Now this is funny. Another liberal city with a wunnerful infrastructure project that went awry. Dummies whine and miss the entire irony.
The link:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/10025986899The OP:
Liberal_in_LA (34,393 posts)
Seattle’s unbelievable transportation megaproject fustercluck
http://grist.org/cities/seattles-unbelievable-transportation-megaproject-fustercluck/
Seattle’s unbelievable transportation megaproject fustercluck
<Pic of a big hole in the ground with a backhoe at the bottom>
In short: There is no plan to resolve the dispute over cost overruns, which are ubiquitous on projects like this; at $4.2 billion, it’s the most expensive transportation project in state history. The tunnel will have no exits — no ingress or egress — throughout the entire downtown core (which makes the support of downtown businesses all the more mystifying). It won’t allow transit, only cars. It will be tolled, highly enough, by the state’s own estimates, to drive nearly half its traffic onto the aforementioned side streets. It will be a precarious engineering feat, the widest deep-bore tunnel in history, digging right between a) Puget Sound and b) the oldest part of Seattle, with vulnerable buildings and God-knows-what buried infrastructure. Also: Pollution. Climate change. It’s the 21st f’ing century. On and on. People said all this and more, in real time, to no avail.
One of the people fighting hardest against the tunnel? Visionary mayor Mike McGinn, who spent his term in office warning that exactly what is happening now was going to happen. For his efforts, Seattle voted him out of office. We prefer to hang on to our illusions.
Holden’s 2010 list of things that might go wrong with the project began with this:
1. The tunnel-boring machine gets stuck
Spoiler alert: The machine got stuck.
2. Our plan to deal with a broken machine is inadequate
Spoiler alert: Our plan to deal with the machine is a slow-motion fiasco.
3. The ground caves in
Spoiler alert: … Oh, you get it.
And away we go:
ismnotwasm (19,562 posts)
1. I voted against that idiocy.
It's shit-for-brains stupid and I'm pissed.
Well, well, well. A dummie admits it is stupid. What is next? Dogs and cats, living together?
easychoice (830 posts)
2. the people who will benefit from it are not paying for it.
Nobody wanted it,we knew it was going to end up like this.Because the Company doing it doesn't have the experience or the money or the expertise.My Bridge engineer buddies who work for the state were screaming their asses off about these clowns.
And since we are in it for a billion we aren't going to stop,say the project managers.
Buncha Jerks.
I kinda feel the same way about welfare. Sucks when the shoe is on your foot, don't it dummie? So how do YOU like it?
What follows is some dummies semi supporting it.
brooklynite (18,098 posts)
3. Bear in mind that most traffic on the Alaskan Way viaduct is not entering or exiting downtown...
...there's only one intermediate interchange, for southern traffic only. The goal of the tunnel was to tear down the viaduct, to improve the waterfront area and to prevent an earthquake collapse. The only practical alternative would have been to tear down the viaduct, build nothing and push ALL the traffic onto local streets.
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Response to brooklynite (Reply #3)
Sat Dec 20, 2014, 11:08 PM
Star Member uppityperson (90,148 posts)
4. A bit from the OP, wondering your thoughts. I thought so also, but then reading more, it doesn't
seem like that would happen.
Turns out most people simply can’t fathom getting rid of an urban highway. No matter how many examples to the contrary accumulate, people instinctively think that tearing down a highway means that all the same traffic will just spill onto side streets.
In the OP article is the link to this story about that not happening.
http://www.dmagazine.com/publications/d-magazine/2014/may/what-other-cities-learned-tearing-down-highways?single=1
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Response to uppityperson (Reply #4)
Sat Dec 20, 2014, 11:15 PM
Star Member brooklynite (18,098 posts)
6. I drive on West Street regularly. The difference between that and the West Side highway is...
...that I now have to stop for traffic lights.
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Response to uppityperson (Reply #4)
Sat Dec 20, 2014, 11:17 PM
Star Member ismnotwasm (19,562 posts)
7. To me that was the only viable alternative, aside from putting off the decision.
I hated, loathed, despised the tunnel idea, the viaduct was lovely to drive over, but worn out--a decent city thoroughfare was the best option.
But no-- we get a frigging tunnel going through landfill just blocks away from the old underground-- and not just the tourist trap
The Velveteen Ocelot (38,812 posts)
8. What could possibly go wrong? Sounds like just about everything.
I feel the same about liberal ideas, dummie.
Small bonfire. Might grow, might not.
