Tuesday, November 8, 2011

Another Train to Nowhere

Recently, I took issue with the tripling of cost and multi-decade timeline for a fast rail project to connect the big cities in California.  I was aghast at the cost overruns before the first shovel of dirt had been dug.

Now I find that San Francisco, also known as Pyongyang on the Bay, has a much smaller project that costs more per yard than anything I've ever heard of. But I promise to discuss it rationally and calmly.

San Francisco is trying to dig a two mile subway tunnel.  The citizenry of San Fransisco approved the project in 2003, with an expected price tag of about $650 million.  That's right, they expected it to cost over $300 million a mile to put in a new subway line.

Deep breath.  Remember, rational and calm

But now in 2011, eight years later, they've finally started digging, and they hope to start tunneling next year and be done by 2018 with an expected price tag of $1.6 billion.

Deep breath. Come on, DaddyBear, you can do this.

Most of that money is expected to come from the federal government, or as I like to call it, my taxes.

Deep breath.

OK, forget rational and calm.  Are you freaking kidding me?  These bluntskulls want to put a two mile subway tunnel into a city known for shaking itself to the ground and setting itself on fire, at a cost of billions of dollars and over a decade of time?  And you want me and the rest of the people in the country who pay taxes to foot the bill?  Have you all lost your ever loving, patchouli smelling, Prius driving minds?

Did something happen to the water in California over the past few decades?  Did they start using lead pipes to bring in water the way that Rome did, and this is the pathetic result?  Is this what you get when all the hippies at Haight-Ashbury take too much bad acid and then procreate?

You know, someday I hope to wake up and find that all the stupid people have pulled a lemming and walked into the surf all at once.  But it's a forlorn hope.  The stupid people wouldn't want to see me that happy.

3 comments:

Old NFO said...

Hopefully, they will all get trapped in the tunnel... sigh...

The Suburban Ninja said...

Why would people in Ohio care if San Francisco has a freakin' subway system? Cincinnati has tried and failed many times. To use my taxes to pay for something I'll never use, however, just cements the idiocy.

Ruth said...

Having grown up in the Boston area, watching the Big Dig, I cringe whenever I see someone quoted as saying "so we'll tunnel...." or some such. I know there are places where its been done well (right? there are, right? *cringes*) but so many of the new plans look to be as destined to work as well as the Big Dig.

Locally "they" keep saying they want to tunnel I81 under Syracuse (and to be fair the current structure needs to be taken care of FAST before it falls apart under a car or two one day) and every time it hits the news I end up yelling at the TV. I've tried interjecting facts into the discussions on it, and get ignored every time.

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