this isnt going to go away easily. Its been building for years.
Ive sat in on more transportation projects than I can even name. Weve
had overpasses, rebuilds, busways, and LRT. All of this gets funneled
into the West End Shelf, as its called that piece of land that lies
about 70 feet below most of Saint Paul but 40 feet above the Mississippi.
All of this gets funneled into my neighborhood.
For all of the projects that Ive seen come through, there is one
important constant that keeps it all just keepin on, the one thing that
you can depend on as much as a hot day in August. Its what makes me so
mad that Im not going to cool off whether I put off making this post
until tomorrow or next Winter or when they haul me off to a retirement
home.
This has to do with what I posted earlier today, which is the finding that
the Washington Avenue Bridge cannot support LRT without major
modifications, probably costing tens of millions of dollars. And tonight
the I-35W bridge collapsed during rush hour. What do these have to do
with each other? Well, they are two bridges down from each other, built
only two years apart. But what brought that down probably had a lot more
to do with that one constant I have found in all transportation projects:
Arrogance.
Blind, pig-f**king arrogance on the part of consulting highway engineers.
What does it take to get people to understand that there are a substantial
number of people in the big incestuous bizness of building and fixing
highways that are clearly incompetent and/or blinded by their own
arrogance? Have none of you spoken with these guys for just 15 minutes?
They do everything they can to shed responsibility like a snake shedding
its skin, and they treat the public purse as just a little pinkie mouse
for them snack on. Project after project they carry on, always with the
same air of authority, never answering hard questions, never doing
anything in the way of actual work. All they do is feed our elected
officials another line, another bigger better deal, another bedtime story
that the appears to be what the official wants to hear.
Oh, sure, you say. Im being to hard, Im reacting too strongly to one
event. Bullsh*t. This goes on and on and on, and the only response I get
from 90% of the people out there is that we should trust the Met Council
or MnDOT or any of the other agencies that are supposedly in charge.
Guess what? The people who are supposed to be minding the store have been
duped, just as you have. The transportation consultant industry is
absolutely rife with cronyism ,laziness, incompetence, and plain ordinary
stupidity. They cover it up with an arrogant veneer and a nice suit, but
these guys out there who need to be challenged and challenged hard.
Please, for the sake of the dozen or so people who met their end
plummeting into the Mississippi River tonight, start asking some hard
questions. Please dont take this bullsh*t anymore. Its time we stand
up to the same, old same-old. Our lives depend on them doing their job
properly, and there is a LOT of evidence that they do not.
Its time to put an end to the cycle of consultants who drain our money
and produce useless studies, inadequate plans, and ultimately build
worthless projects. Its time to stand up to the highway engineers. Act
as if your life depends on it because it does.