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Boston's Big Dig was a 3.5 mile tunnel completed in 2007 that was a huge debacle by all accounts. Initial estimates put the cost at $2.8 billion. Cost upon completion was $14.6 billion, making it the most expensive highway project in US history. The Boston Globe estimates that the final tally, including interest, which after all does have to be paid by taxpayers, will be $22 billion. Big Dig - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Along comes the Seattle version which seems poised to rival that debacle. The project had problems from the start. The 'Big Bertha' boring machine made painfully slow progress. The project started in July 2013, and after 1 month had advanced only 24 feet. Quoth Seattle Times columnist Ron Judd, "We’re Not Saying It’s Slow, But: A large banana slug has just lapped the downtown tunnel-boring machine and is now taunting it from the sidelines." At the time I googled to find the speed of a banana slug, and it was literally true that the banana slug was faster than this project.
"We're disappointed by this delay, but believe the schedule is moving in the right direction," says a release from WSDOT
Yeah, right. I would have been all for the tunnel as the best solution. But not when I'm in a deep blue state, and a deeper blue region where a self-avowed 'Marxist' was just elected to the city council. It was a guaranteed debacle from the start. What do Boston and Seattle have in common? Both deep blue, and both have a debacle big dig.
You could always move to a deep red city if that would make you more happy.
That sucks about Seattle's new tunnel being down for that long, though I never thought it was going to be an easy task to dig such massive tunnel through the hillside of the city.
"Remember this is a fixed-price contract and Seattle Tunnel Partners has the obligation to complete this tunnel and the project for the price that they bid and that is still the plan," says Trepaneer. "Right now it would be the same cost as the taxpayers were expecting at the beginning of the project."
The problem with the machine is the main bearing. Now I really need for you to describe how the more a blue state is the more it wears on the main bearing. Plus include supplemental material.
So this is a fixed price project and the OP is trying to connect this to the Boston Big Dig which wasn't a fixed price project? Talk about a massive stretch and an overall thread fail.
Though the year long delay still sucks. At least they are still moving along with their light rail system.
Taxpayer invariably comes out on the short end in these wrestling matches. After all the contractor would not have gotten the job in the first place had they not been connected.
Yet they are also the economic engines of this country, go figure.
Yes, we can see exactly how good Cali and NYC are doing.... NOT
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