Coming soon to Portland: pork
Here's quite a list of infrastructure projects that the City of Portland is asking the Obama feds for dough for. Along with each project goes an estimate of how many "jobs" it will "create." The job numbers look high, and it doesn't say how long the positions will last, but hey -- if we're going to bail out Wall Street, might as well have a little action on Salmon Street.
| Posted at 8:38 AM | Permalink |
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Comments (17)
Y'knew he had to get some bucks for the streetcar didn't you? At lease he is asking for something to fix infrastructure, after all most of the pipes in the ground close0in is only pushing 100 years old.
Posted by Steve | December 10, 2008 8:40 AM
I think it would far better to use some of that federal money to renovate the horse-hitch rings throughout the city. Do you realize how old they are? And what a hazard it is, when your horse could easily break a rusty old ring and get loose to run amok?
Posted by Lev | December 10, 2008 9:06 AM
As I have said, "Porkland"
Posted by Abe | December 10, 2008 10:11 AM
No mention of the Sellwood Bridge. Does someone have something against it? Or is this just the city and the county has a completely different wish list?
Posted by Chris Snethen | December 10, 2008 10:13 AM
There is:
• Repairing Portland bridges for $22 million, generating 312 jobs.
Maybe the Sellwood is in there? Or perhaps since it's the county's burden, the city is just ignoring it.
Posted by Jack Bog | December 10, 2008 10:21 AM
Actually these projects look pretty good, streetcar excluded. Now what I'd really like to see is the OHSU Log Ride down the hill....
Posted by jkpete | December 10, 2008 10:34 AM
Nice article in the Post warning about Japan's experience with the "cement tsunami" as the economic cure-all.
Because, if it's important to Oregonians, it's in the Washington Post ...
Posted by George Anonymuncule Seldes | December 10, 2008 10:35 AM
With link this time!
http://is.gd/b1xk
Posted by George Anonymuncule Seldes | December 10, 2008 10:36 AM
It's outrageous that Obama should be even considering priming the economic pump with public, infrastructure spending. I mean, why can't he stick with the traditional approach of military spending?
Posted by joel dan walls | December 10, 2008 11:52 AM
why can't he stick with the traditional approach of military spending?
Dont worry, he will. He cant just cut it off. Its gonna take a while.
Which begs the question....where is the "infrastructure" money going to come from?
Posted by Jon | December 10, 2008 12:21 PM
where is the "infrastructure" money going to come from?
Same place the money for the Iraq war and Bush's tax cuts came from.
Posted by Miles | December 10, 2008 12:28 PM
A copy machine in the basement of the White House?
Posted by Jon | December 10, 2008 12:31 PM
"No mention of the Sellwood Bridge."
Sellwood Bridge is Mult County's responsibility and there is no way in heck CoP is going to volunteer any money if they don't have to.
Let's ignore the fact that probably 80%+ of the people who use the Sellwood are CoP taxpayers.
Posted by Steve | December 10, 2008 1:44 PM
Let's ignore the fact that probably 80%+ of the people who use the Sellwood are CoP taxpayers.
Well, from Table 3.1-1 on page 5 of this document:
http://www.sellwoodbridge.org/DEISDocument.aspx
It appears that 13% of the trips are between Clackamas and Washington County, 52% of the trips are between Clackamas County and Portland, and 7% are between the east and west sides of Clackamas County.
Posted by PMG | December 10, 2008 2:09 PM
Oops, make that page 3-5 in Section 3.1.
Posted by PMG | December 10, 2008 2:12 PM
SMELL TEST = FAIL
Using figures from the article, that comes to $848 million to "create" 8,938 jobs.
That's an average of $94,900 per job.
Surprise, surprise, the most expensive is the SoWa project at $381,100 (!!!) per job.
Not surprisingly, the least expensive project involves filling potholes--only $67,800 per job.
In case you were wondering, if these projects really "create" jobs, then they would bump Multnomah County employment by 2.3%. That bump is too big to believable.
Posted by Garage Wine | December 10, 2008 2:14 PM
"It appears that 13% of the trips are between Clackamas and Washington County, 52% of the trips are between Clackamas County and Portland, and 7% are between the east and west sides of Clackamas County."
So what does all of that mean as far as CoP taxpayers as a %
My assertion is that CoP will not give up $0.01 to fix teh Sellwood bridge if they don't have to.
Posted by Steve | December 10, 2008 8:10 PM