Thursday, September 18, 2008

Maybe Minnesotans Should Be Put in Charge of Rebuilding the WTC

13 months ago we were playing volleyball and all of the sudden my friends' and my cell phones were going off. Parents were calling us to see if we were alright. Odd it seemed at first, but that's when the highway 35W bridge collapsed.

Well 13 months later the bridge has reopened and now traffic will be seriously alleviated. However, such a quick rebuilding of a major highway over the country's largest river got me thinking;

"Why the hell is it taking so long to rebuild the WTC?"

I've speculated on this before and pointed out that if this was the 1940's, despite archaic technology, those towers would have been rebuilt in the same amount of time it took to rebuild this bridge. Of course political, environmental, insurance and other factors have gotten in the way. But it does present an interesting dichotomy.

It takes a private sector firm 13 months to rebuild a major piece of infrastructure under budget and ahead of schedule. It takes what can only be described as government and political bureaucracy 7 years to build absolutely nothing. If there is a lesson in the perils of government and politics, this is it.

In the meantime, perhaps you New Yorkers out there could use a little consulting help from us hicks in Minnesota?

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

It's done because Flatiron did the reconstruction. They're good at what they do.

Anonymous said...

Because of the absolute amount of squabbling and lack of clear definition of who has the right to use that land, I'd suspect.

The city doesn't entirely own it, several firms own large stakes in it, and almost every person in the world has an idea for the site.

Not to mention many Americans believe that have a right to dictate what goes there.

Anonymous said...

Sophisticated collectivists must discuss every iota of consideration to make sure no one's feelings will be hurt when they finally come up with a plan to build.

I liked it better when those who knew what they were doing ran rough shod over the wimps who couldn't make decisions.

Perhaps some might feel treated unfairly or badly about not having their oh-so important views heard, but if the majority are okay, the minority will need to shut up and live with it.

Whatever works eh?

Alfred T. Mahan said...

Another Web writer opined some time ago that, back in the 1940s, the Twin Towers would have been rebuilt in two years, 200 stories tall, with grim steel and granite eagles jutting outwards looking to the smoking ruins of those countries where the celebrations of the terrorists' actions had taken place.

No concerns about the environment would have been raised, either.

Anonymous said...

Politics has obviously gotten in the way of rebuilding the WTC, but I can't figure out who is benefiting from this state of affairs (other than other office building owners).

Anonymous said...

This has nothing to do with private sector efficiency versus bureaucratic inertia. Both projects involve state leadership coupled with contracted labor from the private sector.

The difference, to put it bluntly, is that while the WTC rebuild team has to contend continuously with the emotional and political baggage of a thousand different stakeholders, nobody gives a shit what the new I-35W bridge looks like. On top of that, New York is a global city, a symbol of America overseas. The revived WTC can't just be some bricks-and-mortar slab cobbled together in a year and a bit. It's burdened by the weight of expectations. Minneapolis, let's be honest, means fuck-all on the international stage. Build the bridge, don't build the bridge--whatever. Nobody much outside the MN border is paying any attention.

Now, had the original bridge collapsed as part of an unprecedented and history-altering terrorist attack on the US--one that spawned several thousand casualties, an international economic downturn, and a global war on terror--and not as the result of a prosaic design flaw, then no doubt a little more domestic interest would have been paid to its reconstruction. Ergo political wrangling. Ergo delays.

Anonymous said...

The transit portion of the WTC site was rebuilt long ago.

You are mind blowingly insensitive.

Anonymous said...

The difference, to put it bluntly, is that while the WTC rebuild team has to contend continuously with the emotional and political baggage of a thousand different stakeholders

That's where the error lies. There is only one stakeholder here: Larry Silverstein, the site's tenant. Everybody else should be kicked to the curb immediately.