You would think that today, given even the most basic and elementary of educations in economics, the masses, LET ALONE THE ECONOMISTS IN THE GOVERNMENT would know that digging ditches to fill them back up does NOTHING for the economy. Yet this is PRECISELY what they are doing in San Francisco.
Here is the sidewalk before stimulus money;
Here is the sidewalk after stimulus money.
Here is the man who took the pictures and the research he dug up on the cost of this sidewalk.
All these geniuses in Barack Obama's administration are literally (not sort of, not "oh, the Captain is joking" sort of way) LITERALLY no smarter than Robert Mugabe printing off money to make everybody rich.
9 comments:
link seems to be bad . . .
too much pampering?????
you should fix the link. It points to this :
http://http//powinca.blogspot.com/2009/09/your-tax-dollars-at-waste.html
replace the 2nd http with www instead.
Here in Minnesota we just passed a Constitutional Amendment to direct specific tax monies to, among other things"preserve and restore wetlands". Meanwhile our tax money is being spent to manage and maintain 21,000 miles of drainage ditch.
In other news, I hear tell that they're switching to leaves as the new American monetary unit...
Three major deciduous forests to one packet of ship's peanuts?
One of the "shovel ready" projects in my town was just this sort of sidewalk ramp. Insofar as the ramps are mandated by the federal government by way of the ADA, I'm ok with the feds paying the money. After all, one reason states and cities are in such trouble is that they get stuck with unfunded mandates from the federal government. If the feds were required to pay for their mandates, maybe, just maybe, they'd be more careful with the money. Then again, I'm an optimist.
That said, San Francisco's roads are a mess and the sidewalks already have ramps, so I have to agree that the money would be far better spent on fixing the potholes.
The more I dig, the more crap I find.
This project was "shovel ready" because the state passed a bond issue to pay for it and the city had already planned it before ARRA passed. When the state ran into budget problems, the projects stalled.
The project was reported in the newspaper as an "intersection paving" project to improve roads. Instead, the ENTIRE project was to add the yellow tactile strips for the blind.
The design of the project cost $100,000. Of the remaining $668,000, fifteen percent was for project management.
According to the Director of Public Works:
“These grants will help Public Works to continue making vital repairs and improvements to our infrastructure; which would otherwise have not
been able to move forward.
The project description was:
Geary Street Intersections Project— Resurfacing of intersections along Geary Street at 19th, 20th, 21st, 22nd, and 23rd Avenues. The project includes sidewalk curb repair, and retrofitting of curb ramps.
As far as I can tell, NONE of the curbs were "repaired" - only new ramps created. The "retrofitting" was the tactile strips.
At the end of October, each agency must report the number of jobs it created or retained. I can't wait to see the report on this project!
You're right on target, Anonymous.
This "needed improvement" is part of San Francisco's Better Streets Plan
Before you click that link, take something to suppress your gag reflex. They use photosimulation to express their vision of San Francisco streets, paid for with other people's tax dollars but it's a vision which will never come to fruition.
The "Better Streets" plan looks like a "ban cars" plan.
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