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Boston's Big Dig Finally Open
techiemac writes "I just saw a news story on yahoo about Boston's Big Dig finally opening. The Big Dig is considered by many to be the largest modern urban construction project ever!"
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Although they claim this is a news site, michael openly admits his extreme bias and his affinity towards slanting the facts to fit his predetermined notions.
michael was hired in the middle of hijacking the www.censorware.org website in a very immature, unethical, and corrupt manner.
michael will frequently censor entire threads down to -1, simply because he doesn't agree with it.
Even worse, sometimes michael (or some other slashdot editors) will mod a thread down to -1, and revoke mod point priveledges if anything, *anything* in that thread is modded up.
Of course, this is just a partial list. michael's unprofessionalism, hypocrisy, and immaturity are well known to most long term slashdotters. It's amazing that despite this, and despite everyone's complaints to him and CmdrTaco, he has yet to change. This should not continue. michael should be fired now.
about time they open up this thing. They're billions of dollars over budget!
So... did they have a lottery on who the first person through was?
Was there a line of people/cars?
14.6 billion for a tunnel. Someone from that project needs to talk to Sprint and let them know the ins and outs about them building their tunnel from India to Overland Park, KS.
I was gonna make a joke about it, but it actually returned results!
$ dig bostonbigdig.com
; <<>> DiG 9.2.3 <<>> bostonbigdig.com
;; global options: printcmd
;; Got answer:
;; ->>HEADER<<- opcode: QUERY, status: NOERROR, id: 1417
;; flags: qr aa rd ra; QUERY: 1, ANSWER: 6, AUTHORITY: 0, ADDITIONAL: 0
;; QUESTION SECTION:
;bostonbigdig.com. IN A
;; ANSWER SECTION:
bostonbigdig.com. 3600 IN A 64.15.205.180
bostonbigdig.com. 3600 IN A 64.15.205.202
bostonbigdig.com. 3600 IN A 64.15.205.182
bostonbigdig.com. 3600 IN A 64.15.205.183
bostonbigdig.com. 3600 IN A 64.15.205.155
bostonbigdig.com. 3600 IN A 64.15.205.132
;; Query time: 110 msec
;; SERVER: 192.168.1.10#53(192.168.1.10)
;; WHEN: Sat Dec 20 13:11:46 2003
;; MSG SIZE rcvd: 130
Too bad it's about New Jersey...
It is pitch black. You are likely to be eaten by a grue.
A wonderful example of your government at play...by the time it's done, it will be almost 7 years late, and 700% over budget. A woeful example of a make-work program gone wrong....
inside the lanes.
15 Billion for a tunnel. Drive in. Stop the car, draw a chalk line arround the car. The cost of that space is more than you will make in your life. Probably more than all your close friends will make in there ENTIRE lives. Someone made a killing!
...but the Southbound lanes are open. Now all they need is the Northbound lanes, removal of the elevated interstate, grass planted, etc. But they're getting close to being done.
This isn't exactly usual Slashdot fare...
For such a large and complicated project with many engineering challenges, only 4 workers died during construction. That's a testament to everyone involved with the project, especially the workers themselves. Kudo to them.
-Cyc
/.'s 10 Millionth
i live about an hour from boston, and i know the northbound lanes have been open for a while now. this means that the entire thing is open now.
Liberal politicians do not support massive highway projects; they support public transportation which moves more people more efficiently for less cost with less atmospheric and other pollution as the result. No, it's the Republicans and their oily buddies who have paved over the USA and blown billions on the effort. Thanks to such "thinkers" the city of Los Angeles, for example, devotes about 35% of its total land area to auto-exclusive uses. And I had thought cities were places for people to live in. Guess I was wrong, they're just for storage of cars.
Original projected cost: $2.5 billion
Final cost: $16 billion
Do the math. Once this thing got started, no one in power was going to say, "STOP! It's costing too much!", both because it seemed irreversible and because the Dems in power in Boston (Massachusetts is a one-party state) were happy getting union favors in elections in return for more jobs artificially generated by the Big Dig's continuation.
Most of this $16 billion came from out of state, i.e., from your pocket. Do you think Boston residents who already command huge rents and appraisals should now be able to look out the window at a grassy knoll instead of elevated steel girders and command even higher rents and appraisals, and at your cost?
Really, the elevated artery could have been renovated to provide the same benefits---minus the prettiness---that the Big Dig provides, and at a much reduced cost. But what is $16 billion, really, when you consider the size of the federal budget, especially when spread over 15 years? Unfortunately, $16 billion here and $16 billion there add up to what is considered real money even by the standards of the federal government.
Several groups are lobbying to have the Big Dig tunnel and bridge (currently named the "Liberty Tunnel" and the "Lenoard P. Zakim Bridge") renamed "The Taxpayer's Tunnel/Bridge." Since there's no way we're getting our money back, maybe we can at least recognize the people who really made this possible: the taxpayers.
Yet, the Democratic cabal on Beacon Hill wants to rename the tunnel after Tip O'Neill, a Democratic Senator from the great Commonwealth of Taxachusetts who was responsible for this pork barrel project. As a taxpaying resident of Massachusetts, I am outraged that these people are trying to celebrate this corruption! I can't believe I'm the only one.
[ home ]
One party state? Mitt Romney, our (unfortunate) governer, is an ass-hat of a Republican.
i guess this means they're gonna tear down the elevated expressway (the road we used to use before the big dig). it's too bad too. as ugly as the road was, it was a pretty scenic route. you could see large parts of boston. i remember being scared shitless the first time i went on the upper deck, when i was a little kid; it's fairly high up.
i'll miss the old gal.
Mass had to Liberal senators and pretty much a majority of liberal representatives.
Care to revise that statement?
I've driven it many times at this point. If this is the largest construction project ever... it isn't all that impressive. Just a couple of fairly long tunnels. Insanely expensive. I would rate Hoover or Grand Coolee over the Big Dig any day.
How did this get modded down? If I had mod points, it would be +1 insightful.
*cough* Fat Matt Amarillo *cough*
Your post is lifted straight from the article, it should not be moderated Interesting, it should be moderated redundant.
the Dems in power in Boston (Massachusetts is a one-party state) were happy getting union favors
The Governor is a Republican so how come you right away blame the Dem's. Don't let the facts get in the way of your rant though.
The Big Dig still has another 18 months and projected 1 billion dollars to go. Today was just the opening on the southbound tunnel.
The tunnels did NOT cost 17 billion. There is a world reconized bridge next to the fleet center, many new buildings, subway lines and bus lines running because of this project. I know the budget seems to be absurd, but when looking at all they did you can see where some of the money went.
BEN
Now if they could just finish the Widen3.com project.
Its runs under the same budget as the BigDig and is a simple project to widen Route 3, a 15-20 mile 4 lane (2 each direction) to 5 lanes (3 each direction).
Well, its been over 3 years now and not a single inch of extra lane has been opened (yet they have almost the entire thing paved and still blocked off).
In closing, Massachussetts sucks. If I could get a job elsewhere which could pay my bills, I'd leave in a heartbeat
"Where is my mind?"
Well you know they are trying really hard to keep up with bush and his military expenses, and his oil .... err country rebuilding. gotta love them there right wingers aye sonny ?
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe." --Albert Einstein
Amorello had nothing to do with the project, other than being the head of the MTA while it was being built. Fred Salvucci was the guy behind it, and Tip O'Neill was a the big supporter in congress.
There is no sig, there is only Zuul.
We had a relatively expensive section of state highway in the Phoenix area, when the Squaw Peak Parkway carved through a rather expensive part of town. They made the hole in the ground almost straight down with vertical walls. To my knowledge, at the time it was completed it was one of the most expensive sections of freeway ever built, between the costs to condemn and claim right-of-way, the costs to excavate through bedrock down below, and the costs to make this all happen with buildings a few feet from the hole. And this was all state and city funding, as it wasn't an Interstate or a Federal highway. At this point I'm sure that Central Artery has far, FAR overrun Phoenix's project.
Do not look into laser with remaining eye.
While building this tunnel makes life convenient for the suburb-dwellers all around Boston, the actual residents would have benefitted a great deal more if the money were spent on improving the subways and light rail systems in the city. Cars are expensive for private citizens to own and operate; we'd move a great deal closer to an equitable society by making them optional instead of essentially a requirement of citizenship.
This means that massive funds should not be spent on these highways which are essentially a subsidy for the megacorporations that build the cars. (It makes their products more useful, and ties up the money that could be spent on other transport options, forcing people to purchase cars if they want any mobility at all.) GM, Ford, Toyota, etc. should be the ones building the roads, out of their own pockets, to create incentives for people to buy their automobile products. Those who don't own cars should not have their tax dollars spent on such projects. Those who use cars, and thus cost everyone a great deal in externalities like pollution, pedestrian deaths, loss of usable urban real estate, should pay the entire cost of their choices, rather than foisting it on society.
The Green Line subway in Boston should have been upgraded to an underground heavy rail line at least out past Boston University. The "Silver Line" circumferential route should have been built as a high capacity light rail route. The North-South rail link should have been implemented. Etc, etc.
as I can remember. And I'm nearing my 30's now.
Some folk dismiss it as being a waste, but unlike them I've driven in Boston Traffic. The Big Dig is turning a city that was having its traffic issue choking its very lifeblood out of it into a revitalized effort.
That $15 billion did more than just provide some tunnels and bridges, it provided for countless kids education as their mommys and daddys had steady work. It gave thousands of hard workers the money needed to save it away rather than rely social security and medicare. It was more than a public work, it revitalized whole sections of the economy while simultaneously improving the traffic flow in and around one of the oldest cities in the US.
Karma Whoring for Fun and Profit.
Do you have any idea how much taxes/road construction, gas, pollution, etc cost? If not you need to rethink. Jesus, did you ever consider that the big ,dig had to be built underground because of cars? Either way, public transit is *way* less expensive than cars. Sorry, try again,
-Sean
For a one party state, we've had Republican governors for about the past 10 years. Libertarians have a pretty good foothold in a lot of areas as well. Complaining about people like Sen. Kennedy ignores the fact that Republicans don't run anyone against him. When someone does (Jack E. Robinson?), they get no support from Republican party officials. When Weld ran against Kerry, I voted Kerry because I thought Weld would do a better job as governor than senator.
You want Taxachusetts? Check out NY. Over 8% sales tax, high property tax rates, high income tax rates. It costs more to drive on the NYS Thruway than it does for the MS Turnpike. About the only thing going for NY is the fact that they have EZ-Pass run by the state instead of the pseudo-commercial Fastlane.
The Big Dig is a long time coming, and should be worthwhile in the end. There was a lot of innovation involved in construction and hopefully that investment will pay off in lower expenses for similar projects in the future. Don't forget that most of Boston's square footage didn't exist when certain tea boxes were thrown into the harbor.
Please remind me what the difference is betweens the R's and the D's?
Don't tell me how they SAY they are different. Tell me how they ACT different.
Your comment indicates you know nothing about Massachusetts local politics. The governor for some strange reason has been Republican for the last decade, but that is merely an aberration: both houses of the legislature, both senators, and (all or most of) the representatives are Democrats. Seems pretty one-party to me.
[ home ]
Either way, it's the same emotion. I don't know which, if either, is "right", but you should at least keep that in mind when evaluating arguments about this sort of problem. (You can get the same feeling from reading a lot of books as you can from having a lot of guns; it's all just power.)
There's no way the Central Artery could have been "renovated". The structures is made up of concrete and lead paint. Any renovation would require a huge costs in abatement and environmental cleanup, and you can't widen the elevated structure without demolishing more buildings, which would be a bad idea.
Have you ever even driven on the old artery? It was a fucking mess. It was also one of the most unsafe stretches in the Interstate Highway System. 10 exits in just over a mile - weave lanes of 600 feet, narrow clearance, no breakdown lanes - it was a mess.
The tunnel also gives Boston the ability to mend the scar caused by the elevated artery. The city was divided - a city needs linearity in order to function. Having hundreds of streets cut off by the elevated artery diminishes the city as a whole.
Sure, there were cost overruns and embezzlements, like there are with any large government project ($50 hammers for the Navy, anyone?), but the benefits for the city as a whole (and it's not just to raise rents by improving the view - much of boston's residential land does not abut the artery corridor) will be great.
There is no sig, there is only Zuul.
You failed the test. ;-)
:-)
Thanks for making me chuckle though.
You guys are all for throwing billions of dollars at a public works project, as long as union labor is involved, but anything Bush does is automatically about oil. nice job, jackass. If it's about oil, why didn't we keep kuait in the 90's?
The Chunnel, or the 32 mile undersea tunnel across the English channel connecting Calais, France and Brighton, UK, is the largest and greatest urban construction project ever. It cost the same -- roughly $15 billion -- but actually came in on schedule and cost, does wonders for the economies of both countries, and relies on clean mass transit systems that travel 200mph, run by open source software.
All of this was done with 13,000 engineers who spoke different languages. It was also voted the best project of the 20th century:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/302345.stm
Sure, there were cost overruns and embezzlements, like there are with any large government project ($50 hammers for the Navy, anyone?), but the benefits for the city as a whole (and it's not just to raise rents by improving the view - much of boston's residential land does not abut the artery corridor) will be great.
Cost overruns??? Embezzlement??
$2.5 billion
$16 billion
That's more than a cost overrun or simple embezzlement. How can you be so casual about their wasting your money to the tune of 7x? I'm certainly not casual about them wasting my money!
[ home ]
No, finally -closing-. It opened over a decade ago, and has been rolled out in several stages over the last several years. I hope I have the order right here:
It's grossly over budget(4x at least?), is the largest construction project in the world- and had some amazing tolerances. One of the tunnels passes within inches of the existing red line subway lines(South Station, the largest terminal in Boston, is right smack where 93 had to go). This accounts for the VERY(maximum permissable grade under fed law) steep decline southbound; they had to go over one thing, under another. The red line now 'rests' on a giant concrete wall that was set in-place.
Oh, and in order to do the connector for the mass pike, they had to FREEZE the ground. Yep. Freeze it- because it was so unstable. And they installed new sections in one tunnel by hydraulically jacking them through the ground. Wild stuff.
The Boston Pops were going to do a concert inside the 93 southbound lanes before the opening- partially sponsored by corporate donors. Except that the corporate donors didn't know their money would be used for it. Even when they agreed to -fully- sponsor it, the concert was still cancelled after massive criticism. When you go $8B+ over budget, you don't exactly pat yourself on the back too enthusiastically.
Everyone in Boston is mostly just happy that it's over. For the last decade, we've had all sorts of odd route closures, exits shut down/reopened, conditions placed on tunnel/bridge use...it's finally all over, and everyone can just get back to driving like psychos :-)
Please help metamoderate.
Agreed! There is way too much waste in government. Unfortunately, it looks like it simply won't be stopped by the existing political parties.
We all pay big bucks for crap like the "Big Dig", "Ethanol", and "B2 bombers". These things do not benefit the taxpayer.
EACH ONE is a waste of BILLIONS of taxpayer dollars, with little benefit to anyone except to those who leech off of the government contracts.
And now with the new drug benefit plans, government isn't even allow to get competitive bids for pharmacuticals. What the hell is going on????? How can we sit by and let this waste continue?
Currently marked as 'Redundant'. Frankly, the project itself should be marked as redundant. I like Boston but this was absolutely ludicrous.
PBS ran a show on it not too long ago (a fluff piece, but I usually like 'em just the same). It was the first documentary I watched where I didn't come out in favor of the people interviewed. It was simply pathetic how people, who damn well knew they were pushing an overpriced project through, cared more about their own personal achievement than how tax dollars were being used. It's not like this doesn't happen all the time, but I was truly amazed at the sheer arrogance. It's useful from an engineering perspective, but man......what a lemon for the rest of the US.
I thought he was Speaker of the House of Representatives. Wouldn't that make him a Congressman? But what do I know, I am just a foreigner.
One point that is often missed when people trot out these figures: the original "Big Dig" was essentially just the 3rd Harbor (Ted Williams) Tunnel and a few local improvements. Certainly a lot of the cost increases can probably be attributed to inefficiencies (such as the infamous fireboat), but much of the cost increase is due to an increased scope (eg. the I-93 tunnel), inflation, and unforeseen difficulties (for example the tunnel jacking and soil freezing operations ran into major problems).
Once this thing got started, no one in power was going to say, "STOP! It's costing too much!"While no one really wanted to spend $16B, no one in Boston was going to say "stop" simply because we are sick of sitting in traffic 16 hours per day
Really, the elevated artery could have been renovated to provide the same benefits---minus the prettiness---that the Big Dig provides, and at a much reduced cost.It would have been significantly cheaper (in absolute dollars) to renovate the elevated artery, but the long-term cost to the region would have been devastating since you would have to shut down the major north/south artery through Boston to do it (and no, moving traffic to an already overcrowded I-95 wouldn't have helped).
You mean, finally, a cell phone free area? Or did they manage to put repeaters in the tunnel, too?
Sorry, you're right. My mistake: he was a representative, not a senator.
[ home ]
I personally thought the cost overrun of the international space station, $100bn in total, was the most impressive.
RTFA. It's the biggest ever. Period. Bigger than Panama. Bigger than anything, anywhere. Get a clue.
Do your homework. Dukakis was the last democratic governor. Weld, Cellucci, Swift, and Romney are ALL republicans. Massachusetts is most certainly NOT a one-party state, and it shows how truly ignorant you are to think that it is.
I suppose next you'll call us "taxachusetts", even though we're smack in the middle in the nation in taxes by state. Oh wait:
Democratic Senator from the great Commonwealth of Taxachusetts
You did call us taxachusetts. Well, you're free to move. Yes, there was mismanagement- but a lot of the cost increases were due to the typical things that make civil engineering projects go over budget- things like "the ground's a lot tougher than we thought it would be, even though we did a ton of soil testing and sampling". None of that changes the fact that the project itself was absolutely necessary- and thus doesn't deserve the term "pork barrel". Pork is when projects are steered towards a senator's home state, or when a senator gets money for something completely useless. Pork is $1M for a wildflower research study. Pork is not a $10B+ construction project to fix one of the worst traffic systems in the nation.
Please help metamoderate.
I want a system whereby independant citizens can sue States to force them to pick up the entire tab for pork barrel projects their Representives and Senators secure for them. The factors to be directly considered would be the contents and primary purpose of the bill the appropriation was located in, the ammount and quality of debate over the appropriation, and does the appropriation benifit citizens not in the state enough to justify the cost. Leaving sole direct control of appropriations to elected officials is a big mistake.
common sense: noun
What those who are ignorant of the subject matter think; usually wrong.
Yeah. Damn this whole "federation" thing to hell. What has it done for me, lately! My taxes should only benefit me. Mine Mine Mine. Gimme Gimme Gimme. Selfish Bostonian bastards, taking my tax dollars. I fought and died in the war for this country! All I want is a little respect... plus all my tax dollars paying for ME ME ME. I'll be damned to hell if my tax dollars are going to fund some evil democrats in Boston!
Sorry, for a second there you sounded like a 90-year old ingrate. At what point in your life did selfish greed overwhelm your sense of civic and national pride?
Hint: you could have simply said that the tunnel was overpriced without making a reference to the funding coming out of "your pocket".
It's those damn democrats in power! Lousy democrats. Stealing my tax dollars and probably killing babies too. That's what democrats do.
Giggle. You sound just like a crank. I bet you ring up talkback radio and complain about those "damn young kids with their Rock And/Or Roll music".
An underground highway can only lead to underground McDonalds's, and underground apartments for the McD workers... is this the start of the Morlocks? Also, since when does every bridge have to be some kinda new-fangled contraption that looks like the next contender for a Maxell Audio commercial (bridge falls down)? They put up one of those at OSU, and it's cool, "i guess", but i think more thoroughly tested designs would be better solutions.
stuff |
Right on! That's a lot of money!
Removing Saddam from power cost a mere 3 times more!
But at least we now have a safe and stable Iraq.
Mod parent up. Great insight.
I don't think it's that much of a boondoggle as most think. I've seen several shows and been involved in many construction projects over $300M each and it's easy to go over budget especially on such a project as this. If anyone said it would cost over $10B when they started, they never would have started and people would be screaming about the traffic. I live outside of Houston and hear people constantly complain about the traffic, then turn around and complain when construction starts.
So I guess the Mermen and Mermaids had a bitch of a time finding alernate routes huh. Oh wait this is UNDER the channel, so that would make them Morlocks, or maybe MOLE PEOPLE.
Sorry but the Chunnel is in a different league, and can't hold a candle to the Panama Canal, Great Wall of China, Pyramids...hell I bet there even some frigging dams that cost more.
It's not like the Big Dig is really worthwhile for people in Boston. Those Boston residents who will be able to look out on nice parks in two years are presently looking out on rubble and construction barriers, and have spent the past decade with a huge traffic mess all around them. Perhaps their kids will actually have a net gain in quality of life.
Really, it would have been far better to replace 93 with well-maintained mass transit and good parking from Assembly Square south as far as the traffic goes. With $16 billion (or even $2.5 billion) they could have actually improved things. There are better ways to get cars around Boston (like 95), and getting more cars into Boston is just silly.
Once this is all done, the traffic reports will still say that traffic is backed up as far as Assembly Square with people trying to get to downtown Boston. The only difference will be that they won't monitor some of it from the air, and they'll have to say that it's backed up over the Leonard P. Zakim Bunker Hill Memorial Bridge instead of the lower deck.
Really, I wish whoever submitted this had done a little better job with the story, considering how big a project this was :-)
Please help metamoderate.
A few years and a several billion dollars into the Big Dig, transportation planners discovered a cheaper and easier alternative that would do an even better job easing traffic congestion in Boston and improving the scenic quality of the city. Instead of the "big dig" approach of burying a 8 miles of highway, the state would instead construct a large brick or concrete barrier right across I-93, strong enough to withstand the steady stream of cars crashing into it as they try to get into the city. The section of highway beyond this barrier is then demolished. This approach avoids the "if you build it they will come" increase of cars that quickly negates the effectiveness of most road and highway improvements. Unfortunately, by the time this was realized, enough money had been spent that it was too difficult to change course.
You have to find the fine print. Only two of the 4 lanes are open. The old road was 3 lanes, 93 south is currently down to 2 lanes. We should see the last two lanes in 2006.
Like spending billions to rebuild a country we just blew up? At least this money went to something that will help Americans directly. And...it's a TUNNEL UNDER A CITY. No CRAP it's going to be expensive. Sheesh.
I live in Massachusetts too.
I'm positive you also think this is the year we'll also beat the Yankees, right?
I like big butts and I cannot lie.
Don't forget that the Dems have VETO-PROOF majorities in both houses. This makes the governor only symbolic when it comes to legislative issues, because the leaders of the house and senate get together on a porch, smoke a cigar, and decide on funding issues. The only reason that the commonwealth hasn't collapsed has been the fiscally conservative democrats have been holding the leadership positions...
:)
Your other point doesn't really emphasize the problem. Not only is the entire Mass congressional delegation democrats, the senators are Kennedy (liberal leader in the Senate), and Kerry (Presidential candidate). This really hurts the state, as the GOP in Congress is more than happy to let us mire in our own stew...
Voting against Kerry in '02 was satisfying, even if it was throwing a vote away on the libertarians... not nearly as satisfying as voting for Bush in Fla. in '00...
Alex
...Bostonians can learn how to drive.
Why does everybody hate the big dig? Honestly, this is probably the most visionary project that any government has undertaken in a generation. Yes, it was expensive, mistakes were made, and it ended up being a lot harder to do than anyone predicted. But in the end you have a beautiful city, which will stay beautiful for a century. Nobody is going to dare proposing a huge, ugly, elevated highway through Boston anytime soon.
I don't live in Boston, but I lived in Toronto for six years. The Gardiner Expressway is an ugly elevated highway that neatly isolates downtown from the waterfront. So because the waterfront is basically a separate region from the city, it's all ugly vacant lots, polluted dock land or steel-jungle condos, right up to the water. No parks, no public space, just a lot of nastiness. There has been talk of burying it (and the big dig is held out as an example), but city council can rarely agree on the day of the week, much less spending $10 billion. Besides, with the condos going up, the opportunity has already been lost.
I predict that in 100 years, the big dig will be considered a marvel of engineering -- the modern equivalent of a cathedral.
Toronto-area transit rider? Rate your ride.
Of course you like it. You didn't have to pay for most of it. The rest of the country did.
Twisting Skyscraper to Replace NY's WTC
"The entire project, with a memorial to the 2,752 victims at its center, was estimated to cost up to $12 billion over the next decade, officials said. It also includes six other office buildings and a transportation hub to be designed by renowned Spanish architect Santiago Calatrava."
I bet this will wind up costing $50-100 billion, if not more, before it is over, and all sorts of false "patriotism" and "sending a message" and "empathy" will be used to hide blatant corruption and favoritism. I find this whole sham "memorial" project to be thoroughly disgusting.
Here is the start of the corruption and favoritism - The Port Authority will occupy 1/3 of the building!
WTC Tower Design Unveiled
WTF! why does some government bureacracy rate the most expensive and fancy location in NYC?
It would have been cheaper to rebuild the city elsewhere.
During the first few draftings of the big dig the fleet center or even space reserved for it was simply missing, which is a MAJOR omission.
While it's true we've had Republican governors for the past ten years, look at the makeup of the legislature.
State House: 23 Republicans, 136 democrats.
State Senate: 6 Republicans, 34 democrats.
That means our governor can't even veto anything without it being overriden.
Yeah it cost too much money but what's the big deal, people in Boston like the Big Dig, and they are the ones paying for it. I know I appreciate it, even though i do not drive in the city. And the rest of the country if they went to Boston I bet they'd appreciate it as well, especially when they see all the parks and even the easier commute to logan. So stop the hating.
You replied to a very well known gay ass troll who is just karma whoring so "she" can mod up other faggots like Pingular and other people who were born out of their father's gaping anus.
According to the a March Metro (Daily MBTA newspaper) The same company that built and designed the Big Dig is the company that "won" the construction contract for rebuilding Iraq. How Ironic?
Not this crap again! *sigh* You see, like any supply contract, there are overhead costs. However, due to the way purchasing works, the supply costs are averaged out over all the items being purchased. Therefore, the individual line item for "hammer" will include the various costs (some including R&D costs) of every item on the list.
(Plus regulations designed to protect against the "$50 hammer" have wound up causing even more expenses in handling these contracts, so now the government pays even more to ensure they aren't overpaying.)
Even if $50 is overcharged, it probably is at worst triple the cost. (And most likely not even that.) The Big Dig is what, over six times the original cost? As a Massachusetts citizen, this does nothing for me because I have the misfortune in living in the other 90% of the state. Fortunately, my local school system is laying off teachers because no one will fund them anymore due to the huge cost of subsidizing various construction projects like the Big Dig and the crap they're pulling on Route 3. Yeah, I'm thrilled.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
If anyone said it would cost over $10B when they started, they never would have started ...
If no one has the guts to tell the truth and then justify a project it should not be started!
This is why virtually all projects of any size fail when viewed in the light of reasonable planning, engineering, and auditing standards. (Or the more informal: Fast, Good, Cheap - pick two.)
Because they are based on known false assumptions and lies. Believe nothing anyone in power says about cost and scope.
"It costs more to drive on the NYS Thruway than it does for the MS Turnpike."
Mississippi has a turnpike?
Sure. Just like we helped pay for the interstate highway system in the rest of the country. IIRC the Big Dig is the first project in MA built using Federal Highway funds. The other major interstate highways in MA - I-90, I-91, I-93 and I-95 - were built with state funds.
Because not every nerd is a computer nerd. Some are engineering nerds, and this kind of thing is as fascinating and newsworthy to them as Linux/ogg/OSS/etc. is to you.
I heard that this was the biggest waste of money ever.
For the DNC convention, right? It seems that the SS/DOJ/whatever has a problem with it being a couple hundred feet away from the convention site (Fleet Center). Terrorism yada, yada, yada. On the bright side 128 should be able to handle the extra traffic in usual style (good time to start that new Harry Potter book).
"And a voice was screaming: 'Holy Jesus! What are these goddamn animals?'" - HST
I'll sound it out phonetically for you: EN - JUH - NEE - RING. Plus we have all kinds of transport geeks around, too.
You've GOT to be kidding! Check out the roads in West Virginia and ask yourself how they got to be some of the best looking and maintained in the country when their population has (per capita) some of our nation's poorest.
Some senators (like Byrd and Kennedy) know how to bring home the bacon... Or Pork, if you like...
Nah, won't bother using my handle here - I'll just lose karma. Can't be talking about politics here after all!
Most, if not all, of those projects that you named didn't go over budge by such an obsene amount.
My hammer cost more than $50 and it was on sale.
If the only tool you have is a hammer, you'd better start looking for a carpentry job.
And this ain't that.
Look, we recently approved 87 billion dollars for Iraq with hardly a peep. Six times as much.
We seem to be losing our sense of perspective.
- The original project and the final one were indeed two separate beasts. Had all the required work been done separately it would have taken 30 years and left western Massachustts in far worse shape the entire time. Combining it all into one megaproject was only practical.
- The old Central Artery structure could not have been "renovated". Categorically impossible. Anyone who tries to tell you otherwise is completely ignorant or lying wildly. The existing structure was literally collapsing and no replacement in situ was possible. No room for an additional or replacement structure alongside or above either, much less the ramps that would have been required.
- Yeah, federal taxes paid for part of the new highway system. They also paid for untold miles of lightly traveled interstate in Utah & Montana too. It's called an highway system and Boston is a vital hub for the northeastern US: It locks solid and so does much of the rest of the region economically. By the way, if it makes you feel any better the elevated highway at the heart of the whole project was originally built entirely by the State of Massachusetts.
- "Several groups are lobbying" = You and your two sister/brother/cousins. The reality is that most anyone with any sense of the traffic situation in the northeast is well aware that this megaproject only brings it up to current needs and had it not been undertaken things would be far more dire.
- "Democratic cabal" so now you show your true rabidly partisan colors. Pity the actual makeup of the statehouse doesn't match your warped portrayal of it.
We now return you to squarooticus' regular rant: Fluoridation of water: A Communist plot to invade our vital bodily fluids!I don't read ACs: If a post isn't worth so much as a nom de plume to its author then I wont bother either.
The fact of the matter is, urban centers continually get shafted in Washington appropriations games, largely because of disproportionate representation for rural areas, esp in the U.S. Senate.
And if the Big Dig makes the quality of life better in one of America's oldest and quaintest cities, I'm all for it, even as a resident of Texas.
$15 billion / 161 lane-miles / 5280 (feet/mile) * 15 feet (average car length) = $264,680
You're absolutely right. But the point was that the top post tried to blame this all on the "liberals," the Democrats, and therefore needed to be corrected.
Yes, there was inefficiency and it cost a hell of a lot, but think about the EXPONENTIALLY larger degree of corruption [call it what you will, but the votes and large focused campaign contributions from lobbyists go hand in hand . . . ] that goes on nonstop with all these farm subsidies we pay for, the vast majority of which go to HUGE agribusiness conglomorates.
"Lisa, two wrongs DO make a right!"
Ah yes! Procurement. I know something of this process. I also know what it was like before those $120 toilet seats came up in the press.
Our lovely government gets into bed with corporations who do nothing but rape them on contracts. Let me ask you something: If you need a wing for an F-15e, who do you get it from? Why, the manufacturer.
And if that manufacturer has a inflationary allotment of 15%/year, do you think they'll take advantage of it? You bet your ass they will. So when a friend of mine (in Naval procurement, nonetheless) questioned his superiors on some of these expenditures he was told to rubber stamp it all and was told, "We'll get 'em on the BIG ones..."
The big ones... Some of the items on that list were over 500% original cost and a few were well over several million dollars.
I could easily see where this same kind of thing could happen to a project like this - especially if it runs overtime. Personally, I think caps should be put on contracts beforehand and dates should be kept if they expect to get paid on time.
Here in Lancaster County, PA (yeah, where the Amish live), we had a similar incident on Rt. 30. Several years past the delivery date, the contractors were forced to finish their work and get the hell out. They were barred from bidding on any further projects in PA for five years. It should have been done sooner, but it goes to show that there is recourse if your spineless legislators decide to actually do something.
"...Well, there's egg and bacon; egg sausage and bacon; egg and spam; egg bacon and spam; egg bacon sausage and spam..."
You'ld think they could afford better roadsigns.
But that's Boston driving for ya- where only the intersecting streets are labeled, Speed Lane is called "EZ Pass" (WTF?) and rotaries are common.
I was over there the other day and got lost, and I've been living here for 15 years!
Except... what happens if you win your lawsuit? Monetary award to you, the plaintif? This isn't the private sector, where the store loses customers and goes out of business. If you win the lawsuit, everyone wins the lawsuit. Every citizen gets to be a plaintif, and everyone cashes in on the award, because a horde of lawyers will decend on city hall, taking their cut. Lawyers love a 'deep pockets' target.
You win, but... the government will raise your taxes to pay for it.... whoops, you lose.
Don't get me wrong, I agree that accountability is a good thing. I also believe that the current system of government is designed to avoid accountability as much as can be gotten away with. Used to be, the newsmedia was a check that provided balance, but no more.
I don't think we will get that balance back until we go to a direct vote. Even then, proposed capital expenditures would have to be ranked by dollars per capita-benefited - and bureaucrats would still fudge the numbers of benefited recipients, in order to make the cost look lower per person.
Of course, one of the biggest problems with the Big Dig was that the bureaucrats that sold the public on the idea lied through their teeth about its proposed cost. The only solution to that is 1) they should be fired -or- 2) jailed.
"The most sensible request of government we make is not, "Do something!" But "Quit it!"
Links:
Big Dig Photos
Big Dig Operations Center
The History Channel on the Big Dig
Official Big Dig Site
The Big Dig is considered by many to be the largest modern urban construction project ever!
The main reason the big dig is considered 'the biggest' is because there is a grand total dollar value assigned to the sum of all the smaller projects that comprise the whole.
Urban development and renewal happens all the time, on a vast scale. It's just not usually so easy to corral a bunch of initiatives into a single line item.
Still, my favorite response to the project came from Rep. Barney Frank. After hearing about the projected cost of the Big Dig, he remarked that, instead of putting the highway underground, it might be cheaper to raise the city. :-)
YOU pay for it. Forcing everyone else in the country to deal with your local traffic problems doesn't interest me in the slightest. I'll bet that money would've been more carefully spent if it was coming out of good ol' Teddy's wallet.
There are some things that benefit the rest of this nation, like major interstates, and I have no beef with that concept. What I DO have a beef with is the enormous cost of the Dig with apparently no accountability.
I realize this is how it's often done in New York and Boston and that the Labor unions, local politicians, road workers, and the Mafia operating in lockstep, but this was a FEDERAL project hamstrung by a LOCAL mess.
Do us a favor next time and take care of this sort of thing yourselves, ok?
And if the Big Dig makes the quality of life better in one of America's oldest and quaintest cities, I'm all for it, even as a resident of Texas.
Then donate money for it. Don't volunteer my money for it.
I'm not interested in the Big Dig overruns, but I'm going to comment on the purpose of the Federal Interstate Highway System.
/ nd hs.htm
S ystems.htm
"Yeah, federal taxes paid for part of the new highway system. They also paid for untold miles of lightly traveled interstate in Utah & Montana too."
The Federal Interstate System and the federal monies to lesser highways were started for the National Defense primarily, with economic reasons secondary.
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/hep10/nhs/
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/facility
"When President Eisenhower went to Kansas to announce the interstate highway system, he announced it as "the National Defense Highway System."'
Here is the page about the current Strategic Highway Network (STRAHNET)
https://www.tea.army.mil/DODProg/HND/
Now the Empty Quarter of the US might seem boring to you and almost pointless to place 4 lane highways there, but the Great Plains were and are the home to much of the USAF strategic nuclear deterent. The Dakotas, Montana, Wyoming all have had nuclear bomber and ICBM bases, thats one reason they have updated highways systems.
I thought the largest urban construction project was maintaining the spaghetti slashcode.
One of the fundamental tenets of this country at it's founding was that it is a confederation of states. State government should always by default have higher powers over federal government, except in specific areas defined in the constitution.
It's really pitiful when someone such as yourself calls for 'national pride' as if it means 'rah rah big Federal government.' It doesn't and that isn't what America is about.
A Good Intro to NetBS
Can someone explain this to me?
Starting Score: 1 point
Moderation +2
20% Troll
30% Interesting
20% Insightful
Extra 'Troll' Modifier 0 (Edit)
Total Score: 3
What's wrong with this math? Is some Slashdot editor dicking with me?
[ home ]
The Dallas High-5 project (huge 5 level interchange between I-635 and US 75) is the largest interchange ever built in Texas. It's currently running several months ahead of schedule and under budget (http://www.dallashighfive.org/progress/).
Granted, it's not anywhere near the scale, but it is an example of how a public works project can be well managed. The contract calls for fixed bonus amounts to be paid to the contractor for every day early the project is completed. It also imposes cash penalties for closing lanes of traffic during rush hour and for each day late the project is completed.
Ranger96
What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun.-Ecclesiastes 1:9
If anyone said it would cost over $10B when they started, they never would have started and people would be screaming about the traffic.
It's my understanding that if the boondoogle tunnel hadn't been built, the existing infrastructure would have seen incremental upgrades and repair. It probably would have meant far less 'suffering' with the old elevated roads over the last decade.
This ain't exactly like the Apollo program. I fail to see why people would wail and moan if it'd never been approved. Except trade unionists, contractors, and the other moss that grow on government funded projects.
A Good Intro to NetBS
Great! Now, let's give westbound traffic a longer green at Wabash and Veterans in Springfield, Illinois! It took me half an hour to move a quarter mile this afternoon in this sleepy state capitol of 110,000.
Obviously, he doesn't think it was wasted.
It's hard to be religious when certain people are never incinerated by bolts of lightning.
Toronto has a huge underground network of public tunnels called PATH that link the entire downtown area. There are over 1200 shops in that area.
It's very useful to get about town during a bitter winter, and there are no Morlocks. At least, not any I know of.
It's a reference to the new version of the movie "Time Machine" where the underground Morlocks overrun the surface world :)
--- Grow a pair, liberals... stop letting the Republicans bully you!
and who invited them here anyway?
Magnus.
No no no, you misunderstand. Here's an example: The Federal Government appropriates money for a bitchen slip-and-slide in Florida. However, you don't live in Florida, why should you pay for a slip-and-slide, even if it truely is the biggest and best slip-and-slide ever produced, when you will recieve no benifit from it? So you, not living in Florida, sue Florida, saying "Hey, that's a local expenditure, you have no right to take my money to pay for it!" You win, now Florida has to reimburse the Federal Government the $5 billion in tax dollars it obtained to build this six-mile-long water ride (unless you get in early in the project, in which case Florida doesn't recieve a dime and doesn't have to pay anything back). So now the Federal Government has $5 billion with which to waste somewhere else, and you probably won't see a dime of that back, but fortunately it will eliviate Congresses "need" to raise your taxes next year. At least the deficit won't be as big next year. Meanwhile, in Florida, if a significant ammount of Federal dollars have been spent, people will have their taxes raised, possibly quite substantialy, to make up the difference. Florida voters are pissed off that they now have to pay for this massive boondoggle on their own, and the Senator who secured this pork project is going to have the $5 billion he cost the state of Florida thrown in his face come next election, and hopefully by that time the people of Florida will have learned how to vote correctly and kick him out of office. Short term, you are right, in many states the tax rate will probably increase, but as Senators realize that pork barrel projects no longer help them gain votes, long term tax rates will decrease. You see, I'm not sueing for my money back, I'm sueing to shift the burden of who pays.
common sense: noun
What those who are ignorant of the subject matter think; usually wrong.
Ho hum. I don't know where this theory about max allowed by law, but there are plenty of steeper grades in actual mountain areas. And on Interstates.
r ad e_Info.htm
The most famous probably being the Grapevine on I-5 in CA which is 6% for 5 miles.
http://www.newbiedriver.com/articles/Mountain_G
Screw it - I'm ditching my mod points. I lived for two years in Boston and I have to say it was awesome.
90% of everything is crap. Also, crap is relative.
Assuming it does clear congestion and delays, 6 miles at 60mph = 6 minutes. I think you can survive six minutes without using your cellphone. I presume there will be emergency phones periodically inside the tunnel.
Ok, I drive in and out of Boston all the time. Honestly the construction is the biggest government tax scam. There is no difference now, and there won't be any difference 5 years from now.
The congestion is not "getting to the city". Is people circling boston streets endless with no parking. The big dig should have spent their money building 5 or 6 gigantic parking lot. That would have made more sense.
If this city would be willing to get rid of some cow paths, we would have enough room to build anything in no time. But no... we keep everything from the 1900s. No wonder the red sox can't win. The players are all tired by the time they get to fenway.
IIRC the Big Dig is the first project in MA built using Federal Highway funds. The other major interstate highways in MA - I-90, I-91, I-93 and I-95 - were built with state funds
With the exception of most of I-90, the Massachusetts Turnpike, your comment is incorrect. Federal highway funds were used in the creation/upkeep of all of the other roads mentioned, and many more. (The short "central artery" portion of I-93 was built before it was an Interstate, and was paid with state funds)
I'm an AC, which you apparently don't want to hear from. So instead of responding with an explanation, how about this-- get lost, hippie.
After living here six years, I still don't know what it means.
I thought michael was mocking the big dig, but then i remembered hes a RMS level raging commie, and i realized he actally liked the waste of money it was.
It boggles my mind why people believe they can evade the responsibility of being a part of a large integrated society. Once we shirk those duties, everything will fall apart.
Some would argue that this is already happening, what with the extreme unconcern for the education and well-being of children in the United States.
Oh, I live in Boston (actually, Somerville, one of the near semi-suburbs within the subway-accessible area), and I love it. I just think that the Big Dig has been a major annoyance, and not particularly useful. The reason that car traffic is a nightmare is that Boston was mostly laid out for defense. It's all twisty narrow streets that don't go anywhere logical. There isn't anywhere to park cars, the streets are one way in random directions, you have to merge across other traffic to get anywhere, and the signs are misleading. Car traffic is a nightmare not due to the highways, but due to the fact that there's nothing to do with your car is you get off the highway; the solution is nothing to do with the highways but rather to get people to not take their cars into the city. In order to do this, you need to provide better access to public transit for people in the suburbs, which means making the orange line nicer and having convenient parking at Sullivan Square, making the south end of the red line nicer, and making the green line reasonable fast with suitable parking; that is, get the people driving on 90 and 93 to park their cars before adding them to the mess in the city.
Well duh, they were also a lot smaller in scale. Also what gets conveniently forgotten by selfish all-government-is-bad Republicans (not saying you are one) is that the size of the project kept getting increased. Hmm...keep upping the size of the projects...and...costs...go up? Yes Precious, yes!
What`s even more sad about this is that a large (perhaps the largest) part of the $15 billion that went into this project came from the pockets of citizens who are never going to use the tunnel. The part of the state that doesn't live in Boston has been financing this whole thing for I can't even tell you how many years, and we're never going to see any payoff for it. This was a largely tax-payer funded project, and the majourity of us taxpayers don't live in Boston. While the money was flowing in to make Boston-area commuters' lives a little easier, Western Mass public schools have fallen apart (class sizes at my former high school have doubled in 3 years to an average of over 40 students per class), city and state services are being cut back further and further (public works projects have all but ceased, near as I can tell), and OUR roads are falling apart because there isn't any money left to fix them with.
I'm all in favour of Big Projects and Big Engineering, but at some point you have to question why you're doing it. There's just no reason why the Big Dig had to be so expensive, or so big. I keep asking myself, "where's the beef?" ("where are the WMD's?"). Why did the State drag us into a project that benefits the few at the expense of the many? And (worse), how did we (the many) let them get away with it for so long?
-Another Disgruntled Mass-hole
HOW'S MY POSTING? CALL 1-800-POSTING
"Yeah it cost too much money but what's the big deal, people in Boston like the Big Dig, and they are the ones paying for it."
You fail elementary reading comprehension. The entire US is paying for a lot of this boondoggle. It's called federal highway funds.
The size of the project kept getting increased, of course its going to cost more! Duh!
"$15 billion / 161 lane-miles / 5280 (feet/mile) * 15 feet (average car length) = $264,680."
Stop it. You are interfering with hyperbole. If someone wants to believe that the patch of highway their car is sitting on cost more than they make in a lifetime, don't take the fun out of it by showing them easily that they are mistaken.
Well, since the GWB administration has grown the size of goverment by about 25% since he was elected I am not sure that one can claim that R's are 'all-goverment-is-bad'
Well I know that FHWA funds are used to maintain all of the interstates (they are interstate highways :), but do you have a source that points to MA receiving Federal funds to build the other interstates?
Admittedly I can't find any online sources to back my claim, but MA paying for its own highways was something I heard from several people "in the know" (multiple MTA and MassHighway officials, local CivE's).
Here is the start of the corruption and favoritism - The Port Authority will occupy 1/3 of the building!
It's only fitting. The twin towers were almost as much of a debacle. The idea to make them the world's tallest buildings was a PR move, and made for cost overruns and delays.
But the port authority occupying 1/3rd of the building isn't favoritism. The PA was one of the building's major tenants from the beginning. The buildings created far more office space than was needed (there were acres of unused space in the buildings into the 80's), so the Port Authority took up the slack.
From a Sim Tower / land usage / cold hearted bastard stand point, a smaller building on that site makes more sense. I don't know what the usage by floor was on those buildings, but I bet there was a lot of (no pun intended) "Dead space."
Despite what the realators might say, there's a ton of office space available in New York. The Freedom tower will never be "full". The Twin Towers were never "full." Hell, I think the Empire state building is only 45% full, if that.
Pork, the other government meat.
There are some people that if they don't know, you can't tell 'em.
Fuck You AC. Democunts have ruined this state.
The government has much more of a right to my money than myself - especially when it's so brutally wasted (as in this debacle).
:P
Sorry about that.
why does some government bureacracy rate the most expensive and fancy location in NYC?
Probably for the same reason they did in the original WTC: They owned it, built it and controlled it. (The current controller is only leasing from the Port Authority.)
I imagine the other reason is to ensure that it doesn't lack for tenants. The second article you link even notes that the presence of the Port Authority presence will "...[provide] cash flow from the day the building opens."
Wow. If I were Osama, I would hide in Boston!
Might it refer to a curve that is banked the wrong way?
Of course you like it. You didn't have to pay for most of it. The rest of the country did.
Right, and federal tax dollars from Massachusetts residents didn't pay for projects in every other state in the union? Just think of the Big Dig as a lump sum payment on the Massachusetts share.
How do you think that most states do any highway construction? Federal tax dollars are what does most of that work. In fact the federal government uses the highway construction dollars as leverage against the states to get them to support various laws. For example: if the state does not set the drinking age at 21, it is not eligible for federal highway construction money.
"No Comm, No Bomb"
Mr. Troll, you obviously have never lived in Mass.
It's must be Bush's fault.
At least Democrats squander relatively small amounts of money. The Republicans have blown the Iraq invasion budget by more than $100 billion in order to cater to their special interest groups (big oil... the Bush family et al). At least the Democratic boondoggles only go a few $billion over budget, help that average commuter rather than the already-extraordinarily-wealthy, and have an actual exit strategy.
And who are you going to leave in charge of taxpayer money? If not elected officials then I think a diefied soverign is your only other choice.
I've hit Karma 50 and gotten a Score:5, Troll... I win!
No- it's actually a sign to inform you that there's a special ramp/exit to reverse direction.
This is also a common occurance on Massachusetts roads.
You have to drive here to believe it.
It wasn't just Democrats.
Bud Shuster was involved as well. Probably one of the reasons he stepped down.
I'm from Boston and live in PA now. TEMPORARILY! When this PhD is over I'm so going back there. You forgot the occupational tax in PA. You have to pay for the privelage of having a good job. And people call it Taxachusetts. Anyway, thanks for making me homesick.
I've hit Karma 50 and gotten a Score:5, Troll... I win!
I was wondering about that when I watched all those documentaries. I just kind of assumed the cell phone companies would come up with something to prevent that from happening.
Well, I'm taking I-93 south tomorrow. This ought to be interesting..
It's great that they accomplished this, but it'll be really dissapointing when they have to tear it all down to accommodate the segways that will be taking over cities in the future.
The Kennedy clan needed a place to hide more women's bodies. The bridge story is getting old!
The Big Dig fiasco was the result of collusion amongts Bechtel/Parsons Brinckerhoff, the Republican governor's office and the predominantly Democratic Legislature on Beacon Hill. Both the Governor's office and the Legislature made the project a patronage bonanza. When this corruption resulted in fiascos, they simple payed Bechtel and Parsons Brinkerhoff to clean up the messes.
The main reason we still have tolls, and in fact they have gone up, is to finance the Big Dig. Two board members (one Democrat one Republican) at the Mass Turnpike Authority spoke out on Bechtel/BP corruption at the Big Dig, and in fact threatened to terminate their contracts in 2001. Republican Governor Jane Swift quickly fired them and increase tolls on the Mass Pike. Her predecessor's, predecessor Bill Weld (also Republican) at one point considered selling the whole Mass Pike, but instead used it as collateral on $2.7 billion in loans to pay for, you guessed it, the Big Dig.
Painting the Big Dig as partisan issue is ridiculous. It cuts across every level and wing of Mass politics.
I'm not sure what makes people think Romney is so much better than the last three governors, all of whom were Republican. I happen to know he is a lying sack of crap. He openly claimed my rep, who is a prominant Democratic known for his honesty and independence (one of the few who voted to fund the Clean Elections law we passed by referendum) endorsed him, which was an outright lie.
You do raise a good point about the partisan bickering over what to name the northbound Central Artery tunnel. How our Democrats could oppose naming it after the late beloved Silvio Conte is beyond me. Conte worked closely with the House Democratic leadership under Tip O'Neill and endorsed Democrat John Olver as his successor before he died.
It is cowardly, and a betrayal of whatever it means to be a Jew, to act as a white man
-James Baldwin
There are NO TOLLS in the Central Artery Tunnel. Let me repeat that, because I realize not all of you commute in and around the Boston area day in day out, THERE ARE NO TOLLS IN THE CENTRAL ARTERY TUNNEL.
There are tolls on numerous other bridges and routes, most of which either ALREADY HAD TOLLS or are replacing routes that were toll based to begin with. Tolls have GONE UP, but that's a different story.
Not entirely true. Piestewa (formerly Squaw Peak) Parkway was built with some federal funding as well, although you are correct that the vast majority of the funding is/was local and state (in fact if I recall correctly almost all of the early funding was just city of Phoenix). Just because it doesn't have an I or US Highway on the sign doesn't mean the feds didn't chip in to build it. That's a big (if not the only) reason why MAG (Maricopa Association of Governments) et al. care about the Valley's air quality - violation of fed air quality standards will reduce eligibility for federal transportation funding.
fuck you.
How many people do you know who won't ride the bus because of the "element" he or she will encounter?
Actually, every single person I can think of that won't ride the bus won't do so because it is an inconvenience. Riding the bus can easily add an additional hour to your daily travel time (to/from work), and with a wife and kids, I can think of many things I would rather be doing for that hour.
I'm sure there are people out there like you describe; I'm just glad that I don't know any of them.
Perl - $Just @when->$you ${thought} s/yn/tax/ &couldn\'t %get $worse;
If you wanted you could sue Massachusetts, but as someone from Illinois I could also sue Massachusetts for the cost of the Big Dig. The money garnered from any victory would not go to you but back to the Federal government. That you have many people from out of state driving around Boston would be something to bring up in defense of the billions of Federal money paid out (though that would be doubtful, as under that logic every street should be paid for with Federal funds).
The ones in charge of taxpayer money are going to be taxpayers, able to hold Congress responsible through the Federal Judiciary with the enforcement of the Executive branch. No diefied soverign required, just the already in place cecks and ballances.
The system we have now is broken, especially when you have Senators like Robert Byrd, who runs on being a self-described billion dollar industry for West Virginia.
common sense: noun
What those who are ignorant of the subject matter think; usually wrong.
Atlanta is dived in half by I-85, and it really creates a huge split in the communities of the city.
Here in Vegas, the valley where the city sits is divided in half 2 ways--southwest to northeast by I-15 and southeast to northwest by US-95. At every point along the freeways I can think of, the communities on one side of the freeway are no different from the communities on the other side. Obviously Vegas has its distinct communities like any other (fairly) large city, but I don't think the freeways have ever played any role in where/how those communities form.
Perl - $Just @when->$you ${thought} s/yn/tax/ &couldn\'t %get $worse;
and im not a democrat or a republican. i hate both you greedy fucks equally.
tell me oh wise sage, did haliburton or any of its subsidiaries get any contracts in the "rebuilding" of iraq ? thought so.
here, choke on this:
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe." --Albert Einstein
however not speaker as that would be a republican, Dennis Hastert
With the war in Iraq about to top 100 billion, I wonder if either party should be name-calling at this point. At least when "the Dems" were in office, we were arguing about blowjobs instead of war.
And it is a pretty good idea.
A common boondoggle are post offices. The scam works like this: CongresscritterA wants to send a little money toward his friends. Doesn't want to be held responsible for what looks to be an outright kickback setup. Trades his vote on a pork project with CongresscritterB who sits on the post office building committee. Next thing you know, the friends of CongresscritterA have sold land (at pork barrel prices) to the USPS, and contractor friends build a new post office building at premium prices. Joe Citizen mistakenly drives into the post office, looking for a service window, only to be told that it is a 'satellite delivery station' and they don't accept mail here. WTF?
My town got two of these in the last couple years. The town's population grew 10% in the last decade, but our post office truck capacity grew %100. FWIW, my congresscritter has a bunch of towns in his district.
So the questions are:
1) During the lawsuit, CongresscritterA will claim zero involvement, so it isn't fair to blame his district for the financial misdeeds of CongresscritterB. Who, really, will be held responsible to pay? Law makers are often lawyers, and are (or hire) professionals at the game "shift the blame". You bet my state would claim the fault lies with CongresscritterB's state for electing him. I suppose we don't really care, as long as someone takes a fall.
2) These new post offices are for improving the efficiency of the federal organization known as the United States Postal Service. "It's not a local benefit, it's nation-wide" will be the claim. How does one argue against making the USPS more efficient?
All in all, you've a proposed a good idea. The courts are supposed to be one of the parts of checks and balances. Man, can you imagine the change of venue hearings? I think in some cases it would be easy, but in others, it would be exceedingly difficult to make the case to shift the financial burden. I still think that dollars spent per capita (beneficiaries) would make a decent yardstick.
"The most sensible request of government we make is not, "Do something!" But "Quit it!"
This is incorrect. The I-93 section of the Artery is toll free.
I-90 (the Mass Pike) extension is toll, on the return (Westbound) side of the tunnel, comming out of the airport. It was previously $4 dollars for cars when I last working on the project. FWIW, the Eastbound section is toll too, but you pay them before you enter the section of the highway that belongs to the CA/T.
As with most things, the reality of state versus federal government is much more complicated than your simplistic explanation. Times change and so has the relationship between the two governmments. Just as I'm sure you wouldn't want to see slavery, something that was considered virtually inviolable in the late 1700's, the concept of the higher powers of states in comparison to the federal government has changed quite a bit over the course of 227 years.
While the BigDig itself is quite a feat in every regard (engineering, technological, political, etc.)
I personally, worked on the software driving the BigDig's traffic managment system (TMS). The completed system is a quite a feat, allowing their operators to monitor every asepect of the roadway.
The system features a complete CCTV network, espousing the entire system. It provides comprehensive monitoring and control of every device attached to the tunnel and supporting buildings, including traffic signs, message signs, fire alarms, smoke detectors, ventilation fans, electrical subsystems.
You name it, its connected to the TMS -- everything can be monitored and controled from there. Obviously, its not the only manner to control; everything has a redundant control system, so everything could be controlled if the system shuts down.
The system also features intelligent accident management and response: it can automatically balance responses to mulitiple accidents, and automatically recommend responses based on roadway conditions. For example, if a accidnet occurs shutting down the two center lanes, it will automatically PLace red X's on the lane signals, display accident warning messages on the signs, and even change the radio message as appropate. All the operator has to do is review the recommend actions, remove any he doesn't want, and activate. The software takes care of handling everything else.
And will you be this principled when it's your state's slip-and-slide?
Not to say I completely disagree with you, but that's the way the system works. People in MA pay for Florida to get their slip-and-slide so that they can have their Big Dig, so that AZ can have its CAP canal and on and on and on. This isn't meant to justify "pork" spending. Pork is bad, but some local projects that are funded by the feds are legitimate. The problem is how do you separate pure pork from those legitimate projects.
Some argue we should just eliminate the whole system by taking the federal government out of it, gut national income taxes and spending and let states the tax and spend for themselves. Then you have the problem of projects that a state simply can not fund for themselves but we all benefit from indirectly, like for instance an interstate through South Dakota. Say for example that SD can't afford to build it but the rest of the country would benefit from it by being able to transport goods cross country or being able to drive themselves. Should the rest of us help fund it? If you say yes, you just opened the whole can of worms again and we're back where we started.
fuck you.
Yeah but that whole "confederation" ended when the Constitution was ratified. The Constitution isn't a compact between the government and states, it's a compact between the government and the people. There's a reason it starts off "We the People of the United States" not "We the People of Massachusetts, New York, Virginia, etc." The Constitution is the supreme law of the land, and while certain powers are reserved to the states (and others to the federal government, and others are shared, and others are denied to both), it very clearly states who is on top. That's why secession isn't constitutional.
fuck you.
What's wrong with this math? Is some Slashdot editor dicking with me?
1 + 3 (interesting) + 2 (insightful) = 5 (cap of +5 per post)
5 - 2 (troll) = 3
"...always new atoms but always doing the same dance, remembering what the dance was yesterday." -Richard Feynman
So tell me:
What did they do with all the lead paint? Leave it there? they still had to remove it you stupid fucking treehugger.
Why did I have to pay for your fucking urban beautification?
Because you are a fucking Democrat, that's why.
Best way to renovate that city is with a nuke!
And I thought about that. The State would still have to pay because of one more mechanism; all Federal funds going to a State must be actively accepted by that State, preferably by someone held readily accountable, such as the governor. So, at some point the State must sign off on it, so no passing the buck.
As for how you argue against it, that's why I included the idea that the way the appropriation was passed is included in the discussion. I also included rating the cost versus the benifit. Now, no system is perfect, treat my idea more as a seive, getting rid of the blatent pork projects and those that are spiraling out of control, but letting some of the smaller, yet at least somewhat useful pork through.
common sense: noun
What those who are ignorant of the subject matter think; usually wrong.
"If you are an AC, don't bother responding."
Oh, sorry.
You got a deal. In exchange I would like you to kindly refund any and all tax dollars I have paid that have been spent on military projects, oil and coal subsidies, mining and logging subsidies, highways, stadiums, the space program, most but not all farm subsidies, and any other program or project I don't like.
fuck you.
--Of course you like it. You didn't have to pay for most of it. The rest of the country did.
True, however, there are some other things to think about before you can just point fingers at boston residents.
1) Boston is not the only place that receives federal funding for pork barrel legislation. While I don't agree with pork barrel legislation 90% of the time, there are instances in which certain things would NEVER get done without a large sum of money coming from the feds. Do you think boston would have been able to raise 15 billion on itself over that time frame? perhaps it could've, it they weren't also supporting pork barrel legislation in other areas of the country. While boston obviously has received more than it's fair share in say a 30 year window (received more money for federal projects than it has given out), i'd be willing to bet it's not as horrendous as it seems.
2) Cities need to be efficient, and although you are in the right to bitch about money getting pumped into the city, at least understand that the rest of the state will eventually get a return on their investment. By improving the infrastructure of areas like boston, NYC, silicon valley, etc... you keep business going/improving/growing. Just the ability to lessen the average commute for a worker in the city by 10 min would have very positive impact on businesses and school alike... lowering costs, improving quality of life, etc etc. When companies in boston do well, I'd be willing to bet that the effects are felt throughout the state, whether it be generating more taxes from within the city, to creating more jobs/opportunities around it as well.
my last sig was too controversial... now, a new and improved useless sig!
It costs more to drive on the NYS Thruway than it does for the MS Turnpike.
That is due in large part to geographic and climatic differences between MA and NY (even though they are adjacent).
NY state contains the snowiest place (Buffalo?) in the contiguous US, and the rest of it (apart from the coast) is quite bad too. In comparison to MA, it is low-populated and widely spread out.
The additional taxes NY residents pay go to snow removal on their roads and highways (and afterwards to snow-related repairs, which won't be completely until the next autumn). With (more snow) + (more distance) + (fewer taxpayers), it's easy to see why the state tax rate is so much higher than MA.
Yay! I am driving through the tunnel. Yay! Hey Lady! What am I doing? Yay! I am driving through the tunnel. Yay! Hey Lady!
wow, who taught you US history? we are a FEDERATION of states and have been since the Articles of Confederation failed miserably. as such the federal government can trump the states in any areas where the state's aren't given powers by the constitution.
you're from the south aren't you?
I never said I was smart, I just said I was smarter than you
That's what it was sold as, but really everybody just wanted a shiny fun new toy to drive on. People probably just didn't want to admit that the federal government was again expanding its charter and getting into the highway building business, so they said "The federal government is making something for its military forces, just like the constitution says it should."
If you wanted a network of roads for primarily for military use, it would be far more cost effective to build roads that are mostly single lane with no shoulders. With traffic under central military command, there's no need even for bidirectional travel on the roads. In fact, it would be even more cost effective to just use railroads. How big of an expressway do you really need to supply an ICBM base?
Hitler built the autobahn under the same military pretext, but they went almost unused through the war because it turned out that they mostly used the rail system for moving military traffic.
The Interstate doesn't work because the Federal Government has jurisdiction over Interstate trade, so it is within the Federal mandate as you aren't saying "we're going to build a highway across South Dakota" you're saying "We're going to build a highway that passes through Massachusetts, New York, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana, Illinois, Wisconsin, Minnesota, South Dakota, Wyoming, Montana, Idaho and Washington as part of a large system of arteries linking the entire country." In order to work it required a central authority to coordinate the building effort. And the Interstate itself had a good sized debate and was passed in a bill that had large portions devoted to the project. Plus, except for a handful of people living in the boonies somewhere, everyone in the US directly benifits from the Interstate system darn near every day. So, you have three vital points: 1) It could not have been handled by each State on its own. 2) It was thouroughly discussed and openly passed. 3) It directly benifits most citizens of the US. You may be able to effectively argue against the Interstates in Hawaii, though, but South Dakota you'd have a tough time forcing to reimburse the Feds (assuming the system would let you go back that far, of course).
As for if I'll be this principled when it's my state's slip-and-slide, that's the absolute beauty of it! IT DOESN'T MATTER! It'll be brought before the courts (this is where we separate pork from legitimacy on a case-by-case basis) and judged whether or not it's my pet project. The population is so great that the buddy-buddy system will not garuntee pork survives as there will always be some group of "assholes" who will scrap together enough money to challenge a Federally funded project.
I'm not looking for a 100% reduction in pork, it's unrealistic and, as you alluded to, there's a good deal of gray area, but I am looking for a way individuals can DO something about government waste as opposed to simply complaining about it, being almost powerless to vote otherwise due to the two-party system. I will admit, I'm one of those people who would like to see my State get the bulk of my taxes, but I'm far from saying let's gut the Federal government with this proposal.
common sense: noun
What those who are ignorant of the subject matter think; usually wrong.
No, the rest of the country did not pay for most of it. They paid for a tiny fraction of it.
See, way back at the begininng, this projects cost was woefully underestimated (~2.5 billion). The federal government (i.e. the rest of the country) committed to pay for a good chunk of that. The argument at the time was that this made sense because it was Massachustts share of the interstate highway money they had missed out on back when they were helping to pay for all of your highways (having largely already built their own at their own cost). Now you might say this argument was BS, and it was really just because the Speaker of the House was from Mass. And we could argue about it and conclude that it was probably some of each, or not conclude anything and just keep arguing. But this was 20 years ago, so it's probaly time to get over it.
Since then, (for reasons we could have all sorts of diverse arguments about) the actual cost of the project has turned out to be many many times that inital lousy estimate. (~15 billion)
So I suspect it's this much higher number you're really upset about having to pay. And if you live in Mass, perhaps you should be. If not, relax, because you didn't. The Feds(i.e. You) are still paying for what they commited to 20 years ago: A portion of the initial cost estimate, which is now a miniscule fraction of the projects actual cost.
Slight point of order, from a current Framingham native, prior Brookline. Boston was laid out by cows and farmers, not for defense. Being one of the oldest cities in the US, it was built up from very small beginnings. This is quite different from say, Manhattan, which was laid out by architects and planners - hence the grid of streets.
-T
I wish you were exagerating on the cost...
Well - I got logged out by Slashdot's lovely "auto-log-out" system, so here goes:
WHAT ON EARTH ARE YOU BABBLING ABOUT?
I'm trying to figure out what earthly context you've decided to waste all our time with by posting that. So Boston is fun to spend a couple of days in - yippee. (Actually, it isn't - it's hell to drive around in, the public transportation sucks balls and there's no parking anywhere. Plus once you're there there's nothing to do because it's a pit. But whatever - what else can you expect from the home town of the Red Sux?)
Ignoring all the above paragraph, and assuming what you wrote is true, the original poster said "the Big Dig doesn't actually solve any problems." You said "Boston's great!" The two are completely unrelated.
That would be like someone saying that a kernel patch doesn't really solve the problem it's supposed and someone else posting "Linux is great!" It doesn't add to the conversation, it doesn't help anyone, and it has nothing to back it with.
Many corporations that employ people all over the country have their headquarters in Boston. These corporations benefit because their execs and other employees at said office are better able to get to and fro work. Their benefit is then "trickled down" or out to others in the country who live in states where they employ people.
Okay, so it's not the strongest argument in the world, just what I could make up in 15 seconds. The point is somebody could come up with some argument that is valid to a point that you or I or others would disagree with. Given other transportation routes I could argue that building a highway through SD was a waste of taxpayer money as it only really benefits people in SD. I live in AZ, if I travel cross-country it's usually on I40 or I10. Maybe the system could have just been built through states that had the money to pony up for it, and really the only reason it went through SD was so that they wouldn't be left out. But is that really my problem? I think the problem here is that so much of this is subjective in terms of what value do these projects have and who are they valuable to.
I applaud your efforts to seek out some solution to the problem, I just think that if you really want to attack it you need to get closer to the root of the whole thing and solve it systemically (like maybe why are we stuck with a two party (or as some might say "one party, two head") system?). Maybe getting rid of the House or the Senate and replacing it with an legislative body elected "at large" nationally instead of state by state (not necessarily a good idea, but one possibility and it does have some merit).
fuck you.
Of course you like it. You didn't have to pay for most of it. The rest of the country did.
If I'm not mistaken; and I may be, I haven't taken a civics class since high school; but Massachusetts residents pay federal taxes just like everyone else.
NO CARRIER
Do you have ANY CLUE what was involved in the Big Dig? Do you?
We are talking about 6 LAYERS of infrastructure.
Entire new methods of working the ground were needed to complete parts of this project. Ground Freezing for stabilization, tunnel jacking. You name it.
I tell you what bud. I would be willing to bet that a private firm would tell you today that it might cost you 5 Billion *just* to deal with the public utilities layer of this job. Have you ever been below ground in a service conduit?
Imagine one that is 100 years old. Parts of it running underwater. 100 year old plumbing that must be re-routed without disrupting service.
50 year old eletrical lines that the wiring maps were lost AGES ago. Wanna deal with that?
40 Year old telcom/data conduits, Some private. Most redundant and replaced years ago, but still physically down there. What goes where? Who owns what? What needs replaced? Whats new? Where do we PUT it? Is there more behind that wall?
Is that unlabelled black cable *laying* on the ground an old bell trunk line? Or UUnets OC-256. (I have no clue if UUnets pipe is that size, or where it runs, so don't flame me, I am just throwing out an example. A Large percentage of that service level is undocumented, so you have no clue) Lets cut it and find out? Wanna place a bet?
Okay. You have it all figured out now? Took you what? 1 year, 2 maybe to find out who owns what, where it goes, and to deal with city hall and the lawyers and the paperwork.
Congratulations, You have just completed 100 Feet of this layer of the project. Only 13 miles to go, and 5 other layers to deal with.
Learn what was involved before you bitch about the price. Sure it was expensive, but it was needed. And in the long run, it will be worth it.
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order- Ed Howdershelt Via Tass
You're right, it does state precisely who is on top, and that is the States. There's also no doubt that secession was not only valid under the Constitution, the threat was frequently invoked prior to the Civil War by every major party in the union as a means of strongarming legislative matters. You have absolutely no knowledge of the history of this country, and it's impressive when there's comparatively so little of it to learn.
Most of the money for the big-dig is comming from the federal government. Even then, Mass pays more in federal taxes then they get back in pork.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
No, the States trump the Federal Government where the Federal Government is not given powers by the Constitution. It's right there, read it.
you're from the south aren't you?
Only if the South shares a border with Canada.
...about the fate of that guy who used to play the saxophone where the Freedom Trail passed under the old elevated roadway. It was my impression that he was there not only because there were plenty of passing tourists to put money in his case, but because of the rather amazing acoustics.
Over all, Mass is subsidizing the rest of the country. They put out more money in taxes then they take in services, including the big dig.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
As you said, it's a weak argument. The Big Dig was more a city beautification project, as faster travel could have been accomplished without sinking it into the ground. Again though, with this logic every single street would have Federal funding.
For the second part of your arguement, it's a complete straw man. You are arguing from a point where you are simply you, living in Arizona, looking at a single part of a system in a vaccum. You have to be you, the omnipresent (poor word choice, but best I can come up with) American citizen, looking at the purpose of the entire system, and if you find the system to be of significant value to the nation as a whole, you then must make sure the part you are objecting to is unneccessary to that purpose.
The whole issue of subjectivity is exactly why it would be brought up in the courts and not simply axed as soon as someone pointed its finger at it and cried "PORK!" That is where a thourough examination of each project would occur.
common sense: noun
What those who are ignorant of the subject matter think; usually wrong.
If MA could opt out of the USA's Taxation and federal funding system, they would be better off. MA residents pay more in taxes then they get back in services.
autopr0n is like, down and stuff.
I've never seen a stupider and more dangerous practice than opeing up the breakdown lane for travel. I commute to Boston from Rhode Island daily, and the cause for the vast majority of the traffic is NOT 'bandwidth' issues, it's that everybody packs so close together that they force people to behave aggresively to get on or off the highway, stopping two lanes of traffic so one ass can switch lanes. The backup from the 95N-93N connector is ENTIRELY due to the fact that two lanes of drivers have to merge (slowly) into one just where they SHOULD be speeding up to merge with 93N!
Breakdown-lane travel seroiusly exacerbates the problems, every exit and onramp becomes a total disaster. The real answer would be to have police or cameras strictly enforcing a 'keep a safe distance from the guy in front of you' rule. The reason RT3 'inbound' is so fucked has little to do with how many lanes it bears, it's that when it finally DOES merge onto 93 the lane markers are unclear and improperly implemented, and people pack too close together to let proper lane-switching..
I've singlehandedly boosted the throughput of SEVERAL of these problem spots by STOPPING my car or moving slow enough to let two lanes of cars (in one 'lane' become one so everyone can do what they need to do.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
In other related news, Hell is reporting sub zero temperatures in the outer levels, with snowball fight breaking out within the city of Dis.
When can we get a Big Dig here in NYC? We need to bury these ghastly highways, and lay more pipes full of subways. Another bridge across the Hudson would be great. And what's happening with that freighttrain tunnel from Staten Island to Red Hook?
--
make install -not war
No difference? Really? I used to have to leave my house FORTY MINUTES EARLIER when I worked north of the city in Medford on the old highway, the tunnel moves cars MUCH more efficiently than the old highway did. The day the northbound-93 tunnel opened up I realized that my LIFE was about to become MUCH more tolerable.
As for congestion in the city, It's not really so bad, except for a few runs you can learn to avoid. A REAL solution would be to massively expand parking at the outlying ends of the rail lines (Medford, Quincy, etc) and aggresively advertise that you can park out in Medford and get downtown faster and cheaper than if you tried to park in-city. If you did this there would be a LOT fewer cars in the city in the first place.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
FYI, from my experience Mass drivers will ignore the red lane signals and try to speed ahead on a closed lane in hope of getting a few cars ahead, they'll then stop all those abiding the rules to squeeze in, causing massive backup.
I suggest ceiling-mounted machine guns for these cases, wire them into your system and advertise them heavily. I guarantee that the economic benefit of everyone getting to work on-time will far outweigh the costs of sweeping up the remains of the jerks who are constanly looking to get ahead at the expense of others.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
I believe Interstate funds were used for about half of I-95 (Attleboro-Canton and Peabody-Amesbury), as well as I-84 (the Highway With A Variable Number), I-91, part of I-495, and I-195. They also would have paid for I-95 through Boston (only parts that were finished were the Central Artery and route 1, both built before the Interstate program) and the I-695 Inner Belt, which would have gutted Cambridge and Roxbury to provide the carrying capacity that the Central Artery never had; the feds would also have picked up the tab for the Western Expressway, which was a northerly plan for I-90 that would have crossed the Charles River a couple of times instead of going under the Prudential building as the Pike does. The money that was supposed to pay for the Inner Belt was cashed in to make improvements on the MBTA, mostly on the Red Line in Cambridge and Braintree.
The Southeast Expressway (I-93 south of Boston), I-290 and I-190 were, IIRC, built as state roads originally, and picked up their Interstate designation later, as did I-95 between Canton and Peabody (also the legendary Route 128).
Well... not strictly true. The Third Harbor Tunnel project was a vestige of the Master Highway Plan of 1948, and would eventually have carried I-95 through Logan Airport property along a slightly different route than the Ted Williams and MA-1A take now. It was a completely different issue from depressing the Central Artery, and they were only combined under Mike Dukakis' second term.
Renovating the Artery probably wouldn't have been an option anyway -- it wouldn't have solved any traffic problems, and in any case, though what's left of the Artery is said to be structurally sound, the bridge that carried traffic over the Charles River isn't. It's a decrepit piece of garbage with visible cracks in the pilings and ad hoc repairs all over the place. I'm almost surprised it stayed standing until the new tunnel opened.
In any case, the only other reasonable option would be to build the Inner Belt, which was a political disaster in the 60s and 70s and wouldn't be taken seriously today.
Don't forget kickbacks to the urban rednecks who run South Boston...
Romney seems to me to be a man with some integrity, though he does use typical GOP attack politics. I don't think he's a politician though. He's making a lot of enemies the way he's running the state, and I think he will wind up being the death of the Massachusetts Republican Party. It's not like there's a place for hard-right politics in New England anyway -- Bill Weld could attest to that. He was a moderate-right Republican (the kind the extremists dismiss as a RINO). Romney is a traditional conservative, and a poor fit for the state.
Not to defend Weld... he proved himself a dilettante and a social climber by moving to New York after leaving office. But he did a better job than Mitt's doing.
Discovery Channel has visited the Dig in Extreme Engineering series. There's lots of stuff to explore online too.
Anyone who doesn't complain about it is not the one stuck with the bill.
Those were indeed all used during construction of the Big Dig.
At least we all had jobs unlike the overly efficient/cheap private sector. Who cares if it takes 20 years? We have the money to pay for it, it creates jobs for the community, and when it is done its useful because it creates even more jobs. Wonderful for the economy.
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
The big did created hundreds of thousands of jobs. It will create hundreds of thousands more jobs for years to come. During a time when we are losing jobs construction is one industry which has stayed somewhat stable.
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
Part of the reason for that is that the construction isn't actually alleviating the problem. Under DeLay's iron-fisted "roads or broke" program, the Houston area gets more and more roads leading into it. This encourages people in the suburbs to drive in and patronize city businesses, which is a good thing. But they also crowd the city streets, which DeLay doesn't fund. And worse, most of them don't do their shopping in Houston; they do it out in First Colony or Katy or wherever they live. They work in Houston, drive through it every day, expect Houston to provide police protection while they're here, and then don't pay a dime of tax to Houston. Houston tries to annex them (e.g. Kingwood) so they have to pay their fair share, they call it tyranny.
But back to road construction: what the Houston area really needs is not more concrete, but a real mass transit solution. I don't know whether this means a massively improved bus system, or light rail, or what have you. I'm not an expert in the field. But DeLay and friends block funding for studies of mass transit in Houston (Dallas gets them) and instead supports abominations like the Katy corridor, which would have 10 lanes (plus shoulders) in each direction. We complain about traffic, but proposals like that will only make it worse for us. (They will--temporarily--make it better for a few suburban commuters.)
So in summary, not all of us are being hypocrites by complaining about both traffic and construction. Some of us actually live in Houston and we're sick of our city's transportation agenda being hijacked by national politicians who represent the leeching suburbs.
Gates' Law: Every 18 months, the speed of software halves.
If we are to be the rulers of the world and global police/government, we do need to have the most advanced military.
How else will we control the terrorists? HealthCare and Education are not important. The only job of government is to protect itself. Thats it. The government's job is to build bunkers for the president and other important people. Your job is to pay taxes so that these bunkers can be built along with the weapons needed to attack any country that pisses us off.
Now stop complaining, if you want to complain you can go to france.
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
Just move to Boston. I don't see why you have to live in Western Mass if its schools are so bad and Boston is getting all the investment.
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
"# # The restaurants are great (especially the North End) # the public transportation is incredible. You can get just about any place in the city for $0.85" Bus 1 dollar. Train 1.25 Where did you get the 85 cent figure
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
urban inner city rednecks? I've never heard that one before lol.
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
Grandparent: look at Amendment 10 of any copy of the U.S. Constitution - Here's one, for example. Read Amendment 9 too, while you're there. In fact, read it all. It has some good ideas!
Only in socialist countries, where the contractor often IS the government, and who thus has nothing to gain by milking the contract.
A good American contractor is one who can squeeze a piece of orange peel to get two glasses of juice out of it.
Ever heard about the Great Wall of China?
Regards,
--
*Art
Building a new road, even with land takings, would in this case be expected to be far cheaper than:
Relocating the massive, jumbled warren of urban utility lines in the proposed right-of-way of the tunnel.
Staging temporary ramps all over the place to enable building the new road directly under the old one and keeping the old road open during construction.
If they had just closed I-93 to do this, it would have been finished years ago and for billions less. The impact of closing the road, however, would have been catastrophic.
Michael J.
Root, God, what is difference?
Really, the elevated artery could have been renovated to provide the same benefits---minus the prettiness---that the Big Dig provides, and at a much reduced cost.
You've got to be kidding. Have you ever driven on the elevated roadway? Modern office buildings butt up to it within inches! You'd have to put on another deck without reducing the traffic flow through the current deck. And that doesn't even address the issues with the I-90/I-93 interface, the interfaces with the S & C tunnels, the interface with US-1, Storrow Drive, the Airport, and surface streets. And this doesn't even address the problem of getting ramps up and down from the new, even higher deck without taking billions of dollars in office and residential buildings.
Sure, the elevated roadway could have been upgraded, but it wouldn't address the core problem. Or they could just do nothing too.
There were lots of options, and it was decided that the big dig was the best one.
When I was living in Boston (1998-2000) is was $0.60 for the bus and $0.85 for the train.
90% of everything is crap. Also, crap is relative.
What's the cheapest per-distance massive engineering project? I know that's the wrong metric for a lot of things, but is still interesting.
I forget what 8 was for.
Roads are actually more efficient; every mile of road can carry 30,000 cars per day, however every mile of light rail line can carry only 10,000 people per day.
Clearly you haven't spent enough time in places like New York City, or London. The amount of traffic on the Metro Infrastructure is far greater than what the roads and highways carry.
Think about it, your average 11 car train (NYC) carrys about 1000 people. Keeping that in mind, and how there is a new train every 5 to 7 minutes means that there is anywhere from 12,000 to 5,400 thousand people, per hour, per train line, and per direction
Add in all the other major train lines, Long Island RailRoad, and Metro North, you can easily see how the entire system carries millions of people per day easily.
Sunny Dubey
http://www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/m1318/1_55/6814 7449/p1/article.jhtml
Looks like MA is worse than NY when it comes to the average amount of state paxes paid. You guys in southern NE should pay more attention to NH's style of spending (don't).
There are four boxes used in defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order.
Dondemn old buildings, come in with a bull dozer an level anything in your way and construct the new conduit. Any way you slice it $15 of MY fucking money is just insane. If the people of Boston want to waste that kind of money than take it out of their pockets.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
Boston is unique compared to every other large American city. First off, Boston is right on the coast, so it simply can not be approached from the east (except by boat, of course). Unfortunately, their airport is in EAST Boston, across the harbor from downtown. This means that basically three highways bring all the major traffic into and through Boston. It also meant that primary access to Logan Airport (one of the world's top 10 busiest) was through 2 two lane tunnels under Boston harbor, one in each direction. Since it's not possible to complete the interstate highway 'ring' that encircles most large cities, effectively shunting a lot of traffic around them, all traffic must come through downtown Boston. The two main highways (Interstate 93, which runs N-S and Interstate 90, which runs West) literally meet right at downtown. Their connection was two lanes wide in each direction. Try to imagine what putting over 100,000 cars a day on two lanes looks like (for comparison, the four lane I-405 ringing Los Angeles carries about 80,000 cars a day and traffic jams on it can go for 15-20 miles). Some have been using the public transportation mantra. Fact is, back in the 70's and 80's, Boston spent billions on improving public transit, forgoing interstate highways in the process. Boston's subway and commuter rail system not only carries hundreds of thousands of workers every day, it does so in safe, clean, graffiti-less trains. The MBTA system has a customer approval rating approaching 95%! Problem is, traffic must also travel THROUGH Boston, which means that even if 100% of commuters took the train, there'd still be plenty of traffic downtown! Finally, unlike any other major city, Boston is made up of many neighborhoods, tied together by small, winding streets. The surface street system that serves so many other cities (such as Los Angeles) well, simply does not exist in Boston. A city the size of Boston simply NEEDED the Big Dig for its very survival.
He KILLED somebody.
Till he is in jail he hasn't sufferend enough.
Had that be you or I, we would have been in jail
No shit.
But the MAJORITY of the cost of this was carried by taxpayers in the other 49 states.
It was a was of money, not for what was done, but for how it was done.
Dude, I'm from Maine, and I think a lot of us folks have a special distrust of people from Massachusetts. We've only been separate from them as a state for less than two centuries, and with amtrak offerring near-commuter service into York and Cumberland counties here, I fear they're taking us back acre by acre.
But get off your fucking horse -- I've spent the entirety of my young adult life hating the city of Boston for how ugly, backwards, and just plain notorious its traffic system is. Now I've seen the final visualization done by a Cambridge firm (that rivals my own) and I am thoroughly impressed.
I see Boston coming alive now that this new project is completed, and that really excites me. It was a city that I thought I could never love. Yeah, $16 billion is a lot of money. So is $93 billion -- which I believe is the "cost-overrun" of Gulf War II? You know, the occupation? Here's a fraction of that money that will make millions of American's daily lives fundamentally better -- and you're against it. I think that just makes you sad. Our money is mishandled in far more dangerous ways.
ShaunDon
elevated highway renovated?!? How are they going to put some more lanes to it to add levels make it higher and uglier?! Where would they be able to put the parks in the darkness on the bottom?? What would they grow in this park thorn bushes?? I live in boston stop smoking the funky green shit.
I know I am paranoid, but it's a sign of the times.
What would a well-placed truck-bomb do in the tunnel? Wouldn't such a terrorist attack kill thousands and cause billions in damage?
Has anyone thought of this threat and how we might counter it?
I suggest you read Slashdot
worth it for who cocknose? The obnoxious chowds who get some nice roads that will be too full again in 10 years? Nice for the local contractors and unions?
Or nice for the rest of the fucking country that paid 15 billion dollars for it? If I get to race a fucking formula 1 car there it might be worth it, otherwise it is a big pile of crap to me.
To bad the original ideals of the constitution have been long left behind - those roads should be locally paid for. No way in hell that should be a big 15 billion dollar kick in the balls for someone in Oregon or Idaho.
What you and AC (and the rest of your kin here who apparently haven't realized that the Confederacy lost) are arguing is that because the Constitution 1. doesn't give all power to the federal government and 2. allows that individuals may have rights not specifically enumerated in the Constitution that the federal government is therefore not the higher level of government. It's a bogus argument.
1. The primary purpose of the Constitution was to limit the powers of government and to keep what powers government maintained as close to home as feasible. Thus the idea of separation of powers and the federal system, but also the fact that the federal government is one of enumerated powers: that which is not given is considered to be retained by the people. Amendment 10.
2. This is a big reason why the Madisonians were opposed to a Bill of Rights in the first place. On the one hand they thought it unnecessary because the federal government was not supposed to exceed its enumerated powers and on the other hand they feared that if the rights of individuals were explicitly listed, then future generations may construe that to believe that only those specific rights were intended to be protected. The 9th amendment was the compromise.
3. While we're assigning homework, why don't you flip a page and read number 14 (Section 1 to be exact). The one that states that the Bill of Rights and other constitutional protections apply to the states as well as the federal government, correcting an error the Framers made by not making it explicit in the original text (since it was interpreted between ratification of the Constitution and ratification of the 14th amendment that the BoR did not apply to states). Okay, so now we see that the Constitution limits the power of the states as well.
The primary purpose of the Constitution was to:
1. Provide for the organization of a national government.
2. Define the powers of government (again, primarily at the national level, but also somewhat at the state level).
3. And protect the rights of the citizenry.
While there are realms in which the federal government is not allowed to legislate, within its own sphere it is the pre-eminent legislative and governing body in the nation. States are required to follow laws passed by the federal government that are within its legitimate capacity. What you and others here have insinuated is that because there are limits to what the federal government can do that makes it somehow inferior to state governments. NEWSFLASH: the power of state governments is limited as well. State governments are bound to obey and follow the constitution as well. Again, the rights of individuals are protected from state interference as well. The Constitution is not a compact between the states, it is explicitly a compact between the people and the power to break the compact is reserved solely to them (hence why, despite some people's lack of understanding, states cannot secede).
fuck you.
Actually, it was thought up originally as network of roads to provide jobs during the Depression, but lessons learned in 1919, 1940-41 with moving large groups of units across the country as well as the use of the Autobahn during the ETO phase of WW2 lead Ike to press for it after the War and during his administration.
o bt .htm
"From the outset of construction of the Interstate System, the DOD has monitored its progress closely, ensuring direct military input to all phases of construction. The National Defense Highway System was responsible for building many of the first freeways. Its purpose was supposedly to allow for mass evacuation of cities in the event of a nuclear attack. The Interstate system was designed so that one mile in every five must be straight, usable as airstrips in times of war or other emergencies."
"If you wanted a network of roads for primarily for military use, it would be far more cost effective to build roads that are mostly single lane with no shoulders. With traffic under central military command, there's no need even for bidirectional travel on the roads. In fact, it would be even more cost effective to just use railroads. How big of an expressway do you really need to supply an ICBM base?"
So then when something breaks down the road is blocked. Railroads are bad because they are very easy to interdict with conventional airpower.
Germany didn't get the Autobahn finished, that's why it was mostly unused, but the Allies sure liked it when they got to use it.
http://german.about.com/library/blgermyth08_aut
"By 1941, only another 800 km (500 mi) had been added to the autobahn total since 1938. The Third Reich was not able to finance both the war and its planned 6000 km autobahn system. Ironically, the war prevented the completion of the autobahn that was supposed to help support it. Even with the use of Russian prisoner of war labor, Germany's resources were strained to the limit. With 3860 km completed (much of it war-damaged, incomplete, or unusable), all autobahn construction was halted on 3 Dec. 1941."
If you've never dealt with city politics in a Northeastern U.S. city, let me tell you why people are pissed off. The level of corruption in a typical northeastern city is difficult to describe convincingly unless you've dealt with it. Hartford is generally considered by connecticut standards to be an un-fucked up city because the mayor is not under indigtment right now. but I can tell you right now basically everyone in the hartford government is on the take in some way. all the public money that gets spent does so for the benefit of the old boy network who runs everything. Boston is even older than hartford, and even more italian and you can bet that the billions of dollars overbudget went straight into the pockets of the old boy network who runs the city. No "mistakes were made," this is just how cities in the northeast are run, and the level of outrage among many people is constant, just it's direction changes depending on where our money happens to be getting pissed away at this particular moment.
Well, I guess me and my lack of knowledge of U.S. history are doing better than you and your flawed knowledge not only of U.S. History but also of politics and the legal system as well.
Let me explain this to you again as simply as possible. An analogy:
If you don't send me a million dollars, I'm going to nuke you and your family. There, I just threatened you as a means of strong-arming you into doing something. It doesn't mean I have the power to actually do what I threatened, but that doesn't mean I can't make the threat. Now if you're stupid enough to believe that I can actually do this and you follow through and send me the money, well let me know so that I can provide you with an address. But that still doesn't make my claim of power real. Call my bluff and there's not much I can do about it.
Yes, secession was threatened prior to the Civil War. I never stated that it wasn't. But if you recall, no state prior to the Civil War actually seceded. In fact, depending on whose view you agree with from the Reconstruction period, you could argue that no state has ever seceded.
All I said (and correctly) is that secession is not legal under the Constitution. States are not given that power, for the Constitution is not between the states, it is between the people. This was explicitly part of the Framers intentions, as one of the problems under the Articles of Confederation was too much power reserved to the states that in effect castrated what the National Congress could accomplish. To leave the power of secession to the states after the ratification of the Constitution would have given them a significant piece of leverage to limit the federal government's legitimate exercise of its delegated powers, and thus such a power does not exist.
So, if you're still not convinced I'll dig up a list of sources besides the "Sons and Daughters guide to U.S. History" to both support my point and for you to learn your history from, since obviously your fourth grade education isn't quite cutting it.
fuck you.
I agree that subway service is an amazing thing to have at all. But small steps- like the one you mentioned, connecting the two train stations- would make a huge difference, and yet the various supervisory bodies can't collectively agree to implement them.
I kind of like the big dig, but i temped for one of the construction companies doing it, and i was astounded at the errors that were permissible. Concrete cracks, failure to make the ventilation tunnels meet in the middle (necessitating a whole new round of planning and building) and so on. I like the idea of the big dig- but i'm not sure how much i like the way it was done.
I also don't like the fact that the parcels of land on top of it are being found over tooth and nail, because they didn't figure out what to do with them at the time. One parcel is being fought over by the boston museum project and the YWCA. Which will win? Who knows. But it isn't open to just anyone- you have to be a well-connected organisation to get onto that property, and the last thing we need is to watch the whole big dig story unwind above ground as the projects take another X years to build.
It's a great theory- we have a parking lot under the boston commons, for example. The idea is to move travel off the surface, and in the absence of hovercars, that means pushing it underground, leaving the surface free to be 'green space.' It remains to be seen how this will work in practice. I'm openminded, and hoping it will work out well. The Zakim bridge is one of the prettiest structures in boston, as well as being a technological marvel.
"I'd say 'Have a good time,' but arson is still illegal.
If you still lived in Boston, you'd know that the $0.85 commute has gone up to $1.00 and is not on the verge of becoming $1.25.
Still a bargain, but you're at least four years out of the city.
Given that doesn't count property taxes, that's a big difference. I pay ~$1800/yr in property taxes, while by brother in upstate NY pays ~$5k/yr in property taxes on a house that's worth 1/3 of mine.
Basically, Boston Irish politicians with more greed than good sense, James Kelly (sometime City Council president) being the most egregious. They have much in common with the yahoos who put up a racist display in a Southie bar a few years ago.
Not that I mean to tar all Southie residents with the same brush. But their elected representatives tend to be another story.
The Big Dig may be the most expensive, but it isn't the biggest. Labor just happens to cost more in the US.
What about New York's third aqueduct? It's been in the works since (I think) the sixties or so, and each government manages not to cut funding for it. Unlike Los Angeles, which just keeps eating up more and more water, New York actually planned for the future, and now isn't going to have huge water-shortage problems. They planned for the future on a decades-long scale, and it paid off.
(You may have seen the aqueduct in "Die Hard 3".)
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
It's argued that the Big Dig is a project which, despite its achievments, is no better than the construction of a gigantic metal wang.
Space exploration is (a) researchy, and (b) not morally equivalent to the construction of a gigantic metal wang.
--grendel drago
Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca
All that money for a road that ends at the ocean, then doesn't go anywhere!
The city is electric in the spring and summer
:)
And in winter, its steam-power all the way!
You can't take the sky from me...
The reason those politicians are in place is due to the irish mafia, not politics. The Irish Mafia runs Boston.
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
That was 3 - 4 years ago. Was George Bush president?
People don't exist to serve systems, systems exist to serve people.
Slashdot editors are pretty childies, if you ask me. Lost any rights every other user had with one pro-slashdot post in the "First troll post investigation" some years ago. Could have re-registered, but it's just not worth even thinking up another username...
The cow thing is actually just an urban legend. If Boston were actually laid out by cows, it would be much easier to get to the Common.
Substantial factors in how Boston is laid out include where the waterline was at various times (much of Boston is on fill, so the old roads don't go to a lot of places and often went along the shore, which isn't meaningful anymore), the need to store gunpowder (which nobody wants to build next to), all the hills, and the idea that it would probably be attacked (hence Castle Island, as well as a number of other fortifications). Considering that a war actually did start in the area, it wasn't a bad idea to plan for it, particularly since the locals used guerilla tactics. The longer the best route to where the British were going was, the more you got to shoot at them while they were just marching.
In addition, taxes have consistantly risen here over the last 10 years to help pay for it.
Boston does have two half-ring highways: I-95/MA-128 is the inner ring and I-495 is the outer. Both jam up pretty regularly. And I'm not convinced that a large enough chunk of the 93/95 corridor's traffic is transiting Boston to make a real shunt road (think "40-mile express lane bypassing the city") all that helpful.
Personally, I'm a fan of the commuter rail (except for the nasty schedule gaps for stops near/beyond 495).
The reason why the Big Dig was so impressive was that, unlike the Chunnel, they had to build this thing under and through a major city. Every logistical problem the Chunnel had, the Big Dig had... along with having to worry about buildings, subways, power lines, sewer lines... you name it. The Chunnel was just a big tube dug through some mud off the coast of England. The size and complexity of the Central Artery Project dwarfed that of the Chunnel. That thing isn't even in the same league.
I'll second that. It costs over $15 in tolls alone to drive the ~400 miles across NY state. $15 for a tiny two-lane road!! Not to mention the high gas prices along the way.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
Thre you will meet people that are doing away with their cars because it is a bloddy nuisance to have one.
Of course they have safe cycle lines, efficient public transpot that works reliably following time tables and efficient inter-city rail links.
In the UK, before the current goverment went cold on transport policy due to overhyped train accidents, people using the rail was growing steadily for several years.
It is a falacy that poeple stop using their car only if they are forced to, when there are credible alternatives people leave gladly their car behind because public transport frings a human face face to transportation.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Yes and you can't.
Stop the paranoia, enjoy your life.
IANAL but write like a drunk one.
Here is a map of Boston .
q T& csz=boston%2C+ma&country=us
.
.
:
:
.
.
:
5 6, 00.html
http://maps.yahoo.com/maps_result?ed=M7tNO.p_0T
Understand the size of those rivers and the amount of
commerce that moves in and out of there by VERY large ships
Understand a city that has to keep traffic moving, while
upgrading their road system . If they shutdown the roads
and "somehow" rebuild above ground, the economic loss would
be enormous
The big dig is more than just just a few tunnels , it is
http://www.bigdig.com/thtml/maps01.htm
http://www.bigdig.com/thtml/f051502/img008.htm
The Big picture, the final results in totality
http://www.bigdig.com/thtml/future.htm
Notice the results that help the environment for all those
that might whine about how bad this project is for the
environment
At some point we will have hydrogen for fuel, and the pollution
problem from cars/roads will be on its way to being solved
This man may have found the way to end the reliance on oil
http://www.wired.com/news/technology/0,1282,544
http://www.melisenergy.com/
Peace,
Ex-MislTech
google "32 trillion offshore needs IRS attention"
Sounds to me like any highway in the New York City five boroughs area...
I agree entirely. The Big Dig is so freakin off topic it is insane, while my submissions about the open source Free Arms Project get nixed and my scoop about SpaceShipOne and Paul got rejected, so one of his buddies could get the scoop credit.
"Necessity is the plea for every infringement of human freedom. It is the argument of tyrants; it is the creed of slaves
he's your average democrat/liberal....
No, he's talking about Massachusetts -- our turnpike has just been bought by Microsoft.
This is not correct. The federal gov't is paying for at least 60% of the final cost, not the initial cost. After the jump in the price tag from $10 billion to $15 billion a few years ago, the feds capped their share of the cost, and said any future overruns would be have to be paid by the state. I think the final price tag for the feds is somewhere around $9 billion.
Although I live in the area and think this project is great for downtown Boston, I can understand the rest of the country being pissed.
Here are some references that showed through out the decades this project as been going on there were several scandals related to corrupt officials. Some are old references but still valid today: http://www.findarticles.com/cf_dls/m1571/42_18/951 50321/p1/article.jhtml
http://www.taxpayer.net/TCS/wastebasket/transporta tion/W6-16-97.htm
http://www.bigdigsucks.com
etc...
You do realize that Haliburton is the company that built most of Iraq's oil infrastructure in the first place, right? Who else would be qualified to fix their machinery than the company that made it. Not only that, but Haliburton has been involved in every single war/conflict since world war II.
Usenet... there's a reliable source. Really helping your cause there.
the usenet part of the post was humor. even if it is true, you must be a conservative to not understand that.
c heney/
p
.....
http://www.cnn.com/2003/ALLPOLITICS/12/15/scotus.
now correct me if i'm wrong but if everything is on the up and up why the hell are they trying so hard to hide it ?
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/opinion/13_12_03_i.as
its funny how journalists who dont even live in the US see this and the backdoor under the table politiks that caused this
"Two things are infinite: the universe and human stupidity; and I'm not sure about the the universe." --Albert Einstein
You can take local roads to do that 400 miles to get across the state should you not want to pay the $15. But it'll take you a *lot* longer.
And what's the big deal about it being a 2 lane highway? Why build 3 lanes if 2 support the traffic that you have? There's only one approximately 5 mile section of the Thruway where there was enough traffic to make it 3 lanes in each direction. I almost never see a need for more than 2 lanes except maybe in the rare occasion that there's an accident that blocks either one or both lanes. But those are rare.
As for the gas prices, those are high across the state. The Thruway varies along the length of it. I've seen both high and low (relatively speaking) cost stations. But if you don't like the cost on the Thruway, just get off at an exit and fill up. It's not that hard.
" Was " being the key word. Tip was Speaker from January 4th 1977 to January 3rd 1987.
Because I'm paying for it, that's the big deal! Having to pay $15 makes all the difference: if I ordered a $15 pizza and it was cold I'd bitch, but if it was free I wouldn't mind. Many other states have the same 2 lane highway crossing them and I don't mind, but if I have to pay I want a few more lanes.
Last time I crossed New York I went 2 miles in 30 minutes at one point because they were doing road construction. Traffic is never fun, but having to pay to sit in traffic makes it even worst.
my karma will be here long after I'm gone
only a liberal would find that humorous.
About your task force article... it's BS. They met with energy companies to figure out how to upgrade the power grid.
The administration has already produced 36,000 pages of documents on the development of the energy plan. Of course, you people automatically assume something illegal went on at these meetings. The CONSTITUTION says he doesn't have to release those documents, becuase of the separation of powers. But, becuase some liberal judge wants to try pinning something on cheney, they're going to change the laws. Nothing new there. The only things he's required to disclose is who he met with, and how the decisions were made.
What is the back door in allowing countries that were our allies to help with the rebuild? I don't understand you people. The french, germans, and canadians were 100% against us going to iraq. Now that it's the rebuild phase, they think they're just going to walk in and help? They're leeches, nothing else. Not only that, but they're just pissed becuase nobody cares what they think. They are irrevelant in the big scheme of things.