> “We thought ours was expensive,” said Laurent Probst, managing director of Île-de-France Mobilités, which controls transit in the French capital.
> The small number of workers has not slowed the Paris project. The line, which will run driverless trains every 85 seconds, is set to open by 2020, six years after groundbreaking. The Second Avenue subway, by contrast, took a decade to build.
> M.T.A. officials declined to comment on the Paris project.
French inefficiency used to be a joke in the US when I was a kid. Joke’s on us now I guess.
American inefficiency has been a joke in Germany as far as I can think back.
Also, a recurring theme in what I hear about American customers from people working in manufacturing is that US companies insist on providing extremely detailed specs and strict tolerances but then run into issues because their own (presumably US sourced) parts don't actually match the same specs.
For people not familiar with that particular flustercuck: BER is the new Berlin Brandenburg airport.
After a lot (more than 15 years!) of planning they began building in 2006.
By 2011 October, it was ready or so they thought. In 2011 November they actually ran trials with some 12 000 people.
8 May 2012 it was announced due to the failure of the fire protection system the opening is postponed. In a 2016 audit, they concluded the airport was at less than 60% readiness in reality at 2012 May.
Right now the opening is perhaps late 2020 or even 2021...
We are getting to the point where the 2016 audit should've concluded it is better to tear it down and build a new one.
> The small number of workers has not slowed the Paris project. The line, which will run driverless trains every 85 seconds, is set to open by 2020, six years after groundbreaking. The Second Avenue subway, by contrast, took a decade to build.
> M.T.A. officials declined to comment on the Paris project.
French inefficiency used to be a joke in the US when I was a kid. Joke’s on us now I guess.