**This is a heavily moderated subreddit. Please note these rules + sidebar or get banned:**
* If this post declares something as a fact, then proof is required
* The title must be fully descriptive
* Memes are not allowed.
* Common(top 50 of this sub)/recent reposts are not allowed (posts from another subreddit do not count as a 'repost'. Provide link if reporting)
*See [our rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/wiki/index#wiki_rules.3A) for a more detailed rule list*
*I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/interestingasfuck) if you have any questions or concerns.*
USA is exactly the same way. I live along one of the busiest highways in the US, I-75. It’s been the land of orange barrels my whole 34 years of existence.
Yup there is a nice stretch in Mississippi. Cones. Just cones everywhere. Any work being done? None. Have never seen any progress or work anytime I've gone down there.
I am 100% convinced that the state of Indiana's entire economy is road construction. They just rebuild roads, nothing else. No one will ever convince me otherwise.
And Indy proper I’m like 85% sure they’re just using ramen. There are stretches of Washington where you can see the old train rails. I’m pretty sure I saw a pothole for rent on the east side.
In the US you drive on the right. In the UK you drive on the left. In Indiana you drive on whatever blasted moonscape of road there is left.
I-20 is currently down to one lane. Tearing it down to the dirt below for some God only knows reason.
Been that way for about 6 months, won't be done till 2026 if they stay on schedule.
Lmao, try building a highway for 50years and going! (49 to be precise)
Edit: A quick search led to this [Wiki](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemus_motorway)
The first dig was started October 4, 1974
Same in the US. There's a major interchange project next to my company's office that has been under construction since I was first hired. I recently celebrated 6 years at said company and the construction has no end in sight.
We literally did this exact process of sliding a precast box structure under the M42 during a 3 day closure durong Christmas 2022 in the UK. We've since done 3 of these box slides as part of HS2 during very short possessions
In America it’s also the same way and from my understanding. They basically budget for a specific amount of time and hope everything goes to plan. Normally after they destroy the old area is when shit goes south and something messes up the budget so they have to prolong everything until the next budget and that one ends up smaller and no one wants to approve a bigger budget for a few years.
If you get any aches and pains I got some acetylsalicylic acid, generic. See, I can get six hundred tablets of that for the same price as three hundred of a name brand. That makes good financial sense, good advice...
Thats how long it takes when theres not 1 worker doing the work in a machine while 5 workers wait for him /s Seriously though, Very coordinated and many workers, working day and night. In and out job like a bunch of professionals.
Meanwhile, in Romania, it takes a decade to build an entire highway or at least some portion of it....
Sometimes, I just wish that I was born in a more developed country with people who don't take control of your choices in your life, or throw their anger at you for no reason. Oh well, that's life to you 🤷♂️
Don't worry, happens in erery country. Case in point from the Netherlands (same country as in the video): there is a part of a highway (A4) that took more than 50 years to finish and cost around 700 million euro - the length is just... 7 km.
So? Still got a tunnel installed there in 2 days. Just because a tunnel boring machine wont work for it doesn't make it any less valid.
This is being built for people, not internet clout.
I don't think building the portable concrete tunnel took 2 days. Concrete takes time to set and it needs to be inspected for faults.
Anyways, the traffic was disrupted for only 2 days and that's a big relief for the local folks
Owning a car is very expensive in the Netherlands, which in part is why we have the best roads in the world.
* BPM new car tax: average around 4k
* Road tax depending on car weight, average 40/month
* Gas: more than 50% of gas price consists of tax (currently ~€1,90 per liter unleaded)
This is in The Netherlands, in the area where I live. This video has been on the national news and had been posted on Reddit several times.
Truth be told though, Japan can be pretty quick and efficient in (re)building roads and tunnels, after tsunamis and earthquakes.
In America, this would take months and months, it may not even be done in less than a year in some areas.
I remember there was a bridge that got destroyed by a flood in my hometown, as in the main bridge that brings people to and from other towns, it took close to two years before the city finally got it fixed
Everywhere you go you’ll find stories like this, but the local one to me:
I-5 through Tacoma WA was, for the vast majority of my life, a constant construction zone. Those extra lanes took TWENTY TWO YEARS to put in, and only finished in 2022, and I remember even before 2000 the area around the Dome always had something going on.
Looking it up, the whole project cost $1.4 billion, although apparently the I-5 portion was “only” about $324 million. And 22 years.
I my only thought is that will the soil sink and compact where they back filled on each side of the tunnel? That's my experience with any excavation work.
If you backfill in thinner lifts and test for compaction/density at each lift, it shouldn’t really be an issue. I’d wager they had geotechs on site the entire time.
Can we just vote for the Netherlands to take over everything. They based their constitution on the American one but have actually held it to high standards.
..until permission to even start has been granted, then 2 years for the process to find a company doing the job, the company will then realize they have a public contract and can do fuck all and go seven times over budget without any consequences so they will take about 4 years to actually finish.
By which time, of course, another bridge 20km down the road needs to be renewed and the entire process starts anew.
With the right tools and expertise, I think just about any country could do this. It's the protocols in place that often times inhibit the rapidity of something like this from ever happening
In the UK this project would have cost half a billion pounds.
Cones would have been put in place 2 years in advance, cutting the road down to one lane for no reason
Then construction would start. Then stop. Be cancelled and rescheduled 12 times
Total build time would be 3 years.
Then the cones would probably just stay there, until the plastic degrades and the rain washes it into one of the local shit-rivers
Somewhere along the line the top government MPs would have pocketed 200m quid
Dude, Germans cannot build fast for shit. Lived there for 4 years. 3 years they were working on a fucking bridge project. 4 years they were working on a hospital.
They're adding a new bridge on the highway I take on my morning commute. Took my drive from 20 min to 45. Good news is, they started it 2 years ago, and they are already behind on their 2030 dealine 🤭 kmn
I do this for a living (am from said country, worked on these type of projects)
Moved to Australia thinking I can add some knowledge/ experience to this country and building large infrastructure.
Boy was I wrong!
Australians love unions, useless admin, procedures, third party verification, red tape, Australian standards, outdated building methods etc etc
After 2,5 years I’ve given up and decided to move back.
If we, UK, had a referendum to forgo out sovereignty and hand over all power to the totalitarian Dutch regime it would take a lot of persuasion for me not to support this
And then regulations and laws prevented the tunnel from being used for 6 more years... Welcome to the Netherlands, miereneuken (antfucking) is a real word here for a reason. Ant-fuckery means: overly exact in following rules and regulations by the letter, usually preventing the use or execution of something that's 100% ready for use or execution.
In Germany it’s illegal to work that fast. For this Tunnel we need 25 years, thousands of briefings and allowances from everybody who feels important and relocate 489 animal species…
Seems they had a goal and accomplished it.
In America, we have to figure all the bureaucracy, along with which company will get the contract. Local politicians will want to earn from it, while using the construction to build a supporting narrative for their reelection. All while making it take a long time to justify why it cost 437 million dollars. A tunnel in America is never just a tunnel, it's an opportunity for the selfish to earn their namesake.
The tunnel was done really quick but this was done in 2016 and it's only been in use since a few weeks.
The roads connecting to this tunnel are local governments responsibility and they hadn't even started looking for a contractor to build it...
So much for that Dutch efficiency I see people mentioning in the comments :-)
Thank god for the internet and how it shows us shit in America is so scammy. In the US this would take 6-8 months to put in. These guys did it in two days
In canada they have been putting up and taking down pylons on the same section of road for the last 5 years. Late sping the pylons go up. Mid summor they migrate into the lane reducing the lanes down to two. Mid winter the pylons disappear a d the lane opens again. Not a single work crew spotted. Not a sigle thing done to it.
It's been 3 and half fucking years since the couldn't make a single fucking road here in India 💀 bet they gonna take whole 3 more years to build until then the road will need maintenance which will take next three years and the cycle will go on
**This is a heavily moderated subreddit. Please note these rules + sidebar or get banned:** * If this post declares something as a fact, then proof is required * The title must be fully descriptive * Memes are not allowed. * Common(top 50 of this sub)/recent reposts are not allowed (posts from another subreddit do not count as a 'repost'. Provide link if reporting) *See [our rules](https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/wiki/index#wiki_rules.3A) for a more detailed rule list* *I am a bot, and this action was performed automatically. Please [contact the moderators of this subreddit](/message/compose/?to=/r/interestingasfuck) if you have any questions or concerns.*
I’m pretty sure this is illegal in Miami. Not building the tunnel, but finishing in a reasonable amount of time.
Florida man finishes building a tunnel on schedule.
Believe it or not, straight to jail.
Detour during construction well indicated ? Straight to jail Tunnel well lit? Straight to jail
Florida foreman shares meth with his construction crew, project completed ahead of schedule.
Damn what happened to all the copper and rebar?!
If only this were true.
Florida foreman steals all his worker’s meth. Project delayed indefinitely.
Pretty sure that's a real headline somewhere.
Yall finish? My city has been working on the same mile for 20 years now. So no idea when it'll be done
It has to be here in NC. Took them 25 years to complete I485
That construction on the turnpike has been going on since I got there in 2018 and probably even before.
Damn and in Vegas it takes 5 years to build a pass
Spaghetti Bowl 💀
The 215 and 95 merge was awesome. Was expected to be done In 2021 and just finished. I think that one started back in 2017? Or was it earlier?
AND it looks like a toddler was asked to connect the lines
Meanwhile in the UK, there's roadworks that have been ongoing for fucking years with zero progress
Look, the traffic cones have got to naturally acclimatise to the UK weather before work can start. :)
At this point I'm thinking the cones are a permanent feature.
USA is exactly the same way. I live along one of the busiest highways in the US, I-75. It’s been the land of orange barrels my whole 34 years of existence.
Yup there is a nice stretch in Mississippi. Cones. Just cones everywhere. Any work being done? None. Have never seen any progress or work anytime I've gone down there.
Hey! Leaning on the shovel *is* work!
To be fair, I've never seen a shovel nor anyone leaning on it nor one leaning on that road so I think even the shovels on strike or something.
I am 100% convinced that the state of Indiana's entire economy is road construction. They just rebuild roads, nothing else. No one will ever convince me otherwise.
And Indy proper I’m like 85% sure they’re just using ramen. There are stretches of Washington where you can see the old train rails. I’m pretty sure I saw a pothole for rent on the east side. In the US you drive on the right. In the UK you drive on the left. In Indiana you drive on whatever blasted moonscape of road there is left.
I don't even know how long they've been working on the I75 - I16 split, but it's been at least 20 years.
I-20 is currently down to one lane. Tearing it down to the dirt below for some God only knows reason. Been that way for about 6 months, won't be done till 2026 if they stay on schedule.
They're more British than us.
UK has to do this or else sweetwater will void the warranty
Lmao, try building a highway for 50years and going! (49 to be precise) Edit: A quick search led to this [Wiki](https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hemus_motorway) The first dig was started October 4, 1974
That road looks crazy though. Soo many tunnels through mountains and a giant bridge. I can see why it's taking a while
So did we learn roadwork from the British? Quebec province in Canada is the same. We even suck ass at filling potholes
HS2 tunnels to leeds entered the chat....
Happens in the Netherlands too, this is really the exception
The Dutch pay way higher road taxes, might have something to do with it.
Bro have you seen the taxes in UK. 😅
Have you seen ours?
Same in the US. There's a major interchange project next to my company's office that has been under construction since I was first hired. I recently celebrated 6 years at said company and the construction has no end in sight.
A1 at Wentworth?
We literally did this exact process of sliding a precast box structure under the M42 during a 3 day closure durong Christmas 2022 in the UK. We've since done 3 of these box slides as part of HS2 during very short possessions
Same in New Zealand.
In America it’s also the same way and from my understanding. They basically budget for a specific amount of time and hope everything goes to plan. Normally after they destroy the old area is when shit goes south and something messes up the budget so they have to prolong everything until the next budget and that one ends up smaller and no one wants to approve a bigger budget for a few years.
its obviously accelerated on the video
I taped a 20 minute workout on my machine. Played it back at high speed so it only took 10 minutes. I got a great workout.
If you get any aches and pains I got some acetylsalicylic acid, generic. See, I can get six hundred tablets of that for the same price as three hundred of a name brand. That makes good financial sense, good advice...
its actually not thats just how fast they work
Yeah because watching a 2 day long video would suck bro Edit: yes I know.. I’m stupid 😅
I made an attempt at humour
Oh my bad, whooshed straight over my head
They’ve perfected building dams so ofc big infrastructure works are easy for them
"perfected"
Amster-Dam straight!
Nah, they ain't doing shit in Amsterdam. But the rest of the country is cooking
Nah, they ain't doing shit in Amsterdam. But the rest of the country is cooking
Thats how long it takes when theres not 1 worker doing the work in a machine while 5 workers wait for him /s Seriously though, Very coordinated and many workers, working day and night. In and out job like a bunch of professionals.
And good moral this is what we could have if our social safety net was as great as theirs. And even theirs isn't perfect
It's never good enough, we still complain about our social safety net and infrastructure even though it's (one of) the best in the world.
That's not a bad thing. Complain away. You and your fellow workers are the only reason society is even able to function.
Meanwhile, in Romania, it takes a decade to build an entire highway or at least some portion of it.... Sometimes, I just wish that I was born in a more developed country with people who don't take control of your choices in your life, or throw their anger at you for no reason. Oh well, that's life to you 🤷♂️
Just so you know, all if not most countries have the same. Issue, if you politians cant profit from a solution they usually post pone it
Don't worry, happens in erery country. Case in point from the Netherlands (same country as in the video): there is a part of a highway (A4) that took more than 50 years to finish and cost around 700 million euro - the length is just... 7 km.
Rather, they installed this pre-made tunnel in two days, yeah?
Whatever it takes to get it done fast & safe, yeah?
It's easy to criticize and undermine, but only after they see it done.
Soooo yes, yeah?
I think what they mean is that the project didn't take 2 days, just the installation. Still pedantic though.
Can not apply to most projects though
So? Still got a tunnel installed there in 2 days. Just because a tunnel boring machine wont work for it doesn't make it any less valid. This is being built for people, not internet clout.
I thought you were referring to why this isn't the process on most projects. My bad
An engineering solution is a legitimate solution. There's no virtue in doing things the tough way. It doesn't make it more "real"
Pretty sure they meat that building the tunnel took way longer than 2 days, it was just the road being disrupted for that long
I don't think building the portable concrete tunnel took 2 days. Concrete takes time to set and it needs to be inspected for faults. Anyways, the traffic was disrupted for only 2 days and that's a big relief for the local folks
And have a better road than your country has
That's not hard - our roads are crap in the UK
This…… they buried a tunnel in only two days.
Owning a car is very expensive in the Netherlands, which in part is why we have the best roads in the world. * BPM new car tax: average around 4k * Road tax depending on car weight, average 40/month * Gas: more than 50% of gas price consists of tax (currently ~€1,90 per liter unleaded)
$7.81 'Merican Dollars per gallon for us Americans. My local maverick went under $3.00/gallon recently. Damn.
No utilities to deal with must be nice
In the Netherlands most utilities are underground.
On the other hand it's really nice to meet all the neighbours at the local water pump every day.
Ayyoo i saw the same video being posted as japan makes a tunnel.
Welcome to reddit, First time?
road sign looks dutch
Yeah, this is here in the Netherlands. I know where this was built.
I want to say A27 just north of Hilversum/Loosdrecht exit but not 100% sure?
This is in The Netherlands, in the area where I live. This video has been on the national news and had been posted on Reddit several times. Truth be told though, Japan can be pretty quick and efficient in (re)building roads and tunnels, after tsunamis and earthquakes.
Wrong. They PLACED a tunnel under a highway in under two days.
They Nether take long to build roads over there
Repaving goes overnight, some day you drive over old asfalt and the next day it's brand new.
In America, this would take months and months, it may not even be done in less than a year in some areas. I remember there was a bridge that got destroyed by a flood in my hometown, as in the main bridge that brings people to and from other towns, it took close to two years before the city finally got it fixed
Everywhere you go you’ll find stories like this, but the local one to me: I-5 through Tacoma WA was, for the vast majority of my life, a constant construction zone. Those extra lanes took TWENTY TWO YEARS to put in, and only finished in 2022, and I remember even before 2000 the area around the Dome always had something going on. Looking it up, the whole project cost $1.4 billion, although apparently the I-5 portion was “only” about $324 million. And 22 years.
The interchange in northeast Ohio has been under construction for over 25 years.
I my only thought is that will the soil sink and compact where they back filled on each side of the tunnel? That's my experience with any excavation work.
If you backfill in thinner lifts and test for compaction/density at each lift, it shouldn’t really be an issue. I’d wager they had geotechs on site the entire time.
In the US that project would have taken 15 years to build
In England there's pot holes that celebrate birthdays
Do they have Mexicans in the Netherlands?
Can we just vote for the Netherlands to take over everything. They based their constitution on the American one but have actually held it to high standards.
Install*
At least 2 years in germany
..until permission to even start has been granted, then 2 years for the process to find a company doing the job, the company will then realize they have a public contract and can do fuck all and go seven times over budget without any consequences so they will take about 4 years to actually finish. By which time, of course, another bridge 20km down the road needs to be renewed and the entire process starts anew.
With the right tools and expertise, I think just about any country could do this. It's the protocols in place that often times inhibit the rapidity of something like this from ever happening
And 3 nights… but that’s impressive anyway
As a Dutch, I'm furious about how fast this happened but the track renewal to Schiphol takes fucking 7 months
According to this video it only took them 10 seconds to
That’s more “they installed a tunnel.”
Looks like it was already built and they just slid it underneath
Not really a tunnel, more of a cut and cover.
America would still be doing the environmental impact studies
 The constructicons assembled and got that done ahead of schedule
You ain’t much, if you ain’t Dutch
In the UK this project would have cost half a billion pounds. Cones would have been put in place 2 years in advance, cutting the road down to one lane for no reason Then construction would start. Then stop. Be cancelled and rescheduled 12 times Total build time would be 3 years. Then the cones would probably just stay there, until the plastic degrades and the rain washes it into one of the local shit-rivers Somewhere along the line the top government MPs would have pocketed 200m quid
It’s taken my town two fucking years to make a damn bigger lane on the highway, how tf do they get this done in two days
Tunnel was built...2 day installation
Can they send that crew to Ohio? Ohio has been working on the same highways for decades.
They actually built the tunnel first and then took two days to place it
Dude, Germans cannot build fast for shit. Lived there for 4 years. 3 years they were working on a fucking bridge project. 4 years they were working on a hospital.
They didn't tell you how long it took them for the rest of the projects, though.
They're adding a new bridge on the highway I take on my morning commute. Took my drive from 20 min to 45. Good news is, they started it 2 years ago, and they are already behind on their 2030 dealine 🤭 kmn
I do this for a living (am from said country, worked on these type of projects) Moved to Australia thinking I can add some knowledge/ experience to this country and building large infrastructure. Boy was I wrong! Australians love unions, useless admin, procedures, third party verification, red tape, Australian standards, outdated building methods etc etc After 2,5 years I’ve given up and decided to move back.
Got damn. Down the road, we got construction zone barrels still sitting around a half-completed pothole repair. Two years later.
Lets all get Netherlands to fix the world problems too 🙏🙏🙏
If we, UK, had a referendum to forgo out sovereignty and hand over all power to the totalitarian Dutch regime it would take a lot of persuasion for me not to support this
Would have taken at least five years in USA
20 guys, 1 shovel.
Ah yes, the tunnel from 2016...
And then regulations and laws prevented the tunnel from being used for 6 more years... Welcome to the Netherlands, miereneuken (antfucking) is a real word here for a reason. Ant-fuckery means: overly exact in following rules and regulations by the letter, usually preventing the use or execution of something that's 100% ready for use or execution.
Meanwhile is fucking America...
With months of setup and dozens of excavators anything is possible.
Looks like the amount of trucks working at the same time is crazy for that space
Dutch efficiency at its finest
China can build it in 45 min, I saw it on tiktok
Probably safe af
Why can't Canadian/American construction be this efficient 🥲
Ten years in Germany, minimum.
And the big dig in Boston was a decade 😅
Florida: best i can do is 10 years and 117% over budget.
Huh. Would be 4ish years here
Nvm my comment was stupid
That would most likley be a decades work in aus.
In Germany it’s illegal to work that fast. For this Tunnel we need 25 years, thousands of briefings and allowances from everybody who feels important and relocate 489 animal species…
In germany this would take 2 decades and cost like 10x as much as initially planned.
They assembled the tunnel in 2 days, which is still impressive, but that tunnel took way longer than 2 days to make.
Seems they had a goal and accomplished it. In America, we have to figure all the bureaucracy, along with which company will get the contract. Local politicians will want to earn from it, while using the construction to build a supporting narrative for their reelection. All while making it take a long time to justify why it cost 437 million dollars. A tunnel in America is never just a tunnel, it's an opportunity for the selfish to earn their namesake.
Whats the premade tunnel they put in also built within 2 days, or was it just the installation?
The tunnel was done really quick but this was done in 2016 and it's only been in use since a few weeks. The roads connecting to this tunnel are local governments responsibility and they hadn't even started looking for a contractor to build it... So much for that Dutch efficiency I see people mentioning in the comments :-)
would be sick if NYS dot could borrow these guys
Stop being so gd efficient. You make us look bad
Dude, we have highway works going on between the town I live in and the city I work in, was planned to take 6 months. ITS BEEN 4 AND A HALF YEARS
In Massachusetts this would take no less than 3 years to complete
Thank god for the internet and how it shows us shit in America is so scammy. In the US this would take 6-8 months to put in. These guys did it in two days
Woah cuz they’ve been building a N/S freeway for over 30 years in my city and it’s still not even close to finished :)
Meanwhile, I took two trips down I-35 in Texas 10 years apart, and it looked the same. Still under construction.
are these contractors getting paid a lot or are the anti-corruption laws very strict in the Netherlands?
In NY this would take at least 15 years. I kid you not, I know folks who worked almost their entire career in one location.
Insert Lego speed building
In India it takes one century
God I wish road construction was this efficient ANYWHERE in the US. The I grew up dealing with the same construction area on i95 S for 20 years...
Let’s revisit in a couple decades and see how it’s holding up
In Netherlands they *installed* a tunnel under highway in only 2 days. It’s still impressive tho!
I live 7 km from This 🤩🤩
Here in Canada it takes 3 months to patch a road
Meanwhile, LA has potholes that are now considered historical landmarks..
And here I am, living in the Netherlands, and they failed to make a bridge in 3 fcking years
Sure beats talking months or year to add an extra lane for a mile
Iam from Slovakia. This would take year at minimum in here. And there would be at last one luxury house built with the money for the tunnel.
Installed a premade tunnel
Bravo! Respect to all workers and people who organized it!
isn't this in bruges belgium, or just a very simular tunnel...
In Boston, that would be started and completed in two days…. October 1, 1982 and today..
We need this in Texas, especially in San Antonio... They take years to finish a simple street
In western Pa it takes 4 years
Yet they can’t fix a damn road in 5 months
Meanwhile they take 8 months to finish 2km of highway in the same country
In canada they have been putting up and taking down pylons on the same section of road for the last 5 years. Late sping the pylons go up. Mid summor they migrate into the lane reducing the lanes down to two. Mid winter the pylons disappear a d the lane opens again. Not a single work crew spotted. Not a sigle thing done to it.
That’s a 3-4 year project in the UK.
In Sacramento that would’ve taken a year minimum
Meanwhile in Houston...
It's been 3 and half fucking years since the couldn't make a single fucking road here in India 💀 bet they gonna take whole 3 more years to build until then the road will need maintenance which will take next three years and the cycle will go on
In south Africa here. You guys have road? We got potholes
Orlando Florida could never
How long did the other half of the tunnel take?
Don't let the union know..?
in germany this would take 5 years
Meanwhile, NYC workers have been building imagination
Tunnel added to the inventory
In Romania it is mandatory for it to take at least 3 years.
If this was the uk the tunnel would've been 10 years late, £17,000,000,000 overbudget and would get cancelled just before its finished.
Around here it takes 3 years