The English-world is TERRIBLE at building transit. This is why.
cross-posted from: https://lemmy.ml/post/50646165
A well researched and referenced video (see yt description for references and spreadsheets), from Sharath of Building Beautifully.
The cost of building transit in the Anglosphere has spiralled out of control. Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the United States, the United Kingdom, Singapore and Hong Kong are all terrible at managing transit costs. Meanwhile, nations like France, Spain, South Korea and Turkey are running laps around the Anglosphere, building world-class transit at unprecedented speeds for prices up to four times cheaper. There is no reason for building transit to cost this much. Follow me as we unpack the staggering reasons that costs have spiralled out of control, and what we can do about it. Thank you to Jedwin Mok for appearing in this video! Jedwin introduced me to the transit costs crisis in mid-2025, which led me to ultimately create this video and interview him for it.
9 replies
I'm wondering if this is a common-law issue or poor insurance culture or corruption.
Notably Europe generally has a top notch insurance culture. And civil law + insurance might reduce lawsuits.
That said, look at Latvia and railbaltica. It's a shitshow, so maybe corruption.
Interesting how Singapore and Hong Kong are part of the list. Are they really considered part of the anglosphere? And yes, I know English is also spoken there.
Yeah it sounds like Singapore may have different reasons for thier higher costs; https://www.channelnewsasia.com/singapore/comparing-singapores-newest-and-oldest-mrt-lines-5745191
Singapore specifically is, everyone under 45 speaks English. And more than 50% speak English above age 45. They drive same as the English, they have the same plugs as the English. Places in Singapore are named after the brits custom even after they left. Not sure what more needs be added to be qualified into being anglosphere
Not sure either, as normalized definitions change over time (i.e. first/third world). I glanced at wikipedia and Singapore isn’t even considered part of the outer sphere there: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anglosphere.
I guess if you just go by the “countries where english is widely spoken” definition, then it fits. But even then, Hong Kong doesn’t really fit that. The Philippines also speaks English, moreso than Hong Kong, but I guess their public transportation build cost doesn’t meet the criteria for expensive.
I think the industrial standards would be more relevant to a discussion about how industries operate than the language spoken. They could switch to Peruvian tomorrow, but the industry would stay the same.
How does one open the links in the youtube description? They all seem curtailed. I just need to see the spreadsheet or a tldw.
I assume in the UK it's mostly It's land acquisition costs, stemming from a long lasting guillotine shortage. And also probably fragmenting the projects into 50 hierarchical contract layers that with each party taking its dumb "risk-adjusted" rate of return.
Tldw:
Some unshortened links:
Thanks!