Do we have a count on how many $100K/yr jobs Ted has handed out so far to friends & family?

It might help persuade a few more people on which way to vote on M66/67.

An interesting way to consider CRC costs is to compare it to the world's tallest building-the Dubai Tower which cost $1.5 Billion.

If you add in the $1 Billion in pre-building costs of CRC to the $4.2 Billion estimated, you have $5.2 Billion total cost. The bridge is 3500 ft long. That is $1.5 million per lineal ft.

The Dubai Tower is 2720 ft high (not including the 12 stories below ground and the top spire). Its cost is $500,000 per lineal ft.

Why should the CRC cost TWO TIMES-200% more than the Dubai Tower on a comparison basis?

And remember, there hasn't been a public project of this magnitude that has ever come even close to estimates. 9 out 10 public work projects of this magnitude have cost overruns-50% to 100% overruns are common per construction industry studies. The Boston Big Dig had a cost overrun of 275%.

Usually building up, especially at these heights, is much more than building over land or water at low heights. Yes, I know we have improvements to interchanges at each end of the bridge. But the comparison makes for head-scratching and wonderment of who's really benefiting.

Better yet, compare it to that bridge in Minn Lars always talks about.

Oh god help us, this just gets worse and worse.

Jerry's on to something, but better comparisons are the Millau bridge in France (2 miles, 800 million Euros), and the new Loetschberg tunnel undr the Alps in Switzerland (21 kms or 14 miles, 3.5 billion dollars).

This incredible waste of tax dollars is just screaming for another of Samadumbs' "stakeholder committees" to investigate. Please take many months and spend millions more in dollars we don't have.

For a billion dollars, we could probably just pay residents of Vancouver to just stay home and off the existing bridge.

/end sarcastic rant

Let's say that some benefactor just gave us four billion dollars. Would a bridge
to Vancouver really be the best use of the funds we could come up with? We are
such a gullible bunch of chimps...."

There is just about zero chance of something like this getting built around here.

It's a mammouth project that carries local and interstate cars, trucks commuters and commerce.

The small people elected around here are incappable of building anything substantial or historical period.

But add in their completely assinine foolishness for the anti car and global warming agenda and it's impossible.

There's not a single historical project around that they would not fight and obstruct if it were proposed today.

The Glenn Jackson Bridge and I-205 would be stopped.
Timberline Lodge would be stopped.

The Freemont bridge, I-405 and I-84 as well would be stopped.

And they would be celebrated victories.

The I-5/99 connector was just killed, no widening for 217 will occur before we're all dead.

The Sunrise Corridor will never happen, on and on and on.

However, there will be more boondoggles like the the Convention Center Hotel, more infill, more TODs, more steetcars, more light rail, and WES to Salem.
A new Rose Quarter makeover and few wild PDC pipe dreams yet to surface.

There are thousands of ninnies around here who think it is a good idea to spend billions burying I-5, burying MAX and capping the 405. And just borrow it all against a new tax on cars.