But then, a nice 8.7 quake just might get it there and/or Pill Hill to Sowhat.

"The cost of the project has soared from an estimated £25million last year to £60m now and still counting." Looks like they have liar's budgets over in London as well, but at least they have a 36 million pound sponsor helping out as opposed to tax payers.

Back in 2002, Dallas was one of the cities making a bid for the 2012 Olympics, and our then-Mayor Ron Kirk (a man who might have been able to manage a word edgewise if Ray Hunt's hand hadn't been jammed up his butt to make his lips move) staked his entire reputation on getting the bid. Well, as you know, Dallas didn't get the bid. In fact, out of twelve cities, Dallas didn't even make the top ten, and Kirk decided to take his toys and quit as Mayor. He promptly ran for Senate to replace Phil Gramm and promptly took a dive to make sure that John "Man on Box Turtle" Cornyn got in, but that was about par for the course.

Anyway, when Dallas lost the bid, the usual idiots in city government whined and cried about how we'd missed such a grand opportunity. Oh, how we were going to PAY for not offering enough payola to the Olympic Committee! When friends in London tell me about the stupidities inflicted upon the whole area in the name of the Olympics, I tell people now what I stated then: "Man, we dodged a bullet."

Oh No! The 3 bobble head candidates for mayor will now all support an extension of the air-head tram at a cost of $150 million.

It would seem to be a fairly attractive terrorist target. Why don't they just paint a target on the side of the cars or towers?

"You can't drive to London's 2012 Olympics this summer unless you are a VIP, but you may be able to take a cable car."

Treehugger seems to be oblivious to the fact that the VIPs get to ride by automobiles while the masses must travel by mass transit. It might be terribly expensive to pack all the unwashed into close quarters and make it appear like a space-age dream, but I suspect this is what the Mandarin have planned for the global village. Americans will not be allowed to be exceptional - it's all about equity.

Unless you're a VIP.

It's the stinky games used to extort funding for these things out of citizens who are geting robbed of basic services dollars on the other end, not the tool itself, that is the problem. Pill Hill to SoWhat isn't a bad application for a cable car. It's a great application for a cable car. Moving lots of people back and forth across the Thames with a great view like that isn't a bad idea, it's just a bad idea when it is paid for by letting roads go to hell or shorting substance abuse treatment.

Austerity for the 99% and big toys for the 1% -- that's the problem. Peter Kohler extorting the tram out of Portland taxpayers, then sending the jobs to Florida -- that's the problem.

Amen. Grifters.

You think the pretexts of 'sustainable' and 'community' and 'green' are bad? With an 'olympic' pretext I'm sure the local government-crooks are pushing through short sighted bull crap hand over fist.

That's said, I sure am pumped for the Olympics. I hope they aren't a big lame advertisement for the host country like last time. The plastic facade annoyed me.

Jo, you don't know the half of it. London is full of similar short-sighted projects left over from its Year 2000 celebrations. (I have lots of friends who are big fans of Doctor Who, and I have fun telling them about the number of London landmarks that appear in the show because the owners are desperate for the publicity. The big Eye of London Ferris wheel is a case in point: yes, it's big and flashy, but it's also a huge white elephant that made its developers a lot of money before they dumped the responsibility of maintenance and operation on the city.)

Interesting. Its the same distance as Portland's, yet Portland only spent $57 mil (nearly half), and most people (myself included) thought that was crazy.