Comment by Spooky23
5 hours ago
The engineers are a big part of the problem and drive regulations that featherbed themselves.
I got into a fight with my city over nonexistent crosswalks (the adhesive line strips wore off) near my home in an area where drivers have a hard time realizing where pedestrians cross due to a unique road setup.
You can’t just paint lines. The project ended up costing about $1.2M and required a traffic study, some stupid ADA assessment and accommodation that frankly any layperson could have figured out, and a complete streets assessment.
Basically, they sent out a few engineering technicians who make $20/hr, billed out 80 hours at $120 to count cars and people, and printed some boilerplate analysis (@$250/hr). The end result was they painted new crosswalks and added textured curb surfaces for ADA compliance, which allowed for the use of recovery act funds.
I love a good rant, but you just have no idea what you’re talking about. First, real engineers (the kind with, education and experience requirements and personal liability for their work) have labor markups that are maybe 2 to 3 times raw rate. I don’t know if 6X margins are normal for people who collect a check to “maintain” a finished product. Second, any civil engineer will tell you that complete streets compliance for federal funding is a waste of everyone’s time. Engineers didn’t come up with that, congressmen elected by people like you came up with that. Third, the only reason they did all of that study is because the people you voted for wanted to use money that was tax farmed from me instead of your city funds. They could have just sent out a road crew. You could also cut the check yourself. Finally marked crosswalks alter pedestrian behavior, but not driver behavior. Marking crosswalks where there is high traffic and no controls like a signal with a dedicated pedestrian phase are actually more dangerous than no markings at all. I don’t expect you to know that, but that’s why you should hire people like me and not try to do this yourself.