>>1975501>adding more of them won't decrease spending or costs.Europe and Asia examples prove that assertion completely wrong.
>>Until they do>Good pointButthurt locals isn't a good reason to not take externalities of a project into account, but apparently I won't change your mind on this.
>There are regulations against it. It is called racketeering or bribery.Murder is a crime, but it still happens too. Should we just no longer have police or laws against murder? I think not.
I'm curious, what safeguards do you think exist to prevent a contractor from grifting a transit agency?
>Stop believing they're infallible.Never said they were infallible, just that there's more accountability for politicians and civil servants than a private corporation.
>US transit agencies have their own plannersRead
https://slate.com/business/2023/02/subway-costs-us-europe-public-transit-funds.htmland get back to me. The article cites MTA and MBTA, but given the lean business craze of the '90s-'00s and the austerity budgets that transit agencies are subjected to, I'd be amazed if any of them had a staff actually up to the task.
>and use outside firms as well on a contractual basisIf you're using a contractor to plan your network to begin with, you've already lost. You do not have the ability to tell if they're shaking you down or telling you the truth, nor do you have the ability to actually build any institutional knowledge that they pass along to you. You will start from "learn what a train is" for every project.
>How?I just told you. The staffs that plan and manage their projects are well paid and full-time. They know what the fuck they're doing and don't have to relearn it every project. Some do use contractors for the actual construction, but the civil servants have the experience to know when the contractor's bullshitting them.
t. contractor working in a project management role for a state government that's had to deal with other contractors doing utterly stupid shit
