The Bay Bridge Boondongle (San Francisco, Oakland: contractors, earthquakes, safe)

[Tomlcsc]

Originally Posted by Ruth4Truth

hmm.... I hadn't thought of the rail project in that light. You might be right, it might have NIGHTMARE written all over it.

The high speed rail project IS a nightmare! The projected costs have already doubled from $32 billion to $68 and we haven't even laid a single track. The first mile long stretch of track is being built in the middle of nowhere and it has projected costs of a billion to complete. Whats worse, is the firm who won the bid has a horrible safety reputation and of underbidding on contracts.

I think my favorite part about the "Bullet Train" is that they had to keep adding stops to garner taxpayer support so now the train is basically going to be a regular speed train from SF to LA. The price of airline travel from SF to LA is dirt cheap anyways. I don't see why we have to try and replace that with the technology of the 1800's.

Freaking one-party California voters will vote for anything nice sounding without even thinking if it sounds reasonable or not. This high speed rail thing will probably go down in history as one of the worst managed construction projects in the history of California and we probably won't here about some of the truly scandalous stuff until a decade or so from now.

[Ruth4Truth]

The part about adding stops did kind of turn "high speed rail" into an oxymoron. Why couldn't they have a local train serve those communities? What CA needs to do is solve its tax and budget issues so it can get things done and stop having budget crises.

*sighhh*

[jade408]

Right on time, Caltrans is beefing up oversight, 25 years into the project!

Caltrans beefs up bridge oversight | Matier And Ross | an SFGate.com blog

[BayAreaHillbilly]

Did the FBI raid at the Capital on Wednesday have anything to do with either of these two boondoggle projects?

[jade408]

Glad to see Caltrans is overseeing the Bridge project.

No documentation they bothered to take a look at the bolts.
And in other happy news:

Testing additional rods, however, is impractical, and replacing them is impossible. Space is tight because the tower was built atop the rods after they were installed. The steel fasteners have to be cut up to be removed and tested, and there is no room to install replacements.

Caltrans can't find proof rods were inspected - SFGate

And to keep up the positive news?
Looks like this project was troubled from the start
Bay Bridge troubles began with design - SFGate

[BayAreaHillbilly]

How bad would it have to be to go for the tear down and redo?

Is there some acceptable level of future deaths due to catastrophic failure, does it fit into some actuarial table? I could see a go decision, fully knowing the chance of collapse is up to an order of magnitude above the spec.

[jade408]

Well another issue pops up. Faulty shock absorbers are breaking after 3 years of use!

Bay Bridge shock absorbers spring leak - SFGate

[Malloric]

The good news is it looks like BART will be on strike again. I mean, I'm all for fairly compensating civil servants, but I think the $130,000 average compensation package is pretty generous, myself. Same problem with the bridge... total inability to control costs. At least BART is generally pretty reliable, if not much else.

[jade408]

Oh look, I know we are all surprised, but they just straight up ignored the quality concerns during construction:
Caltrans officials deny retribution to Bay Bridge employees who reported construction problems | abc7news.com

[Ruth4Truth]

I don't understand. They built a perfectly good bridge before, that lasted generations. Why can't they do it now?