Some stuff from July 4th...
Forgot to post some pics from 4th of July. My wife and I took the ferry from Alameda to the City and I took some snapshots of the new eastern span. They're nearly at the part where they traverse the deepest part of the Bay...where the new suspension span will begin.
Here's a night shot of the more attractive western span.
Please don't get me started on the subject of the Bay Bridge...okay, can't help it. Here it goes:
IT IS AN EMBARRASSING JOKE that this bridge isn't built yet. I have a cousin that worked as a Caltrans engineer for over 15 years and now works as a big-wig administrator at their Sacramento headquarters. And you know what?...it's a frickin joke to them as well. It is an abject fiasco and I refer to two singular (gramatically incorrect, but bear with me) issues.
1. The bridge was 53 years old when the Loma Prieta earthquake hit. It will take over 25 years to rebuild just the Eastern Span...how is that NOT a completely unfunny joke.
2. Original bridge estimates have been re-adjusted nearly a dozen times from the original budget of 200 million to over FIVE BILLION!! How the F@%& did it go up by a factor of 25!
I'll tell you why...here's the punchline...NO BODY KNOWS. Caltrans blames cost over-runs on material costs, increased labor costs, and massive inflation in the cost of steel. The State blames it on poor estimate analysis, poor management, and problems with the legions of separate and distinct contractors. Pundits blame environmental groups, delays related to political handwringing re. the archetectural syle of the eastern suspension span, and poor choices in contractor bids. And the people blame everyone. This has gone on through four gubernatorial administrations and the finger pointing continues with NO ONE accepting responsibility and with NO ONE to blame.
My cousin believes that, ultimately, with a bureaucracy the size of the State and Caltrans, and particularly considering the time table, the several investigators and special commissions assigned to tease out the mess will NEVER discover who is at fault. AND, here is the crazy thing, at one point during the investigation, contractors were told to STOP building and that we would pay them 1,000,000 dollars a week to DO NOTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That there was 100 exclamation points...times that by 10,000 and that is the amount of dollars were talking about, PER WEEK. Another way to put it into perspective; our local school district has lost nearly its entire sports program and a huge portion of its AP courses because it could not bridge a 4.5 million dollar budget shortfall this past year...wow, that's what we paid these guys to do absolutely NOTHING for FOUR mother-f-king weeks...brilliant.
This issue enrages me on soo many levels. The latest outrage was the most recent estimate last January re. upping the estimate an extra BILLION dollars from just 12 months earlier! Why is no-one at least being FIRED, or apologizing for this mess, or telling us the truth?
If I hired a contractor to fix my roof and he told me it would cost 1000 dollars and will take 3 days...but then after 2 months the roof has yet to be fixed and he's now charging me 25,000 dollars...let me tell you, I'd press charges or sue or go to court or report the idiot or just plain beat him about the head and torso with a blunt object. But with this damn bridge, we (State Taxpayers) have NO recourse. We simply bend over and take it again and again and again.
One might argue, "so what if we're spending six billion dollars to build this bridge...we're paying people to work, and that's good". Anyone who uses this logic, please step forward so that I can shoot you in the head.
How about this. Tear down what you've built...no wait, that'll cost more money. Leave up what you've already built so the Peregrine Falcons can use is as a home and we'll simply live with the old piece of garbage cantilever eastern span. If it collapses during the next earthquake?...oh well, we'll fix it like we did last time.
I know this sounds completely absurd...but for me, its come to that. One thing is undeniable at this point; we're going to pay an estimated Six Billion dollars to build this bridge, and it will be the biggest waste of taxpayer money the world has ever seen in a civic project....gee, what a proud moment it will be for our State when we cut that ribbon to open the new span. No one is at fault, no on is to blame, no one was hurt, taxpayers will simply deal with it.
I'm in the business of managing resources...c'mon, I work in managed care and authorize and deny services EVERY day. I know about the allocation of resources and about how tax money is doled out to different accounts and funds and budgets and how all of it is very complex. But what it comes down to is that this is OUR tax dollars being spent, however you spin it; whether its money from the Feds, from the span commuters, from the Counties, or from special state assessments, or bond funds, or foreign bank loans, etc.
And in the end, we've been RIPPED OFF...
Here's a night shot of the more attractive western span.
Please don't get me started on the subject of the Bay Bridge...okay, can't help it. Here it goes:
IT IS AN EMBARRASSING JOKE that this bridge isn't built yet. I have a cousin that worked as a Caltrans engineer for over 15 years and now works as a big-wig administrator at their Sacramento headquarters. And you know what?...it's a frickin joke to them as well. It is an abject fiasco and I refer to two singular (gramatically incorrect, but bear with me) issues.
1. The bridge was 53 years old when the Loma Prieta earthquake hit. It will take over 25 years to rebuild just the Eastern Span...how is that NOT a completely unfunny joke.
2. Original bridge estimates have been re-adjusted nearly a dozen times from the original budget of 200 million to over FIVE BILLION!! How the F@%& did it go up by a factor of 25!
I'll tell you why...here's the punchline...NO BODY KNOWS. Caltrans blames cost over-runs on material costs, increased labor costs, and massive inflation in the cost of steel. The State blames it on poor estimate analysis, poor management, and problems with the legions of separate and distinct contractors. Pundits blame environmental groups, delays related to political handwringing re. the archetectural syle of the eastern suspension span, and poor choices in contractor bids. And the people blame everyone. This has gone on through four gubernatorial administrations and the finger pointing continues with NO ONE accepting responsibility and with NO ONE to blame.
My cousin believes that, ultimately, with a bureaucracy the size of the State and Caltrans, and particularly considering the time table, the several investigators and special commissions assigned to tease out the mess will NEVER discover who is at fault. AND, here is the crazy thing, at one point during the investigation, contractors were told to STOP building and that we would pay them 1,000,000 dollars a week to DO NOTHING!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
That there was 100 exclamation points...times that by 10,000 and that is the amount of dollars were talking about, PER WEEK. Another way to put it into perspective; our local school district has lost nearly its entire sports program and a huge portion of its AP courses because it could not bridge a 4.5 million dollar budget shortfall this past year...wow, that's what we paid these guys to do absolutely NOTHING for FOUR mother-f-king weeks...brilliant.
This issue enrages me on soo many levels. The latest outrage was the most recent estimate last January re. upping the estimate an extra BILLION dollars from just 12 months earlier! Why is no-one at least being FIRED, or apologizing for this mess, or telling us the truth?
If I hired a contractor to fix my roof and he told me it would cost 1000 dollars and will take 3 days...but then after 2 months the roof has yet to be fixed and he's now charging me 25,000 dollars...let me tell you, I'd press charges or sue or go to court or report the idiot or just plain beat him about the head and torso with a blunt object. But with this damn bridge, we (State Taxpayers) have NO recourse. We simply bend over and take it again and again and again.
One might argue, "so what if we're spending six billion dollars to build this bridge...we're paying people to work, and that's good". Anyone who uses this logic, please step forward so that I can shoot you in the head.
How about this. Tear down what you've built...no wait, that'll cost more money. Leave up what you've already built so the Peregrine Falcons can use is as a home and we'll simply live with the old piece of garbage cantilever eastern span. If it collapses during the next earthquake?...oh well, we'll fix it like we did last time.
I know this sounds completely absurd...but for me, its come to that. One thing is undeniable at this point; we're going to pay an estimated Six Billion dollars to build this bridge, and it will be the biggest waste of taxpayer money the world has ever seen in a civic project....gee, what a proud moment it will be for our State when we cut that ribbon to open the new span. No one is at fault, no on is to blame, no one was hurt, taxpayers will simply deal with it.
I'm in the business of managing resources...c'mon, I work in managed care and authorize and deny services EVERY day. I know about the allocation of resources and about how tax money is doled out to different accounts and funds and budgets and how all of it is very complex. But what it comes down to is that this is OUR tax dollars being spent, however you spin it; whether its money from the Feds, from the span commuters, from the Counties, or from special state assessments, or bond funds, or foreign bank loans, etc.
And in the end, we've been RIPPED OFF...
posted by supergoober at
12:15 PM
2 Comments:
You forgot to mention the bickering back and forth between Willie Brown and Jerry Brown over Treasure Island. That delayed things as well. It's typical CalTrans....when I worked for the Civil Engineering firm I worked for the spiel about a CalTrans involved job was "Add 10 years and 5 billion dollars". I mean there is truth to the old joke:
Q. What's orange and sleeps 6?
A. A CalTrans truck.
And we could have built a simpler bridge twice over by now and have money to pay school administrators and teachers. what a crock
-craftsman
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