4 ms·

I was just thinking about this same thing with my city. We have a fabulous little downtown square and the parks department is proposing to shut down a portion o

I was just thinking about this same thing with my city. We have a fabulous little downtown square and the parks department is proposing to shut down a portion of a street by the square to make it pedestrian only. In doing so, it would be redeveloped into a "promenade". This portion of the street is 60' wide (including sidewalks) and 285' long. That's 17,100 sqft or just shy of 2/5 acre. The cost? $10-13mm! I can't believe that taking out the asphalt, replacing it with concrete, and then adding lighting and plants should cost that much. It's outrageous.

onlyrealcuzzo 6y ago
It doesn't cost that much. That's how much they're paying. In my hometown, the city spent $3M to make a single right-turn lane approximately 20-feet longer. This is a city that went from a population of 60k down to 15k. And the population is still contracting rapidly. There is no traffic, and there never will be. And worse, there is no income! And there's zero growth potential. Unsurprisingly, at least last year, it was the city with the highest municipal debt per capita. Combine that with the fact the HH income is very low, and the population is shrinking, and it's a disaster. I find it ironic this is a deeply republican city that constantly talks about the need to cut spending.
- gonzo41 6y ago
  That just sounds like good old corruption to me.
- nradov 6y ago
  Expect a wave of municipal bankruptcies over the next several years. We kicked the can down the road during the last financial crisis, but holding interest rates artificially low can only postpone the day of reckoning for so long.
- codekilla 6y ago
  What city is this?
- eldavido 6y ago
  Reading articles and seeing situations like this really makes me question whether public agencies, as a rule, should be allowed to use debt to finance projects. I'll begin by saying I have no aversion to debt whatsoever as a private individual or for an incorporated business. I own several rental properties, I'm probably more indebted than most. The thing about debt in general though, is that it makes the bad decisions a lot worse. And I think when you design a political system, you have to think about both the best outcomes possible, as well as the worst. Bad things happen. People make mistakes. Calculation errors occur. I'd gladly take a bargain where I could trade 5% of the upside for 50% of the downside. What I've realized is that most municipal governments are run by people of fairly average intelligence and drive. There just isn't a lot of incentive to kick the apple cart. They want to go home at 5, they're going to see the owner of the construction company whose project they dump on in the grocery store, etc. This is actually a feature, I don't really want too much innovation in how my government does things, I'd rather go with the tried and true for things like road design and water pipes, than something like the BART where they used a novel track gauge, and we're still paying for it 30 years later. I just think avoiding municipal debt can curtail some of the worst outcomes. It forces cities to save up for maintenance and really make hard choices about what gets maintained and what doesn't, and it also prevents can-kicking to later generations. You might not get a high-speed rail project, or a major bridge, without debt, but I wonder whether we'll ever get high-speed rail in California at all, after spending billions of dollars already [1] on it without anyone having taken a single trip. [1] https://www.govtech.com/fs/transportation/California-High-Speed-Rail-Project-to-See-Budget-Staffing-Cuts.html https://www.govtech.com/fs/transportation/California-High-Sp...
  - burlesona 6y ago
    I've heard this idea before and I think there's something to it, but it's interesting because for it to function well you generally need to first build up a big savings account which you can then use to fund expensive things, otherwise you're extremely limited in what you can do. One variation I've heard would be for cities and states to not be allowed to issue debt, that only the federal government could do that. It would mean the local units of government (which actually run and fund most things) would have to operate on a balanced budget, and would provide a lot of robustness in the system relative to what we have now. If they needed a one-time bailout for some reason (natural disaster etc) the federal government could give funds to the local area, potentially issuing debt if necessary. Of course that doesn't provide any protection against federal debt binging... so I'm not sure how you'd square that. You don't really want to prohibit the federal government from taking on debt - for example, the largest debt the US ever accumulated was to fight and win WW2. But maybe there are strings you can attach. One such string that makes a lot of sense to me is the idea that you should never allow debt for operating expenses or maintenance. You would think that would be obvious and you wouldn't actually need a policy to enforce that outcome, but unfortunately it's common practice today to just issue bonds if you can't afford to maintain your municipal services.
- asdff 6y ago
  Something is seriously wrong if a single right turn lane took 3 million dollars. I'm in disbelief at that figure. Here is Cuyahoga county in Ohio building out perimeter roads for an amazon facility, with a laundry list of work including road widening, for just under $1.4M even with a local contractor used. http://publicworks.cuyahogacounty.us/en-US/Future-Amazon-Site-Euclid.aspx http://publicworks.cuyahogacounty.us/en-US/Future-Amazon-Sit...
toast0 6y ago
> I can't believe that taking out the asphalt, replacing it with concrete, and then adding lighting and plants should cost that much. Was it bid out? Did you put in a bid?

onlyrealcuzzo 6y ago

It doesn't cost that much. That's how much they're paying. In my hometown, the city spent $3M to make a single right-turn lane approximately 20-feet longer. This is a city that went from a population of 60k down to 15k. And the population is still contracting rapidly. There is no traffic, and there never will be. And worse, there is no income! And there's zero growth potential. Unsurprisingly, at least last year, it was the city with the highest municipal debt per capita. Combine that with the fact the HH income is very low, and the population is shrinking, and it's a disaster. I find it ironic this is a deeply republican city that constantly talks about the need to cut spending.

gonzo41 6y ago
That just sounds like good old corruption to me.
nradov 6y ago
Expect a wave of municipal bankruptcies over the next several years. We kicked the can down the road during the last financial crisis, but holding interest rates artificially low can only postpone the day of reckoning for so long.
codekilla 6y ago
What city is this?
eldavido 6y ago
Reading articles and seeing situations like this really makes me question whether public agencies, as a rule, should be allowed to use debt to finance projects. I'll begin by saying I have no aversion to debt whatsoever as a private individual or for an incorporated business. I own several rental properties, I'm probably more indebted than most. The thing about debt in general though, is that it makes the bad decisions a lot worse. And I think when you design a political system, you have to think about both the best outcomes possible, as well as the worst. Bad things happen. People make mistakes. Calculation errors occur. I'd gladly take a bargain where I could trade 5% of the upside for 50% of the downside. What I've realized is that most municipal governments are run by people of fairly average intelligence and drive. There just isn't a lot of incentive to kick the apple cart. They want to go home at 5, they're going to see the owner of the construction company whose project they dump on in the grocery store, etc. This is actually a feature, I don't really want too much innovation in how my government does things, I'd rather go with the tried and true for things like road design and water pipes, than something like the BART where they used a novel track gauge, and we're still paying for it 30 years later. I just think avoiding municipal debt can curtail some of the worst outcomes. It forces cities to save up for maintenance and really make hard choices about what gets maintained and what doesn't, and it also prevents can-kicking to later generations. You might not get a high-speed rail project, or a major bridge, without debt, but I wonder whether we'll ever get high-speed rail in California at all, after spending billions of dollars already [1] on it without anyone having taken a single trip. [1] https://www.govtech.com/fs/transportation/California-High-Speed-Rail-Project-to-See-Budget-Staffing-Cuts.html https://www.govtech.com/fs/transportation/California-High-Sp...
- burlesona 6y ago
  I've heard this idea before and I think there's something to it, but it's interesting because for it to function well you generally need to first build up a big savings account which you can then use to fund expensive things, otherwise you're extremely limited in what you can do. One variation I've heard would be for cities and states to not be allowed to issue debt, that only the federal government could do that. It would mean the local units of government (which actually run and fund most things) would have to operate on a balanced budget, and would provide a lot of robustness in the system relative to what we have now. If they needed a one-time bailout for some reason (natural disaster etc) the federal government could give funds to the local area, potentially issuing debt if necessary. Of course that doesn't provide any protection against federal debt binging... so I'm not sure how you'd square that. You don't really want to prohibit the federal government from taking on debt - for example, the largest debt the US ever accumulated was to fight and win WW2. But maybe there are strings you can attach. One such string that makes a lot of sense to me is the idea that you should never allow debt for operating expenses or maintenance. You would think that would be obvious and you wouldn't actually need a policy to enforce that outcome, but unfortunately it's common practice today to just issue bonds if you can't afford to maintain your municipal services.
asdff 6y ago
Something is seriously wrong if a single right turn lane took 3 million dollars. I'm in disbelief at that figure. Here is Cuyahoga county in Ohio building out perimeter roads for an amazon facility, with a laundry list of work including road widening, for just under $1.4M even with a local contractor used. http://publicworks.cuyahogacounty.us/en-US/Future-Amazon-Site-Euclid.aspx http://publicworks.cuyahogacounty.us/en-US/Future-Amazon-Sit...

toast0 6y ago

> I can't believe that taking out the asphalt, replacing it with concrete, and then adding lighting and plants should cost that much. Was it bid out? Did you put in a bid?