Remember that California overpass that collapsed in a fiery crash last month? It’s open again, ostensibly at the same level of quality as the original overpass, done so early that it earned the contractor a $5M bonus on top of the paltry $867k bid that got them the job. The $200k schedule bonus/penalty was a brilliant idea on the part of Caltrans.
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In Los Angeles, the Northridge earthquake destroyed an even more critical chunk of California freeway when an overpass collapsed onto Venice Boulevard. Traffic was, like, BIBLICAL bad.
The same contractor, C. C. Myers, got the repair job by bidding an impossibly aggressive schedule. They ended up making something like 20 million in bonuses. But they earned it, by God. 24-hour shifts, massive helicopters carrying heavy equipment over the gridlock… The people of L.A. were deeply grateful, and nobody complained about the money.
And the best thing about California’s Highway repair jobs is they aren’t STUPID about it. Natural and man made disasters aside- They do the repairs on the graveyard shift when it won’t massively screw up traffic.
Well, but… they might rush and do crappy work? Big incentives for finishing early make me nervous.