a Republican congress exert control over a funding a huge project in the heartland of their political enemies? Simple: the lions share of contracts went to engineering firms with deep Republican connections.
This is not to blame the Republicans for the mess, which would not be fair. The genesis of the problem goes back to the late 40s. But mainly you could blame Tip O'Neil, the speaker at the time Federal funds were approved for the project. Tip was often depicted in Republican political ads as fat, out of touch, and a bit stupid. He was fat, but he was neither out of touch nor stupid. He had power and he knew how to use it and the money it controlled to get things done. It wasn't just Republicans who got a payoff. It was everybody in sight. Unions. Neighborhood activits. Minority businesses. The project's finances were carefullly engineered so that everybody had a friend with a fat slice of artery money coming to them.
Now the funding is at its end, and everyone is calling abandon ship after the ship has sunk.
So that's the venality. Nobody could stop the project without hurting an important ally.
But to set against that, it's not clear that the project could have been done any other way. In
Re:Maybe not engineering's failures... (Score:2)
>management steps in after hours, "throws in numbers" and tosses together a design, then sends it out with the engineer's seal on it. Or when an engineer refuses to sign off on an incomplete or incorrect design, the manager brings in a new graduate because they're more "cooperative" (read: will sign anything to get a paycheck) and they go ahead and build it that way.
Although its caused by management, I think these are the failure of an engineer living up to his professional responsibilities.
Re:Maybe not engineering's failures... (Score:3, Interesting)
Don't people who go by the title "engineer" have legal requirements? As in if the thing they design explodes and kills people, they're liable? At least that's the case in some places, according to the completely unreliable rumors I've heard. So I hope these kids aren't actually signing things they know to be dangerous.
Re:Maybe not engineering's failures... (Score:2, Interesting)
It's years of experience in a particular area of civil engineering, working under more experienced professionals, that often gives an engineer the body of solutions and tools from which to work.
New kids come out of degree programs and have lots of theor
Re:Maybe not engineering's failures... (Score:3, Interesting)
The guy who designs high frequency vibration stuff (such as me) would not attempt to seal a bridge design.
Because, by signing, it makes you PERSONALLY and LEGALLY responsible for that design. You become the focal point for all legal actions from then on.
Responsibility not backed by authority (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Maybe not engineering's failures... (Score:5, Informative)
"throws in numbers" and tosses together a design, then sends it out with the engineer's seal on it. Or when an engineer refuses to sign off on an incomplete or incorrect design, the manager brings in a new graduate because they're more "cooperative" (read: will sign anything to get a paycheck) and they go ahead and build it that way.
I'm not saying those things don't happen. I'm saying that they are highly illegal and not common place. Signing off on a design for an engineer is like preparing legal documents without being a lawyer or giving medical advice without being a doctor.
To sign off on any engineering or construction documents, an engineer must be licensed as a Professional Engineer (PE). The requirements vary by state but in most states new engineering graduates do not qualify to be PEs. The norm is an engineering student must pass an exam (FE) near graduation, then work under a licensed PE for several years, then pass the PE test. In most states like MA, it is 4 years minimum between passing the FE and even qualifying to take the PE test. Engineers who are not PEs can do some of the work in construction and design fields but are expressly forbidden to do certain things like sign off on plans.
I agree with you that management is most likely to blame but for another reason. As projects like this become complex, it requires very good management to ensure that the important details are not overlooked. With as many problems as the Big Dig seemed to have before completion, it would seem that the management was not up to the task.
In the case of the collapse, I think the most likely scenario is that the specifications were wrong or changed at a later date. The load required was specified to be 1/2 of what it needed to be. The engineer approved a wall thickness of so many feet that was later modified and built without approval. The specifications for the wall never included withstanding water (hydrostatic pressure), etc.
Re:Maybe not engineering's failures... (Score:2)
For that matter, not blowing the whistle when such designs get approved by other less scrupulous engineers is also unethical.
Ethics (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Maybe not engineering's failures... (Score:2)
To me you just described an engineering failure (i.e. the "cooperative new grad" made a failure of judgment unbecoming of a qualified engineer).
-b
Re:Maybe not engineering's failures... (Score:2)
That is illegal.
Re:Maybe not "graduate" failures... (Score:2)
To the people on a walkway that collapses, or stuck in a building that is vibrating to excess, it doesn't matter that the young engineer in question was severely sanctioned afterward. Management was happy to chew them up and spit them out in order to get things done.
Yes, some of the firms involved never, ever got a contract again. I didn't say everyone comes out clean in these things, only that the pressure in pu
details, details... (Score:5, Funny)
It beat Duke Nukem Forever and even Vista. It's probably better quality too, and will last much longer.
Patch it up and it'll be fine.
Re:details, details... (Score:4, Funny)
Corruption is the problem (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Corruption is the problem (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Corruption is the problem (Score:2)
corrupt locat and state governments?! (Score:5, Funny)
What are you talking about? Massachusetts has the best politicians money can buy!
Inspecting your own work (Score:5, Insightful)
A) blow the whistle, cost the company extra money, and then get fired for "undisclosed reasons"
B) look the other way like a good little puppet of the company, get paid, and never have to really deal with the consequences face to face
Seriously, whoever thought that it was a good idea to hire the same company for both construction and inspection is a little naive. Would you let McDonald's do the FDA testing on their own food?
Re:Inspecting your own work (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Inspecting your own work (Score:3, Interesting)
Hate to burst your bubble, but that's exactly what the FDA does with pharmaceuticals. Both government and business will go out of their way to ignore safety issues [commondreams.org] when there's money involved.
Re:Inspecting your own work-"/." (Score:2)
Maybe that's because
QA's failure more likely (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:QA's failure more likely (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:QA's failure more likely (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:QA's failure more likely (Score:2)
Re:QA's failure more likely (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:QA's failure more likely (Score:2)
Who do you think does the "quality assurance" on an engineering project? Engineers do! Granted, that would mean the mistake was made by the construction engineer instead of the design engineer, but that would still count as an "engineering mistake."
Disclaimer: IANA engineer yet, but I am a civil engineering student
Re:QA's failure more likely (Score:2)
the basic problem with govt. spending is.... (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:the basic problem with govt. spending is.... (Score:2)
So was it REALLY a failure? (Score:2, Funny)
Re:So was it REALLY a failure? (Score:3, Funny)
other boneheadedness (Score:2)
It's Not One of Engineering's Greatest Mistakes (Score:2)
Tacoma Narrows: 0 Deaths; Big Dig: At least 1 (Score:2)
One person has already died as the reult of shoddy practices on the Big Dig. [wikipedia.org]
Also, the original Tacoma Narrows Bridge probably cost, at most, hundreds of thousands of Pre-WWII dollars. The Big Dig has already cost over $14 billion.
About rock bolts (Score:5, Informative)
In the case of the big dig, you have contractors who are trying to make the maximum possible amount of money. I also bet that there weren't enough government inspectors or that they weren't properly qualified. Cutting costs is just as dangerous in the government as greed is in the private sector. The Canadian province of Ontario laid off all their government water inspectors and a bunch of people died in the town of Walkerton. If you don't give folks the tools they need to do a job then you shouldn't be surprised if the job doesn't get done.
The concrete ceiling tiles were used to create a separate space for supplying air to the tunnel. This is typically how you would do it in a building. In the case of the Chunnel between England and France, they dug a separate tunnel for that purpose. People have wondered why the panels had to be made of concrete. Something lighter would have worked just as well and might have been cheaper and safer.
Re:About rock bolts (Score:5, Funny)
Because it would cushion the blow?
problem was contractors, materials and timeframe (Score:5, Interesting)
It wasn't just a bad estimate - it was that they gradually expanded the scope of the project and added new goals once the project was underway. As a result it took longer and cost more money. Then came the double-whammy - because it took so much time, and occurred at a time when people were moving back into the city making overall traffic worse, they had to revise the project again to make it even more ambitious. Otherwise, when it was done the traffic would still be bad and people would wonder why they spent so much time on a project that didn't solve the problem. So the Big Dig has always been in a race with time, which paradoxically has caused them to take more time than they otherwise would.
Most of the problems that have happened with the Big Dig have been due not to poor engineering, but use of the wrong materials and deliberate corner-cutting by the contractors. The woman who was killed a couple of weeks ago when the ceiling fell on her car died not because of poor engineering, but because the ceiling part was held up with substandard materials. They actually realized that this was a problem and changed the materials, but not before that part was built, and they never went back and fixed it.
So the contractors cut corners to make more money than they otherwise would, sometimes illegally. But my theory is that the underlying reason why they were able to get away with it is that the ballooning costs (remember it expanded by a cost of something like 900% in money and 400% in time) made accounting that much more difficult.
Re:problem was contractors, materials and timefram (Score:5, Interesting)
The one major improvement to traffic that the Big Dig accomplished was diverting traffic going to the Airport through a separate tunnel (the one that just had part of the roof collapse). That reduced traffic in the Central Artery by something like 50%. Ironically, that was also the least expensive part of the Big Dig.
Re:problem was contractors, materials and timefram (Score:2)
Anyone who's lived in New England for more than a
Re:problem was contractors, materials and timefram (Score:2, Interesting)
So it sounds like massive cost overruns leading to low cost components being chosen, failure to install properly where epoxy wasn't a good idea in the first place, recognition of the problem, and then the problem being left in place to avoid further expenses.
Re:problem was contractors, materials and timefram (Score:3, Insightful)
The panels themselves are needed seperate from the structural surface they are mounted on to provide an area for air circulation.
A good idea with flawed execution (Score:2)
Now, as far as I kow, the big dig needed to happen, because Bostons traffic situation was essentially untenable. It was a daring solution, and one that was difficult, but at its core, it was probably the best idea to run with.
The problem is that someone wanted it done faster than was reasonable, or cheaper, or both. So corners were cut.
If the problems that currently exist are the sort that can be fixed with repairs,
WTF is the engineer supposed to believe? (Score:2, Insightful)
So what exactly is an engineer supposed to do? Add another factor of 4 or so tolerance to the design or something? Make the design even more expensive than it already is?? It already has to account for variations in materials strength, weather, overloading, safety factors, etc.
The more the engineer attempts to account for such things,
Re:WTF is the engineer supposed to believe? (Score:2)
not even close (Score:4, Informative)
Even if it eventually is a failure, the Hyatt Regency skywalk collapse in Kansas City killed more people.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hyatt_Regency_walkwa
If engineers signed off on the use of the epoxy for the panel supports then those engineers are at fault. Engineers don't hand off designs to construction crews and wipe their hands of it from then on. They have to approve changes in the design and do their own inspections of the construction to make sure it meets the design.
Re:not even close (Score:2)
not at all, it's the engineers job to specify the materials, and the contractor's job to go back to the engineer if there are unforseen deviations... more than that, it's the inspector
Why these massive concrete tiles? (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Why these massive concrete tiles? (Score:2)
Why do I write cgi scripts in ksh? Because its what I know. These guys build things out of concrete. Thats their job. I am sure that they go home on the weekend and construct patios and garden furniture out of the same stuff.
Details on the failure (Score:5, Informative)
As usual with engineering disasters of this sort, the failure seems to have been caused by a confluence of lesser mistakes that would not have been tragic in isolation. The root causes, however, seem to be:
Anyone who has lived in Boston can tell you that this is only the latest in a string of cost overruns and management failures. The actual mode of failure (i.e. the bolts) and the immediate causes of that failure should not overshadow the idea that the contractors who screwed this one up should be held responsible. The ongoing investigations should reveal whether the contractors were merely incompetent or whether they willfully ignored problems like these and crossed their fingers that nothing would happen.
Re:Details on the failure (Score:2)
Re:Details on the failure (Score:3, Interesting)
How's That Work? (Score:2)
Oh well, mismanaged projects are nothing new either. No one talks about the pyramid they built 5100 years ago that fell down after 21 years, I suppose. I bet none of the appro
Re:How's That Work? (Score:3, Insightful)
Practically everything built 5 thousand years ago has since fallen down. Only structures which were massively overengineered (possibly because the people building them didn't know what they were doing) are still standing.
Re:How's That Work? (Score:3, Informative)
Some of the things we built 5000 years ago is still standing. Consider, for example, the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World; only one of them is left, wich gives us a 14.2% success rate. I'm not sure I like that number when it comes to something to be used on a daily basis.
Some pyramids did collapse (Score:3, Informative)
No one talks about the pyramid they built 5100 years ago that fell down after 21 years
That's just because it's no longer news: Collapsed pyramid [homelinux.net]
Re:How's That Work? (Score:3, Interesting)
It may be the biggest but it is not alone. (Score:5, Interesting)
The exact story is still being discovered but it seems that the original builder was replaced by someone cheaper who cut corners.
In itself bad enough but stories are starting to emerge that this kind of stuff has been going on all over. Not a real suprise, we have had a couple of incidents of collapsing balconies because of shoddy building but because this scandale is so public the stories off other scandals also gets more attention.
Then again it is nothing new. Every time there is a disaster like an earth quake anywhere in the world you will learn that some building collapsed because the builder did not follow regulations or even the blueprint.
Cost cutting is almost everytime the reason and who is to blame for that? Well us. We want our buildings build as cheaply and as fast as possible so we hire the guy with the lowest contract and then expect to get quality.
Nobody on the world would expect a ten dollar watch to have the same quality as a ten thousand dollar watch so why do we expect the guy who can do the job for a million to be as good as the one who wants two million?
The fact that a live was lost in this Boston incident is tragic. That it involved such a god awfull amount of money makes it however fortuanlly headline worthy. If we a truly upset about this we will demand more and better inspection of every building project and demand very stiff penalties for those who ignore regulations. Oh and we won't mind paying extra for it.
Did you hear just hear that massive sound of everyone taking a step back? Yup, we want the best but at the least cost. That is how it is supposed to work in a free market. Sadly it doesn't.
Shoddy building by the lowest bidder is nothing new. Just because this one involves a costly project that has already been controversial does not make it new. Shoddy building will go on as long as contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder.
But why doesn't it work to go for the lowest bid? Because it is an ongoing race. There is always another party who wants the contract who is just going to have to find some way to lower costs. At a given point there is no more fat to trim and you have to start cutting in essentials. Think of it as anorexia. When all the fat is gone you can only loose weight by reducing vital organs and tissues until finally you die. In losing weight you need to know the limit, the point were you simply cannot loose weight anymore. In lowering cost you also need to know that limit. Were any further cost savings are coming from critical areas like following the blueprint to the letter, proper inspection and using the right materials. It can be as simple a something as continueing work on days to hot/cold/humid for some materials to properly set. A great cost saving but a gigantic risk.
This woman paid the price for our penny pinching and the great joke? Now the costs are going to be much higher to us all then if the job had been done right by the non-lowest bidder in the first place. Yet how much do you want to bet that in a few years time the next boston city goverment contract will again go to the lowest bidder?
Re:It may be the biggest but it is not alone. (Score:2)
and I quote (Score:3, Funny)
The biggest mistake ever (Score:4, Interesting)
My experience on site (Score:5, Informative)
Posting anon here - I worked on the Big Dig (environmental) during peak construction (1997-2000) and I'm currently contracting with another MA state agency, and I don't want to ruffle any state feathers. I also want to write a book someday ;)
First a couple of general statements:
Now back to the facts - I have no knowledge of roof panel construction (I spent little time in that area), but I will note that working on the project during 1999 and 2000 was an interesting experience. Already at the point there was heavy pressure on project managers and contractors to reduce costs (this was before the national stories hit that led to the ouster of James Kerasiotes). It got to the point that office supplies were locked up - you had to get the office manager's permission to get a notebook or pens!
In any event, I wouldn't be surprised at all if cost pressures let to reduced safety factors, etc. The construction site was also the source of many stories about various screw-ups that I won't get into here (wait for my book!). There was of course several times that money was spent to shut people up (at least once against my direct recommendation), but the PTB felt it was needed for the project to move along smoothly. I suppose that it would have been better for B/PB to take the Vista approach, and wait for the tunnel to be "finished" but that wasn't going to happen because of the political pressures.
Now was the project a failure? I'll just say this - is used to take me 1.5 to 2 hours to drive from Braintree to Cambridge during midday traffic. I did the same trip a month or so ago during a Friday afternoon rush hour in abut 20-25 minutes.
"paper" engineering and cool graphics (Score:5, Informative)
I've got a running bet with anyone that'll take it that the Big Dig is closed down in less time than it took to build the beast.
My wife is a news designer for the Boston Globe, she made this graphic to explain what happened, it's pretty cool. No complaints about it being in Flash, that's what she uses:
http://www.boston.com/news/traffic/bigdig/article
Enjoy,
Josh
Re:"paper" engineering and cool graphics (Score:4, Informative)
I am. You're right. Looking through some of the news stories about it there was apparently a 3rd grader who noticed the same thing 10 years ago. It takes a real nimrod to hang 3 ton concrete ceiling tiles off a framework that's been epoxied into place.
The real tragedy is that woman's family will never see justice. Everyone will point the finger at everyone else and no one, ultimately, will have to pay the price.
Re:"paper" engineering and cool graphics (Score:3, Informative)
In large structures, the strength that the materials are loaded to is often dictated by how large a progressive deformation or crack would have to be to be seen during inspection to give warning of future failure. Use a high enough stres
this is quite a hole (Score:2, Funny)
Why? (Score:2)
Anyone heard of the Hyatt Regency hotel skywalk? (Score:3, Interesting)
As another KC native a few points. (Score:3, Insightful)
It was a series of engineering mistakes (which were affected by larger business concerns but remain engineering mistakes).
The initial design was structurally sound but unbuildable (it called for single steel rods supporting both walkways with a nut threaded 10meters or so onto the rod to support the upper w
Hardly the biggest mistake - an amazing project (Score:5, Insightful)
The big dig constitutes several of the most ambitious and complex infrastructure projects imaginable. They had to freeze the ground in the back bay by piping supercooled fluid through it while digging in that part. They have completely re-routed one of the largest transportation networks in the world without closing the old one (other than a few hours at a time at night or weekends). As the last phases are completed -- the cleanup of the old site -- Boston becomes one of the most beautiful cities in the world. What used to be a hideous elevated six lane highway becomes a walking park with small shops, museums, and playgrounds that connects the entire downtown area from Haymarket and Fanuel Hall past the New England Aquarium, all the way to South Station.
It was typically corrupt on a scale only an eastern (or European) city could manage, it was over budget and time on an epic scale -- but did anyone really expect otherwise? Someone really screwed up on these bolts. They'll get fixed, the lawsuits will settle, and in the meant time this project will be the pride of Boston for many years to come.
As a non-Bostonion... (Score:3, Interesting)
If you make it fool proof... (Score:3, Interesting)
What was more interesting was the ensuing conversation. What was brought up was that if everyone knew that this project was going to be given to contractors who were likely to cut corners, would this have been the best design? Judging from the results of cut corners (the local boston news has been covering that some holes have no epoxy in them and other blatant implementation failures), this design was not "fool-proof" enough given who was implementing the project.
We then brought up our own personal experiences in our respective fields where the best design was not the cleanest design, but the design in which if some one implemented it wrong, there'd be no unforseen consequences (such as making a routing change in one branch office, only to black hole traffic destined for another office). I wonder how many people here have been faced with projects where one of the bigger criteria was to make the implementation "fool-proof".
Unfamiliar systems need extra supervision (Score:4, Informative)
Anyone specifying a new or unusual process has to be aware of the fact that the typical construction worker won't believe it's important to follow the rules exactly, won't understand which parts of the process are most vital and won't be around at the end of the project to take any responsbility. If you have a design that depends on technology unfamiliar to the people who're responsible for implementing it, then you need tight supervision during the build and tight inspection afterwards. You often don't get either - the foremen are on bonuses to accelerate the construction phase and the people most qualified to inspect afterwards are the people who designed the structure in the first place.
Of course there are many projects which are simply not feasible using traditional construction, but for those that are, any apparent savings from using new technology can be negated by the costs of ensuring it's correctly applied.
Risks (Score:3, Informative)
It's titled, "Forum On Risks To The Public In Computers And Related Systems", and relates a lot of computer and general engineering related risks. Risks that either wind up killing or seriously injuring people. It's been going since 1985, and is a good read just to open your mind to what might happen.
As so many headlines on Fark read, "What could possibly go wrong?". This should always be the first thought for any engineer when they are tasked to do something.
Re:It does not "beg the question!" (Score:2)
According to the Wikipedia article this is indeed a correct usage of the modern interpretation of the phrase. However, I will acknowledge this is a highly debated subject and I agree with the traditional form of the phrase.
However, specifically referring to the article it would appear that "begs the question" has been consistently interchanged with "raising the question" enough so the meaning has drifted.
(I did check and make sure there wasn't a new revision as it would be e
Re:It does not "beg the question!" (Score:2, Insightful)
I'd hesitate to use Wikipedia as any sort of language guide.
Re:It does not "beg the question!" (Score:2)
No, I've been too busy celebrating the US's 750th Birthday [theonion.com].
Re:Is anyone else wondering (Score:3, Informative)
If a typical vehicle is 5 metres long and the distance between vehicles is 10 metres then an object with no dimension will have 1/3 chance of hitting something.
Except that a sheet of concrete which drops in front of your car may be almost as bad as one which lands on you, and if the sheet is (say) 2 metres across it is almost certain to land on something because the lanes will be only 3-3.5 metres wide.
Re:Mistake- No Shit (Score:2)
Re:More management than engineering (Score:2)
cough-cough. IHBT by a moron.
Congratulations!
Welcome to language. (Score:4, Insightful)
Language only has value if everyone understands and agrees what certain otherwise-meaningless utterances represent. So if you decide to use a different definition of a particular term than the one everyone else uses, it's not a question of who's "right" and "wrong," it's a matter of who's going to be understood by the most people among the intended audience.
More to the point, in the case of "begging the question," there are two meanings at work: one which is commonly used in the vernacular, and another rather specialized meaning, used within the realm of philosophical discussion. The 'correct' definition of the term depends on the context of its use. This really isn't that hard to understand -- there are many, many words and phrases which are similar: they have both commonly-understood meanings, and different or more particular meanings when used in technical contexts. That doesn't mean that the vernacular meaning is "more wrong" or "less correct" than the technical one, just that the phrase has two distinct meanings.
I think this discussion comes up here on Slashdot a lot, because there seem to be a lot of people around here who seem to be incapable of understanding that in natural language, it's quite possible for the same utterance or visual symbol to have a variety of meanings depending on the context it's being used in, and this context may be somewhat subtle. While these nuances may make understanding a little more difficult than some hypothetical Newspeak-ish, precisely defined language, it's the fuzziness that gives natural language its flexibility and descriptive power. Stop trying to pigeonhole it.