3 ms·

Government spending is too wasteful, by orders of magnitude. I don't blame voters for saying no. Fix that problem first, before spending billions of dollars. I

Government spending is too wasteful, by orders of magnitude. I don't blame voters for saying no. Fix that problem first, before spending billions of dollars. In Oregon we recently had a transit proposal to build a new bridge over the Columbia River between Oregon and Washington. About 30 years ago we spent $170 million for a very fine bridge.[1] Now we were being asked to spend $2800 million[2] for a replacement for a parallel bridge (revised down from $3500 million but surely overruns were guaranteed). I know we had some inflation in the intervening years. But nowhere near that much! According to the govt CPI calculator, $170 in 1982 dollars is $412 in 2015 dollars. But our Oregon "leaders" wanted to spend $2800. Fortunately the Washington legislature killed it. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_L._Jackson_Memorial_Bridge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Glenn_L._Jackson_Memorial_Brid... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_River_Crossing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_River_Crossing

BrainInAJar 12y ago
Except that the government is more than happy to spend billions on bridges, in a time when vehicle miles driven is declining rapidly, it's only mass transit that gets put to a vote. After blowing a billion dollars on a north Fraser crossing ( which is nearly empty all the time ) the government proceeded to blow $4 billion on the main highway crossing ( Port Mann ) to bring it to 8 lanes, it's totally empty all the time. And now they're going to blow another $3-6 billion replacing the south Fraser crossing (Massey Tunnel -> bridge)
- PhantomGremlin 12y ago
  Ouch. That's much worse than in the USA. The Oregon <--> Washington bridge that they wanted to replace is heavily used. It is for I-5, which is the primary North <--> South highway for the west coast.

3 ms·

Government spending is too wasteful, by orders of magnitude. I don't blame voters for saying no. Fix that problem first, before spending billions of dollars. I

by PhantomGremlin 12y ago

BrainInAJar 12y ago
Except that the government is more than happy to spend billions on bridges, in a time when vehicle miles driven is declining rapidly, it's only mass transit that gets put to a vote. After blowing a billion dollars on a north Fraser crossing ( which is nearly empty all the time ) the government proceeded to blow $4 billion on the main highway crossing ( Port Mann ) to bring it to 8 lanes, it's totally empty all the time. And now they're going to blow another $3-6 billion replacing the south Fraser crossing (Massey Tunnel -> bridge)
- PhantomGremlin 12y ago
  Ouch. That's much worse than in the USA. The Oregon <--> Washington bridge that they wanted to replace is heavily used. It is for I-5, which is the primary North <--> South highway for the west coast.