On 05/06/17 15:01, Rubberman92rubberman92@... [TramsDownUnder] wrote:

> One is led to the conclusion that service authorities are demanding

> upgrades to their systems paid for by the light rail. In fact, what

> should happen is that the service authorities get a bill for the excess

> cost over the price of "no dig" works.

>

> Do that once, and I'm sure they won't do it again.


A project in the US tried that one - with the local power company. Who
proved to have deeper pockets and better lawyers than the local
authority promoting the light rail, who in the end , ended up with court
costs AND the cost of building new infrastructure for the power company.

Part of the problem in Sydney is that the utilities have been
restructured, broken up, partially (some times wholly) privatized,
restructured again, outsourced, etc, etc that no one actually knows
what's down there any more and all the records have been lost several
restructures back.

And that's ignoring all the stuff that's found to be non compliant with
the so called standards as it appears to be no one job to check
standards are being complied with any more, so the builders take short
cuts 'cause they know no one will find out. At least not for a few years.

Where my wife works a whole pile of underground services drawings were
only saved because my wife thought they would assist her job in the
future so she grabbed them and hid them from a middle manager who was on
a 'get rid of all this old junk' rampage. She disobeyed a direct
instruction to 'throw that old rubbish out'.

I'm sure that instruction has been repeated many times across government
of all levels and in the utilities, public and private.