Toronto says park stairs would cost $65k to build, man makes them for $550

Not sure what you mean, sorry about that whooshing sound over my head. I thought the phrase was “the best shouldn’t be the enemy of the better”. To me, better and good aren’t enemies. And I also think maybe progress for its own sake is hollow, but the better for the sake of better, is

Doesn’t sound like a question, please remain satisfied.

What I meant was i couldn’t tell if you were agreeing, disagreeing, or riffing.

OH yes, of course. Some I can remember were a no go, but several of them I think would be fine. Or skip to the parts that are.

Cities already have employees, and have had them for centuries. My suggestion is just to hire people with useful skills instead of more bureaucrats. That is not socialism. It does not require that the workers control the means of production, and does not require prison camps or mass graves for the class enemies.

It depends on where you live. Some places have bullet proof glass surrounding the registers at convenience stores. And bars on their bedroom windows to keep intruders out.
The nearest theater to where I live has the candy in an open display near the entrance. You have to take what you want to the register. The person at the register also takes the tickets, but cannot see the theater entrances or most of the candy display from there. You could literally walk in, take a bunch of candy, and go into one of the movies, and would probably get away with it. But nobody does, as far as I know. It makes sense that costs are lower in places where people do not have to spend huge sums on security.
For those of us not used to such things, all that security can make you nervous. Before credit cards were universal, gas pumps in safe areas could just be turned on and used. Afterwards, you went in and paid. When you drove into an area where the gas pumps did not work like that, with “pay before pumping” signs, you knew that you were in a crappy area. I guess now the first sign is the cashier being in a little bunker, or restaurants with the condiments behind the counter, instead of in bins or on the tables.
But there are many places not like that. Too many to make such a blanket statement about it being a “low trust society”.

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From what I gather there is a path. It’s just not as fast as the shortcut this set of stairs seeks to codify.

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I thought that, too, since the stairs go up to a parking lot railing. I figured there is a path somewhere.

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Yeah, but a lot of them contract work out for a lot of stuff because other wise you’re one step away from socialism in some eyes and/or competing against private business.

Assuming you had competent workers full time for stuff, then yes, it would probably be cheaper to use your own employees for projects. But for a lot of things especially construction it is all contracted out.

I know they have some jobs, though. My dad used to be the county weed man, in charge of the whole county for noxious weed control like on country roads and the like.

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thank you for clarifying. Will consider.

I choose… mostly agreeing, i think?

How far your eyes may pierce I cannot tell.
Striving to better, oft we mar what’s well.

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well played!

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What happens when local amateurs build infrastructure:

  • The labourers aren’t paid fairly.
  • The labourers are not ensured a safe working environment.
  • Nobody pays any attention to the impact of the infrastructure on the environment.
  • Nobody is responsible for maintaining the infrastructure.
  • When the infrastucture fails catastrophically, lives are destroyed.

There was already a safe path into this park. The locals preferred to take a dangerous shortcut. Some of them were hurt doing so. One of the locals, instead of lobbying the council for additional infrastructure, decided to play amateur engineer instead. As a result, the park now has a dangerous construction that is likely to rapidly disentegrate into garbage. Which the builder is unlikely to clean up.

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Build 'em right, and it’s all good. Build 'em wrong, and granny dies from the infection that follows her broken hip.

There’s also the point that this was parkland, not farmland. If there’s a bit of the park with no convenient path, it’s often because we’re trying to divert foot traffic away from the regenerating vegetation.

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Without any arguments for why it’s different you’re just saying “you can’t compare things, man!”

Whilst the steep slope with no stairs was of course perfectly safe?

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Whenever there is any discussion of public projects someone comes up with statements along these lines:

and

and on the other hand:

Not wanting to specifically call out any of the people above but it always amuses me that people

a) assume corruption is involved in any public project (with the clear implication that they think there shouldn’t be such); and

b) complain about the measures put in place to try to prevent such corruption.

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I don’t see how.

The ‘path’ is clearly blocked off by a fence. People have therefore been choosing to clamber over the fence and make their down the clearly steep and unsafe slope which they are obviously not supposed to go down rather than use the longer and safer route which they are supposed to take.

If they injure themselves in doing so, that is entirely their own fault.

If the city provides a way down that slope, the city would then become responsible for ensuring that it is safe.

It is possibly liable if it allows something which looks like it is meant to be a safe route down to remain in place (although I’m not sure about that). It certainly becomes liable if it starts maintaining the new route.

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Was this sarcasm?

But corruption does play a part, it’s just not as overt as people thing, specially for such a small project.

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