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America's Most Urgent Infrastructure: Inside the Hudson Tunnel Project
31 Plays18 days ago
Join Jason and Carlos in this episode of The Off Site podcast as they explore three key construction industry topics:
🚇 Hudson Tunnel Project: Examining America's most urgent infrastructure project - the $16 billion connection between New Jersey and New York, and the engineering challenges of building beneath the Hudson River.
💰 Tech Vendor Pricing: Debating whether contractors should be wary of construction technology vendors offering suspiciously low prices, and the trade-offs between innovation and stability.
🏟️ Brisbane Olympics 2032: Analyzing Queensland's newly unveiled Olympic delivery plan and the decision to spread venues across multiple cities throughout the state.
Key Timestamps:
00:00 - Intro
03:58 - Hudson Tunnel Project
15:06 - Construction Tech Pricing
28:54 - Brisbane Olympics 2032
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Transcript
The Aging Tunnel Dilemma
00:00:00
Speaker
grand scheme of a tunnel. So it was built in 1910, right? And someone somewhere said this tunnel that was built in 1910 is at the end of his life in 2030. twenty thirty And we're at 2025 and they're still using it is quite wild. Like you're in like the last 5% or whatever that works out to be of its operational life.
00:00:20
Speaker
Going back to our younger selves, were you a crammer before exams? Yes. Yeah. This is your spirit animal then. This is your spirit project. Yeah. It makes it exciting. Like a 48 hour dissertation, right?
00:00:34
Speaker
get ways to it Can we get this tunnel built before we have catastrophic failure of the other one? Ooh, let's find out. Join us next time.
00:00:49
Speaker
Welcome back to the Offsite Podcast. I'm Jason Lansini, joining from Germany with about seven hours sleep, joined once again by Carlos Cavallo from London. And Carlos, you're running on what, two, three hours sleep?
00:01:04
Speaker
Yeah, just downing my coffee at the moment to get pumped up for this. The parties are wild in London is the takeaway message off the off the top. ki Kids are totally worth it for anyone. Yeah, yeah, definitely, definitely.
00:01:18
Speaker
It'll be funny if if he listens to this in the future. Yeah, yeah, yeah. I ah was going to say in the future when I look old and I have no hair, but too late.
00:01:30
Speaker
All right, we've got three things we're going to dive into today, all of which are really interesting and were fun
Podcast Agenda Overview
00:01:37
Speaker
to research. So first, we're looking at America's most urgent infrastructure project, the Hudson Tunnel, which is connecting New Jersey and New York.
00:01:45
Speaker
We're going to dive into a provocative and entertaining question from LinkedIn about should contractors be concerned when tech vendors offer suspiciously low prices? And then at least interesting to one person that either hosts or listens to the podcast is Brisbane in Australia, which has recently released its Olympic delivery plan with major changes to the ah venue and the
Hudson Tunnel's Urgent Situation
00:02:10
Speaker
original strategy. So we'll dive straight into that. Carlos, how are you feeling, mate?
00:02:14
Speaker
Ready to dive into some detail? Yeah, absolutely. I was in a similar spot to you yesterday with a lack of sleep due to younger ones. But last night i got I got my required six and a half.
00:02:28
Speaker
Feeling great. really appreciate the nights where you get like unbroken sleep. Oh, i'd say that's you would trade everything for that, I think. Yeah. Yeah, need to do a few more um yeah international site tours ah just to get those two nights in a hotel.
00:02:45
Speaker
Two nights in a hotel. Yeah, like the ideal night out for me is ah a night away in a hotel, ah two melatonin tablets, and blackout curtains.
00:02:58
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Maybe we'll go see the hus Hudson River. That's ah that's a solid. Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a good one. Yeah, yeah. 100%. You know, they always say like, what would you go and tell your younger self anything?
00:03:11
Speaker
um I'd go back and tell my like 18 year old self, like enjoy, enjoy the sleep, dude. Yeah. I think though, I don't think I could have slept much more than I did back then.
00:03:24
Speaker
But um, took it for granted. Yeah, definitely. I didn't appreciate it. That's for sure. Were you a like sleep in till midday type of person? early teens i did early teens i never i never i was never i was always up like relatively early i've never had the was envy really they could do the like yeah the big sleep 12 to 14 hours sleeps were routine get out of here really yeah yeah 100 it's good i've probably got some yeah exactly i've probably i've probably got some development issues as a result
00:03:55
Speaker
Yeah, yeah. Those are the days. Cool. Shall we dive in off the top? Hudson Tunnel. so for some background, beneath the Hudson River in the US lies what ah many consider America's most critical infrastructure vulnerability.
00:04:11
Speaker
um This topic is something that we are diving into because our team um that write the offsite a newsletter, they have just released a ah deep dive on this project and I found it super interesting to dive into.
00:04:26
Speaker
For background, the North River Tunnel, which was built in 1910, serves as the only rail connection between New Jersey and New York's Penn Station. It handles about 450 trains and 200,000 passengers daily.
00:04:41
Speaker
um Since 2012, when Hurricane Sandy flooded it with salt water, the tunnel has been gradually deteriorating at an increasingly alarming pace, basically.
00:04:53
Speaker
And so after what feels like a ridiculously long time of proposals, cancellations and politics, like any infrastructure project, there is a $16 billion dollar Hudson Tunnel project that has finally secured full funding and has broken ground. Effectively, the project's going to construct construct a new two-track tunnel under the Hudson.
00:05:15
Speaker
Then it will also rehabilitate the existing tunnel and connect Penn Station via the Hudson Yards development. So three sections in one. Carlos, given ah given that background of the time between the reason this is urgent because of this hurricane in 2012 to now, any thoughts on...
00:05:36
Speaker
How much of this really is time Yeah. yeah I think yeah just to reiterate the, I guess, how needed it is, irrespective of the actual damage that's happening and the need to, I guess, secure this um rail connection.
00:05:52
Speaker
At the moment, they only have these single track tubes. Mm-hmm. They're quite limited in terms of capacity, but every time one of those two tubes effectively is stopped because of damage or like, I guess, leakage by managing one tube, which is a, you can imagine like a one in one out policy, the yeah capacity goes down by 75%. So it's, it's a massive issue when they lose one of those. so Yeah. Very much needed. And obviously it's New York, you'd expect to pretty modern sophisticated infrastructure. And ah they've had like 85 occurrences of that happening in the last, I can't remember, like handful of years. Like it's it's that 75% reduction that happens is a not insignificant frequency.
00:06:35
Speaker
So yeah. Yeah, it's ah there's that bit that's tying to the urgency. But I think the other bit that ties in the urgency is that there is a report that said if it goes beyond 2030 without rehabilitation, it's at risk of catastrophic failure.
00:06:52
Speaker
In the grand scheme of a tunnel, so it was built in 1910, right? And someone somewhere said this tunnel that was built in 1910 is at the end of his life in 2030. twenty thirty And we're at 2025 and they're still using it is quite wild. Like you're in like the last 5% or whatever that works out to be of its operational life.
00:07:12
Speaker
Going back to our younger selves, were you a crammer before exams? Yes. be Yeah. This is your spirit animal then. This is your spirit project. Yeah. It makes it exciting. Like a 48 hour dissertation, right?
00:07:26
Speaker
can ways to it Can we get this tunnel built before we have catastrophic failure of the other one? Ooh, let's find out. Join us join us next time.
Funding and Construction Challenges
00:07:35
Speaker
Yeah, but it's is wild that it's they're like, oh, yeah, we we probably have five more years, so let's keep passing trains filled with passengers through these tunnels um for now.
00:07:46
Speaker
I think it's like the... It is, in even though I'm joking, it is kind of like the story of all political ah things that happen. like It's like the same as climate change, right? It's like until you've got...
00:07:58
Speaker
an impending catastrophic failure or doomsday event, people will just kind of be like, maybe we should look at it from another angle or should we delay it and investigate it another way?
00:08:09
Speaker
Yeah, squeeze every last bit of value out of that. Yeah. ah Interestingly, the project is almost fully funded 12 out of the 16 billion from federal funding. The reason for that, I'm guessing is that some very, very large percentage of the US GDP basically travels through this Northeast corridor and that it's part of.
00:08:32
Speaker
So yeah, a big contribution from from federal federal government there. Yeah, definitely. And there's a huge, obviously, push on ramping up infrastructure and spend in the US at the moment. So yeah, all systems go on that front. um From a scope point of view, yeah they've broken it up into sort of classic packages that you would expect. They've got contractors running tunnels, which is either the new tunnel or I guess the the refurb of the existing.
00:09:01
Speaker
They've got, obviously, you've got the portals. and you've got some sort of onshore works around those areas. So kind of a classic split of contracts that you would expect from a project like this. um I went a little bit deep on ground stabilization. um Okay, cool.
00:09:17
Speaker
Mostly because it's something I know nothing about. That's why you didn't sleep last night. It's nothing to do with the... I was up looking at... I was engrossed. yeah um So there was a, yeah, it's um the bottom of the Hudson River is like a very, I guess, soft, someone described it as chocolate pudding. So a very soft, um like bed to the river.
00:09:43
Speaker
For me, it seemed like a very difficult task to stabilize ground that's under quite a significant river. Like it's not a small, small one. Like how do they actually go about doing it? ah What are they actually trying to do? Because the TBMs are launched onshore.
00:09:58
Speaker
So you would assume they just go deep enough that they're not in the super unstable ground. yeah But a couple of potential methods look quite interesting. So um have you ever come across ground freezing before?
00:10:09
Speaker
I've heard of it before. I've never been on a project that has used it. Yeah, really interesting. So they basically, they drill pipes through the ground huh and then, and it can take weeks to months for the process to actually complete, but then they funnel through effectively like a coolant, in some cases, liquid nitrogen, which then actually freezes the ground around you.
00:10:32
Speaker
So the TBM can then pass through and cut through something that's solid rather than what is almost liquid. ah Okay, so stabilization for the process of getting a TBM. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, okay. Because I was thinking they the classic methods will be like drilled or um driven piles, and you would presumably do that around the path of the TBM because you don't want the TBM crashing through everything that you you've put into the ground, but that must be quite difficult to do under a huge river.
00:11:03
Speaker
using my very limited knowledge in this space. But yeah, the freezing's pretty cool. Yeah, why not freeze something to then cut through? Um, yeah why not? thiss There's, there's a, there's an interesting, yeah. So there's a package that has let inside of the project is, uh, 200 and almost a $300 million, ah dollar effort, um, to basically do ground stabilization, uh, which was awarded, i think back in 2024. So this scope is underway.
00:11:36
Speaker
um yeah. I was the company. Yeah. Um, I was, I looked into, from what I understand, they're basically two phases to the process where they're effectively piloting ah different stabilization methods.
00:11:53
Speaker
um So I think there's also, i read that there's also a trial happening with deep soil mixing as ah as a method where they're effectively piloting building like a ah temporary cofferdam to dewater. And then they're they're doing a kind of, you you take existing soil, mix it with cement and water and put it back in, um which I think is a trial that is happening. It's happening now as far as I can as i can tell. So I don't know if it's like in addition to
00:12:28
Speaker
the the the Mr. Freeze approach? or Yeah, sensation of mischief the Mr. Freeze approach definitely isn't something that's happening. It was one of the sort of there's a bunch of methods we can go for.
00:12:41
Speaker
um I just got into a ah ah hole in that one because it looked pretty interesting. um It feels like it would be pretty hard to freeze the, well, the ground is attached to a whole bunch of water.
00:12:52
Speaker
So I'd imagine it constantly wants to not be frozen. I guess I'd get, it feels like a lot of energy to kind of freeze. Yeah. yeah Yeah. Yeah. and Quite a distance.
00:13:05
Speaker
Weak's Marine is a subsidiary of Kiewit, by the way. So um yeah. Yeah. and Yeah. am um So the yeah I think the first package released was to do with ah utilities diversions. That started late 23, quite a while back with an expected completion date this year.
00:13:23
Speaker
You've got the Hudson Yards concrete, I guess, factory being built as of late due to finish next year um I haven't looked into the details of that, but the potentially segments for the tunnels itself. We've got the stabilization package that we just mentioned. We've got the actual tunnel packages. I'm going to so assume this is pronounced Siobhan.
00:13:45
Speaker
Siobhan Gagardo slay JV. I'll let you roll. I'll let you roll but it looks Italian to me, which would make it a Schiavone. Schiavone. Yeah, okay. It would be a hard C if it's a CH. I think Schiavone, but I'm somewhat more correct. Yeah, okay.
00:14:04
Speaker
Yeah, so that's the the Palisades Tunnel. The Manhattan Tunnel is Frontier Kemper, Tudor Perini that we've mentioned before. um And then there is the Hudson River tunnel project, which is actually not let yet.
00:14:17
Speaker
um But there's a short list contractors like Skanska. Skanska, Dregados, ah FCC. Yeah, okay. So basically big players. The classic, yeah, tunneling contractors.
00:14:31
Speaker
so ah So yeah, massive programmer works kind of just starting to ramp up at the moment. And then once that main tunnel package gets awarded, it'll be in full swing.
Tech Vendor Pricing Debate
00:14:41
Speaker
Yep. Certainly one to watch. And certainly an interesting project if i was thinking about where I might want to go if I was thinking about doing a project overseas at some point.
00:14:51
Speaker
Yeah. Be a lot to learn. That better, really. So yeah, cool project. And shout out to the team at Apex that pulled together the ah the offsite a newsletter this week. A really good read on the topic. Cool, should we move on Topic number two is ah it from a LinkedIn post that we were talking about offline.
00:15:13
Speaker
To give some context, I guess in this recent LinkedIn post, it was basically sparked a discussion around pricing of construction technology, um how contractors should view construction technology companies and and their pricing.
00:15:28
Speaker
i I'll kind of pricey or summarize the post. the post The gist of it is that ah the question is, should contractors care about the profitability ah and pricing of um the vendors that they ah engage?
00:15:46
Speaker
The argument basically made out that if you choose your vendors based on price, as a construction contractor you may basically choose the one that is most likely to go out of business and the results of that is effectively that they you've you know you might have data captured or workflows that that you no longer have a tool for basically at risk of like uh some element of disarray inside the organization That then triggered like a follow on post from someone else, which ah started to vent their frustrations about how so many construction software companies price too cheaply. And in fact, some of them give away you know free trials or very low pricing at kind of introductory rates. You might even class it as like a loss leader in order to get start working with with contractors.
00:16:39
Speaker
I'll leave it there because they they're actually are kind of two different topics, even though the posts kind of related to each other. um What are your thoughts on the idea of like, how should contractors think about pricing and profitability of the software vendors?
00:16:53
Speaker
And then whether you want to touch the other topic of ah giving away free trials or very low pricing for introductory rates ah is a good or a bad thing.
00:17:04
Speaker
Yeah, it's um this there's obviously this constant trade-off. Like if you put yourself in the shoes of the general contractor or main contractor, you're going to be thinking about the trade-off between like innovation and and stability.
00:17:16
Speaker
If you always err on the side of stability, like there's probably an argument to say the big software vendors are not innovating at pace as a pool of startups who have the freedom and agility to go and do things and experiment and sort of push the boundaries.
00:17:33
Speaker
um The big players, they have their foot in the market, they've got control and they're probably very focused on sort of slowly building out the big set of tools that are well used and distributed. So there's that sort of immediate sort of choice.
00:17:48
Speaker
If we think about the, for the smaller vendors or organizations looking to penetrate these markets, You are up against people that have pretty strong control over their market.
00:17:59
Speaker
They are probably selling suites of tools. and Within those suites of tools, there will be other tools that they produce and are sort of experimenting with that probably throw them in for free with their own version of free tools without any sort of revenue being generated, which forces contractors to go, ah, well, we're kind of already paying for these. So let's try and make it work. because there's no additional cost to the business is probably the view of the like head office IT t procurement teams.
00:18:26
Speaker
Whereas if you speak to site, they probably just want what's cheapest and and best for them. So you've got lots of conflicting views. There's gives and takes at every side of the sort of coin.
00:18:36
Speaker
But ultimately, it comes down to how do you really grab those early adopters with as fewer hurdles as possible? So the idea that you're coming in with low or no cost solutions is It's hard to break away from why that is a valid method to capture some sort of market to then prove that your tool works or provides value to then use that as just like a jumping off point. is right Is or isn't, sorry, I wasn't was sure if I followed.
00:19:04
Speaker
It is. So yeah, you're like, you you would say it's a from the, to, I guess to summarize from the contractor, from the the software company's perspective, you would say it's a valid ah strategy. Yeah. 100%. Yeah. And then from the contractor side, how would you, would you go ah be wary or, uh,
00:19:24
Speaker
yeah Well, if we just think through the the reality of um small vendor targeting, say, a project or um small court cohort of individuals, you want to effectively start to get eyes and some sort of traction before you have to deal with the big IT t teams that will naturally block a new startup because they don't have certifications or they don't have... like there's other tools they've already purchased and there's, you're then doubling down on cost and there's all sorts of factors at play. So to get that early recognition or, um, Traction of validation. So like, like, yeah, exactly. That's I definitely, so you're definitely, uh, yeah. Tripling down into like valid from the software company's perspective. How would you look at it if you're the contractor though?
00:20:07
Speaker
It depends who you are within the contractor, right? Um, yeah. you want a risk-free punt on something. So they, are classic risk-free punt. Yeah. um The all, the all upside, no downside option.
00:20:22
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. It's yeah. I guess from a from an adoption point of view, if you're the contractor, you're probably aware of, I guess, undermining products that you're paying for. So you've already got this like control problem when projects are just using tools all over the place and, and,
00:20:42
Speaker
yeah, you're trying to probably think about things from an operational point of view of like processes, ah controls, reporting and everything that you want to hit from the top. Let let me give, i've got i've got I've got thoughts and opinions on the topic. So I i guess I'll reveal what i what I think and then we can can go back and forth on There's basically two parts to it. One is the question of like, should contractors care about the profitability of their vendors?
00:21:06
Speaker
The second is, is it a good idea to use kind of low or cheap pricing to to establish relationships with contractors? On the first point, I think there's some like fundamental truths that we ah we can probably all acknowledge.
00:21:23
Speaker
One is that like construction and contracting is a ah low margin, high risk business. So margins are thin, price matters, general contractors buy almost all the things that they buy based price, especially in infrastructure or major civil infrastructure.
00:21:41
Speaker
ah yeah And I've seen some analysis that kind of says that there's a little bit more relationship bit involved as you go kind of like down into the smaller projects. So contractors have muscle memory of choosing lowest cost vendor for anything.
00:21:56
Speaker
I think it's also true that contractors don't want to buy something that's going to go out of business. ah It is ah like a loss of faith in the organization because you've probably done a whole bunch of operational change.
00:22:08
Speaker
You have the risk of your data gets captured in this solution that you know you don't know if they're going to close abruptly or in an organized manner. And then you've got the job of like, what do we do in place of this thing from that day forward?
00:22:21
Speaker
I think it's also true that a lot of the innovation and impact is coming from smaller companies ah before it's going to the bigger companies. So as you kind of pointed at the start, there is some trade off there.
00:22:32
Speaker
I think it's also true that bigger companies equal bigger prices. So you you're to a degree paying for the, I guess, stability piece. I think if I looked at it from the contractor's perspective, I'd be thinking about what are the risks ah and benefits.
00:22:47
Speaker
And one of the biggest risks I'd be thinking about, and we talk to contractors about this all the time, is they're very conscious of ah big software vendor lock-in. you As you kind of pointed out, we've got some free tool or some...
00:23:03
Speaker
a tool that is inside of a suite of tools or some, ah you know, inside of the suite I can use or I can purchase from this big company ah vendor. If you make that decision repeatedly to buy the next tool within that set, that one suite of the the, one of the big vendors, you're effectively becoming like a captured customer because every incremental one that you add, it's harder to get out of that thing.
00:23:27
Speaker
And you have no control over what pricing does in the future. I got phone calls from all sorts of people, I think a year and a half ago when one of the big construction management platforms decided to up their prices by 400% for that one company. Not to mention the impact on the teams for being forced to use inferior tools and the cost of that.
00:23:49
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. um But if I look at it at like an executive level of the company, I'm thinking about like big yeah big vendor lock-in risk is one of the things that comes up a lot. And then you kind of have to do this risk assessment of like, what happens if they do shut down?
00:24:03
Speaker
You know, I don't think all workflows or tools or processes inside of a company are created equally. If it's like how you pay your supply chain, the answer to what happened if it did shut down the vendor that you're using is a totally different answer to some other workflow.
00:24:19
Speaker
So I think there's like some cost benefit risk thing that you kind of take into play. And so I would say that if I was the contractor, i would i would definitely be wary of ah big vendor lock-in.
00:24:34
Speaker
I would think about... ah the risk of going with a smaller vendor through the eyes of like, is the reason I'm choosing them or my team want to choose them because they're doing something unique that delivers us some value?
00:24:47
Speaker
Because if the answer is yes, there's probably value for other contractors that look like us in the industry, which probably means that vendor will continue to grow and be successful and be in business.
00:24:59
Speaker
On the other side, are we choosing this vendor because it does the thing that something else does, but it's cheaper? ah Like it's the cheaper way to do whatever workflow that already exists in some other platform.
00:25:11
Speaker
Then I'd have a little bit of alarm bells ringing because at that point there, if the only differentiation is price, then there is the risk that that kind that software vendor doesn't last, goes out of the business, whatever.
00:25:25
Speaker
Contractors should be wary of both sides, going with the small vendor and it not existing in the future, but also making every decision to avoid that takes you down the path of being a captured customer of big vendor.
00:25:38
Speaker
On the separate topic of whether or not construction software companies should have low introductory pricing for pilots or ah for small teams or whatever, I think that other social post is just having a whinge.
00:25:51
Speaker
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. ah Tell us what you really think comment would have gone down well, but I did leave that one. ah Yeah. The um also the first one, it, in terms of like, you should go for profitable companies. That is a bit of a silly statement as well.
00:26:07
Speaker
Like Procore doesn't, doesn't produce profit, but they're a massive company, huge revenue. And you would, argue they're still stable and in inverted commas. um yeah But yeah, I do think it would be really interesting to understand how teams internally actually sort of evaluate the stability of a company because we know how in some cases little information they actually ask for in terms of financial checks,
00:26:31
Speaker
and until you're certain size or a public company there's not that much that you can actually find online in terms of yeah let's say revenue and aspects like that i definitely bet there's a they see a demo gay go okay cool this actually does offer like you say something that we we don't currently have we can see longevity because they get it there's definitely one side of that and the other there's the aura that or is the wrong word you try and generate that presence and the case studies and the logos to validate look we are working everywhere and that makes that decision process much easier um for any contractor to then sign up to a vendor. But yeah, it's an interesting one because like I think you mentioned the other day, what's what's the difference with one of the big vendors discontinuing a tool that's actually used by contractors? Is that as much of a disruption to of the vendors going under? Yeah, exactly. I didn't even bring that up. But like we've seen many examples where a big software vendor
00:27:26
Speaker
has some tool or part of their suite that doesn't get the they need. Which is used. Yeah, which is widely used. And ah because it's a big vendor, the cost based on maintaining that piece of software is way higher than it would have been for the small vendor.
00:27:40
Speaker
The progression and the way that they develop the tool is way slower than it would have been for the smaller vendor because they're fully focused on it. And there's actually like a higher risk that those some of those things can fail.
00:27:51
Speaker
And then they do that thing in big vendor, which is like constantly like making stuff like, oh this is part of our legacy platform or we've now bought some other thing and this thing is no longer going to be supported and you have to move to this next version. Like, yeah, you have you have all of that risk at the big vendor. So I think the real truth of it all is like, can can I see the piece of software or technology I'm going to use actually do a value in a unique way that I think the industry will ah increasingly adopt?
00:28:20
Speaker
Because whether that's inside a big company or a small company, that thing has potential to be around for the longest period of time. um Because, yeah, both small companies can go out of business and we see big companies, whether they're blue, orange, red, whatever the color is, are they They also discontinue their tools and you're in exactly the same spot, just paying a lot more for it.
00:28:45
Speaker
Exactly the same spot, but you paid a shitload of more money for it. Yeah, probably way harder to retrieve your data and everything else that you want the back end. Good LinkedIn post. right, final topic before we run out of time.
00:28:57
Speaker
i want I've been wanting to get to this as ah as a Brisbane... ah expat local well are you still live in brisbane and i don't know how to say that in another way after more than 1000 talking about the topic of uh waiting to the last minute to do a project uh if i call back to the the hudson tunnel one after more than 1340 days since winning the bid to host the 2032 olympic and paralympic games queensland ah has finally unveiled its official delivery plan.
00:29:28
Speaker
So we've used most of the time. They must have designed it. ah Design done, right? Perfect world. No, we've unveiled the delivery plan. This is how we're going to do it. It was released on the 25th of March 25, and it outlines the seven approximately $7 billion Australian dollars ah venue capital works program.
00:29:49
Speaker
um with the design to extend the benefit of the games throughout Queensland, so not just in the capital of Brisbane. And as a significant shift from earlier proposals, most controversially, the plan abandons the renovation of a 130-year-old historic Gabba Cricker Stadium ah in favour for a new 63,000-seat Brisbane stadium at a ah nearby location called Victoria Park.
Brisbane's Olympic Plan Scrutiny
00:30:15
Speaker
So a bunch of things to go on here. There's the waiting so long just to get the plan in place piece. There is also just as like an Olympics fan the idea of like an olympics in a city versus a broader region uh how do you feel about either of those topics in terms of the ah the timeline um if we compare it to london olympics um yes there's a a substantial difference in terms of construction starting after bid awarded um
00:30:46
Speaker
I think London was a couple of years and this is something like five. But the time left to actually build everything is the same, five years. So as long as they were super productive in this five-year planning phase, arguably you are they could be better...
00:31:02
Speaker
You're showing your hand of like, I like to cram. Five years, it's totally fine. Yeah, way more exciting. um But ah yeah, I actually i had no idea. i did This is me being naive to the news. But um yeah, I didn't realize this it was a multi-city or I guess a Queensland bid because there's a good couple of thousand miles between Brisbane and Cairns.
00:31:26
Speaker
Yeah, this is a bit that stood out to me. Like as a Brisbane local, I didn't think most of Brisbane knows it was a statewide games. I thought that the city had the games.
00:31:37
Speaker
It seems like a fundamentally different feeling of an Olympic games if the things are kind of not roughly co-located. i don't know how you feel about that.
00:31:48
Speaker
Yeah, because you often have like the London as an example, it's this like concentrated mixing pot of everything happening in one space, which you like will build excitement will make it feel like a big thing. Whereas this could almost feel like the sport that happens every weekend in different locations. It's like you're very much just going to sporting events without maybe the feeling of your i'd Obviously around the main stadium in Brisbane, you would expect it to have that feeling, but it would be odd to go one of the to one of the other cities to go and view a sporting event. it will I guess you lose that kind of buzz um and that feeling of excitement of of the games.
00:32:27
Speaker
Because you're just watching a game. Yeah, so there event there are venue investments happening in Brisbane, Rockhampton, Toowoomba, Townsville, and Cairns.
00:32:39
Speaker
And for those that don't know a small city Australian geography, it'll be something like saying Rome is hosting the games, but Rome is deciding to have one of the events in London.
00:32:51
Speaker
Yeah, it's actually the same distance, right? Yeah, yeah. ah They're a long way away. um Obviously, there's probably some benefit here of like spreading infrastructure investment across the state.
00:33:03
Speaker
That makes a lot of sense, but it feels like therefore the whole thing is about infrastructure investment and less about like the quality of the games. Yeah, there does seem to be, um obviously within this is a bunch of infrastructure upgrades, um which I'm going to assume is all primarily focused in Brisbane.
00:33:21
Speaker
um Just trying to find the list. I had it a second ago. While you dig that up, either way, i think we've talked about this in the past, and I think we'll it'll come up again and again as this ah this five years becomes four, three, two, et cetera.
00:33:37
Speaker
ah There is a definitely significant labor shortage. They need 30,000 to 40,000 workers until 2032. There is already, it's one of the most cost-inflated states to do construction at the moment.
00:33:50
Speaker
The Olympics are not known for delivering things on budget. So it'd be interesting to keep track of this $7 billion dollars budget that was announced ah to see where that actually ends up.
00:34:01
Speaker
As I'm saying this, I cannot find the list of infrastructure projects, but there was a bunch of railroad railroad ah schemes to support the games. So yeah, at least there's... Stay tuned next week. No, there there definitely is. So there's...
00:34:16
Speaker
ah There is um a there's a rail service between Brisbane and the Gold Coast, ah which is being built. And part of it, this is already being has already been um awarded. So there's a there's a Brisbane to Gold Coast Faster Rail.
00:34:32
Speaker
There is a Brisbane to Sunshine Coast Rail Link that is being built. There are Cairns Roads upgrades. ah There's stadium and venue upgrades ah across the state as well.
00:34:43
Speaker
There's like... At Toowoomba, they're turning the showgrounds into an equestrian center of excellence. Toowoomba is a good couple of hours drive inland from Brisbane. The attendees of these games are going to be traveling some significant ah distances. to ah Someone should do the carbon analysis and like the impact analysis on this you know basically what the cost of that's going to be.
00:35:08
Speaker
I think the airlines will be very, very happy. The islands will be happy. Yeah. If you've got a bunch of tickets and you're flying between these cities, they're be- A hundred percent. Yeah. ah So I think, yeah, takeaways is I think it's left very late in the day. Carlos thinks it's fine.
00:35:22
Speaker
Totally can do it. What's also
Conclusion and Listener Engagement
00:35:25
Speaker
interesting is, yeah, this venue that they're building in Victoria Park, that I think they're going to demolish the- Either way, they're demolishing the Gabba. I think it was locked in, didn't have enough space. So yeah, it'll be interesting to see how quickly these this a plan, including the budget, starts getting actually awarded because I think we're still in early design phase for a lot of this stuff. At least talking to contractors and where things are at.
00:35:48
Speaker
So ah yeah, super interesting. I know we're out of time, mate. do you want to read us out and wrap? Yep. Thank you very much, everyone, for tuning into today's show. If you did enjoy today's episode, please do think about liking this video or following us on your chosen podcast platform.
00:36:03
Speaker
We really appreciate your support and we'll see you all next week. Bye-bye. Bye-bye.