Why does it take so much longer to build in the US compared to 50+ years ago?

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It took a year to build the Empire State Building, and 5 years to build the Hoover Dam yet current estimates for the Francis Scott Key bridge rebuild are near 10 years. Why is this? Have we regressed?

In: Engineering

40 Answers

Anonymous 0 Comments

Because we need the next bridge to not crumble like a house of cards if a boat runs into it. In addition, the Hoover Dam took 5 years to actually build, but it was in planning for much longer than that. It’s not like we have a blueprint, funding, permits, and construction crews ready to go for the bridge today. All of that is going to take a long time to pull together.

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