鑽石舞台

原標題：Why Can't America Fill a Pothole?

首刊日期：2019 年 7 月 22 日

From left-wing Democrat to right-wing Republican, everyone loves infrastructure. We all want safe bridges, smooth roads, and world-class airports.

從左翼的民主黨到右翼的共和黨，人人都愛基礎設施。我們都想要安全的橋樑、平整的公路和世界級的機場。

So why can’t we have them? Why are America’s bridges falling down, our roads riddled with potholes, and many of our major airports dilapidated?

那我們為什麼無法擁有？為什麼美國的橋樑在倒塌，我們的公路滿是坑洞，許多大機場年久失修呢？

Why can’t the United States build or repair infrastructure like European and Asian countries do?

為什麼美國不能像歐洲或亞洲國家那樣建造、維修基礎設施呢？

The answer is not complex. America doesn’t have better infrastructure because of two groups: environmental activists and labor unions.

答案並不複雜。美國基礎設施欠佳是由於兩個群體：環保活動家與工會。

What has happened to the Keystone XL pipeline, a project to bring oil from Canada to refineries in the U.S., is a typical example. According to environmental groups, this vital piece of infrastructure is a guaranteed disaster. Never mind that pipelines are, by all measures, a much safer way to transport oil than rail cars. Say the words 「fossil fuel,」 and the Greens are against it.

基石輸油管道項目，這個將加拿大石油運到美國煉油廠的計劃的遭遇正是典型例子。根據環保組織，這一重要的基礎設施保證是個災難，不用在意輸油管道從任何角度講都是比火車安全得多的運油方式，只要提到「化石燃料」，綠色組織就會反對。

In November 2018, in the U.S. District Court of Montana, Judge Brian Morris, an Obama appointee, halted Keystone’s construction—for the thirdtime.

2018 年 11 月，在蒙大拿州地區法院，奧巴馬任命的法官布萊恩·莫里斯叫停了基石項目的建設——第三次。

The first 「final environmental review」 approving construction was released by Hillary Clinton’s State Department in 2011. It concluded that the environmental impact would not be significant. A second 「final environmental review」 also approved the project. It was released in 2014 by John Kerry’s State Department, and also foresaw little environmental impact.

第一次批准建設的「最終環境評審」是 2011 年由希拉里·克林頓國務院發布的，其結論是環境影響不會顯著。第二次「最終環境評審」同樣批准了這項計劃，是 2014 年由約翰·克里國務院發布的，同樣預測對環境影響微弱。

Judge Morris’s third review may be the charm for the Greens. At this point, a full decade into the process, it’s hard to see the pipeline ever being completed.

法官莫里斯的第三次評審或許是最為綠色組織樂道的。此時，工期已達整整十年，很難預料管道鋪設是否還能完成。

Keystone is a case study of what Brookings Institute scholar Robert Kagan calls 「adversarial legalism」—environmental reviews of every aspect of every public improvement. In a given year, the federal government produces 50,000 environmental assessments. Individual states and cities add thousands more.

基石項目是布魯金斯研究所學者羅伯特·卡根所稱「對抗性律法主義」的典型案例——每一項市政工程都會遭到全方面的環境評審。聯邦政府平均每年發表 50000 份環境評估，個別州與市又增添上千份。

And this isn’t new.

這並不是新鮮。

A routine dredging project in Oakland Harbor begun in the 1970s wasn’t completed until the mid-1990s because of legal and environmental challenges.

奧克蘭港在 1970 年代開始了一個常規疏浚項目，但直至 1990 年代中才完成，全因受到法律與環保障礙。

Four such challenges gummed up a water-desalination plant, urgently needed in dry San Diego. That process started in 2003 and was needlessly delayed for 12 years.

四次類似的障礙搞砸了乾旱的聖地亞哥迫切需要的水淡化處理廠，工程開始於 2003 年，之後毫無必要地推遲了 12 年。

Simply raising New Jersey’s Bayonne Bridge roadway a bit to allow taller ships through—a move that had almost no environmental impact, since it was merely an adjustment of an already-built site—proceeded only after five years of review and 20,000 pages of environmental studies.

只是稍微調高新澤西巴約納大橋的承行車道，以讓較高的船只能夠通過——這一舉動幾乎不會影響到環境，因為它只不過是對已建成場所的輕微調整——經過了五年評審和 20000 頁的環境研究才得以繼續。

Americans like to think of themselves as more free-wheeling and less regulated than European and Asian countries, but when it comes to infrastructure, this just isn’t true.

美國人覺得自己比歐洲及亞洲國家更自由放任，受到管制更少，但當涉及到基礎設施時，就絕非是這樣。

Europe and Asia don’t have the redundant layers of city, state, and federal bureaucracies that we do. As a result, their ideas get proposed, approved, and built in the time it takes us to agonize over a single environmental impact study.

歐洲與亞洲沒有我們這樣冗餘的市、州及聯邦官僚，後果是，他們的想法提出、通過、落實的時候，我們還在忍受一份環境影響研究的折磨。

And, to add insult to injury, their roads, bridges, subways, and airports are much cheaper to construct.

並且，辱上加辱的是，他們道路、橋樑、地鐵及機場的建築成本更低。

A 2011 study by Israeli mathematician Alon Levy found that a mile of subway track in Japan or continental Europe typically costs $200 to $450 million dollars per mile.

2011 年一份由以色列數學家阿龍·利維完成的研究報告發現，在日本或歐洲大陸一英里地鐵軌道的造價通常是每英里為 2~4.5 億美元。

Vancouver, Canada comes in lower than that. The Canada Line, a 40-percent underground rail system in a densely populated area, cost $130 million per mile.

在加拿大溫哥華，造價還要更低。加拿大線，一條位於人口稠密地區，有 40% 位於地下的鐵路系統，每英里造價為 1.3 億美元。

Even on the high end, London’s underground Jubilee Line extension of the Tube, which opened in 1999, cost $640 million per mile.

即使是更高端的，1999 年開始運營的倫敦地鐵延長線銀禧線，每英里造價為 6.4 億美元。

But in New York City, the Second Avenue Subway, a two-mile extension of an existing line, took ten years and cost $2.4 billion per mile!

但在紐約，第二大道地鐵線，一條已有線路的兩英里延長線耗費了整整十年，每英里造價為 24 億美元！

And that’s not an anomaly. The East Side Access project connecting Long Island residents to the East Side of Manhattan is set to cost an astonishing $3.5 billion per mile, according to the New York Times, which calls that 「seven times the average cost in other cities around the world.」

這不是反常現象。將長島居民與曼哈頓東部連接起來的東城幹線項目預計造價高達難以置信的每英里 35 億美元，根據《紐約時報》，稱其「是全球其他城市平均成本的七倍」。

Construction began in 2007 and hopes to wrap in 2022. 2030 sounds more realistic.

2007 年開始施工，期望 2022 年完工。2030 年聽起來更現實。

Why is everything so expensive to build in the U.S.?

為什麼在美國建什麼都如此昂貴？

Enter the labor unions. Their motto seems to be: 「Work slowly and charge more.」 Sometimes, 「Don’t work at all.」

輪到工會登場了。他們的座右銘似乎是「慢條斯理幹活，獅子大口開價。」有時是「完全不幹活。」

Workers from New York City’s Sandhogs union, which is critical to such projects, cost an astounding $111 per hour in wages and benefits, according to the Times』 investigation.

紐約市隧道工工會的工人，此類項目中的關鍵人物，算上工資和福利，要價為令人乍舌的每小時 111 美元，根據《紐約時報》的調查。

A task that could be done in Madrid with nine workers requires 24 in New York City, according to an estimate by the city’s own Metropolitan Transportation Authority.

在馬德里只需 9 名工人的任務，在紐約市需要 24 名，根據紐約大都會運輸署的估算。

It gets worse: an investigation of East Side Access construction found that roughly 200 of 900 workers on the underground project were being paid to do nothing.

更糟糕的是：一項針對東城幹線建設的調查發現，參與地鐵項目的 900 名工人中大約有 200 人被雇來卻什麼都不用干。

And such price tags and questionable union practices are not unique to New York City. In Boston, a simple Green Line extension of the light-rail network that is being built on the surface—not underground—is set to cost some $530 million dollars per mile.

如此要價還有可疑的工會做法並非紐約市獨有。在波士頓，一條簡單的輕軌網絡綠線延長線，即建在路面——而不是地下的——預計造價每英里約為 5.3 億美元。

The result of all this?

這一切的後果？

Americans are living in a 20th-century infrastructure world. We can’t build a 21st century one.

美國人生活在 20 世紀基建的世界裡。我們無法造一個 21 世紀的。

The unions and environmentalists won’t let us.

工會與環保分子不會允許。

I’m Kyle Smith, of National Review, for Prager University.

我是《國家評論》的凱爾·史密斯，為 PragerU 製作。