This touches on a category of costs few folks are aware of. I and my friends in the business call it the Building Code Industrial Complex. Folks have no idea of the existence of the multiple code promulgating entities and how deeply embedded they are in any attempt to build anything.
At base, all building codes distill down to safety. Arguing against the complex then sets one in the position of "arguing against safety", placing the individual looking for better solutions in an apparently morally compromised position...which it usually isn't as described in your article...but it looks that way. So often, there are not significant safety improvements with the added regulatory controls, but too bad. Careers are built on this stuff, and any attempts at whittling back the regulations is met with a wall of refusals by the code promulgating entities.
Think single stair multiple family buildings. They're safe and they're fine, but try arguing that to the local IRC building code enforcement officers.
And, as Jim described, the folks promulgating these codes are never going to backtrack even when balanced against new/modern building practices, fire suppression systems, or other improvements to building methods that remediate the original concerns.
Safety can go into the "diminishing returns" territory real quick, be it FDA approval process or building codes.
We should always compare such regulations to regulations in other developed states and analyze if milder regulations result in observably worse outcomes.
Basically the entire Europe has single stair multiple family buildings, and mass deaths from structural fires have become fairly rare. The only big fire that I remember that would benefit from a second staircase is Greenfell Tower.
Right...and the Greenfell disaster involved so many criminally stupid conditions, it was like they built a roman candle and called it a residential tower. The absence of a 2nd stair was not the problem.
The traditional problem with updating codes is that they were originally "written in blood" - something bad happens, people say "we're never going to have that happen again", and it's super hard to change it. Every person who is involved in the decision making is thinking "will I be up in front of Congress, a review board, a court trial, having to explain why I let this disaster occur". Ultimately, it changes, but only after ALL the people originally involved have left the organization through retirement, etc.
This is the same challenge NASA faces - while "failure is not an option" is just a line from a movie - that mindset is pervasive throughout the organization.
This is especially true when it is difficult, if not impossible, to have meaningful statistics - which is almost always the case for rare events. It's not susceptible to "engineering analysis" and factors of safety kind of things like you can do with structures or electrical systems.
Someone will always raise some "outlier" scenario - what if the subway car is full of gurneys with disaster victims, and they can't roll them along the track quickly enough to get to a refuge that's 2000 ft away? Nobody wants to be "on record" saying "yeah, that's unlikely, and maybe they are just unlucky"
That's exactly right. One hypothetical scenario leads to another and another and pretty soon you got code gridlock. No one's going to be the person to push for those subway tubes to be farther apart. All argument tends toward making them even closer than they are now.
The other thing that happens in code writing/promulgating initiatives...there's as many industry reps there pushing for their product to be the standard, the basic regulatory capture scenario.
I feel like the entire usa fire code complex is due for a revision. Here in Asia we don't have those codes and while there are legitimate safety issues I almost never hear about accidents due to fire. The fact is that modern construction materials are just not that flammable. Even in the hk incident the issue was temporary materials introduced to fix the building and had nothing to do with the design of the building itself.
The driver of these standards is a unique public - private partnership that is very American. In other countries the making of the standards would be done by the government (just like FINRA in the securities industry). The American model can work for some cases like halal food certifications where there seems to be many options and competition. For the tax code there is probably 5-6 think tanks/NGOs that can provide alternatives to the status quo. However in this case there seems to be a defecit in the private provision of building standards. I feel like America's litigation heavy culture plays a role in this but not sure how .
Interesting thoughts on cross tunnels, but even though the NFPA requires twice as many as Europe on average; that means for any given mile of 5280 feet one would need about 6 versus 3 in Europe (close enough for comparison - right?). Even at $2M each, that's only about $12M vs $6M between New York and Spain for example, but you quote the build cost to be approximately $220M/mile in Spain and $1B/mile in NY, so the cross tunnels hardly figure into that difference of approx. $780M - $6M is less than 1% of the difference. I would love to know what the really big cost drivers that push overall cost to 3X to 5X that of Spain are please?
Interesting. I hope this is wrong but quick Clauding suggests US road tunnels egress passage requirements are LESS tight than for subway rail (NFPA 502 at 1000 feet except high traffic stretches). That would be absolutely ridiculous, given the magnitude difference in energy stored.
This touches on a category of costs few folks are aware of. I and my friends in the business call it the Building Code Industrial Complex. Folks have no idea of the existence of the multiple code promulgating entities and how deeply embedded they are in any attempt to build anything.
At base, all building codes distill down to safety. Arguing against the complex then sets one in the position of "arguing against safety", placing the individual looking for better solutions in an apparently morally compromised position...which it usually isn't as described in your article...but it looks that way. So often, there are not significant safety improvements with the added regulatory controls, but too bad. Careers are built on this stuff, and any attempts at whittling back the regulations is met with a wall of refusals by the code promulgating entities.
Think single stair multiple family buildings. They're safe and they're fine, but try arguing that to the local IRC building code enforcement officers.
And, as Jim described, the folks promulgating these codes are never going to backtrack even when balanced against new/modern building practices, fire suppression systems, or other improvements to building methods that remediate the original concerns.
Safety can go into the "diminishing returns" territory real quick, be it FDA approval process or building codes.
We should always compare such regulations to regulations in other developed states and analyze if milder regulations result in observably worse outcomes.
Basically the entire Europe has single stair multiple family buildings, and mass deaths from structural fires have become fairly rare. The only big fire that I remember that would benefit from a second staircase is Greenfell Tower.
Right...and the Greenfell disaster involved so many criminally stupid conditions, it was like they built a roman candle and called it a residential tower. The absence of a 2nd stair was not the problem.
The traditional problem with updating codes is that they were originally "written in blood" - something bad happens, people say "we're never going to have that happen again", and it's super hard to change it. Every person who is involved in the decision making is thinking "will I be up in front of Congress, a review board, a court trial, having to explain why I let this disaster occur". Ultimately, it changes, but only after ALL the people originally involved have left the organization through retirement, etc.
This is the same challenge NASA faces - while "failure is not an option" is just a line from a movie - that mindset is pervasive throughout the organization.
This is especially true when it is difficult, if not impossible, to have meaningful statistics - which is almost always the case for rare events. It's not susceptible to "engineering analysis" and factors of safety kind of things like you can do with structures or electrical systems.
Someone will always raise some "outlier" scenario - what if the subway car is full of gurneys with disaster victims, and they can't roll them along the track quickly enough to get to a refuge that's 2000 ft away? Nobody wants to be "on record" saying "yeah, that's unlikely, and maybe they are just unlucky"
That's exactly right. One hypothetical scenario leads to another and another and pretty soon you got code gridlock. No one's going to be the person to push for those subway tubes to be farther apart. All argument tends toward making them even closer than they are now.
The other thing that happens in code writing/promulgating initiatives...there's as many industry reps there pushing for their product to be the standard, the basic regulatory capture scenario.
I feel like the entire usa fire code complex is due for a revision. Here in Asia we don't have those codes and while there are legitimate safety issues I almost never hear about accidents due to fire. The fact is that modern construction materials are just not that flammable. Even in the hk incident the issue was temporary materials introduced to fix the building and had nothing to do with the design of the building itself.
The driver of these standards is a unique public - private partnership that is very American. In other countries the making of the standards would be done by the government (just like FINRA in the securities industry). The American model can work for some cases like halal food certifications where there seems to be many options and competition. For the tax code there is probably 5-6 think tanks/NGOs that can provide alternatives to the status quo. However in this case there seems to be a defecit in the private provision of building standards. I feel like America's litigation heavy culture plays a role in this but not sure how .
Interesting thoughts on cross tunnels, but even though the NFPA requires twice as many as Europe on average; that means for any given mile of 5280 feet one would need about 6 versus 3 in Europe (close enough for comparison - right?). Even at $2M each, that's only about $12M vs $6M between New York and Spain for example, but you quote the build cost to be approximately $220M/mile in Spain and $1B/mile in NY, so the cross tunnels hardly figure into that difference of approx. $780M - $6M is less than 1% of the difference. I would love to know what the really big cost drivers that push overall cost to 3X to 5X that of Spain are please?
This is a summary:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=utt-KnIMB3o
The key bit is that the local authority that is responsible for the Madrid subway also has access to all the tools to build it.
Interesting. I hope this is wrong but quick Clauding suggests US road tunnels egress passage requirements are LESS tight than for subway rail (NFPA 502 at 1000 feet except high traffic stretches). That would be absolutely ridiculous, given the magnitude difference in energy stored.