BOYYYYY!!!
Posted on 11/28/2019 8:29:31 AM PST by Tolerance Sucks Rocks
The Twin Ports Interchange reconstruction project through Lincoln Park soared $100 million over budget this month, forcing planners to defer indefinitely portions of the work scheduled for 2020-23.
The $343 million project is scheduled to begin in May. Minnesota Department of Transportation figures released Monday at a regular public meeting about the project showed a $443 million price tag.
"This is what happens with every big project," Duane Hill, district engineer based in Duluth, said Monday. "You have to manage it as you go along. We thought we did a good job initially coming up with a budget for this project and what we’ve learned is that it's really hard."
Project funding is firm at $343 million, and there is currently no way to expect additional funding, sources said.
From here on out, the project will set aside work planned farther up both U.S. Highway 53 and Interstate 535 to focus solely on the Interstate 35 corridor, Pat Huston told more than 100 people gathered at Clyde Iron Works to hear about the project.
Huston, the major projects and assistant district engineer locally for MnDOT, called the project "way more complex" than anticipated, and said engineers are still learning about things such as underground lines and utilities that need to be moved, adverse soil conditions throughout the project footprint and scores of other concerns. For instance, Michigan Street through Lincoln Park will now need to be rebuilt for all of the wear and tear and outright damage it will endure throughout construction, Huston said.
"We didn't know what we didn't know," Huston said of the original engineering and budgeting processes. "There's still a lot we don't know."
(Excerpt) Read more at duluthnewstribune.com ...
What incompetence. But, hey! Taxpayers always are forced to pony-up for such boondoggles. I laugh at these “engineers” and their incompetence.
Yup. Lame. The public pays, he keeps being paid and the cycle of incompetence and dont give a damn just goes on.
...or a riser on an old fuel tank... Dug one up for TXDOT in the middle of Highway 377 many years ago. It was full of groundwater but tested for so many parts per million of hydrocarbons. Nobody researched old maps and whatnot.
I am a life long accounting/bookkeeper. I have NEVER budgeted for any major purchase & been so far out of the ballpark as this group is.
EVERY SINGLE one involved in this project should be fired. Find a more competent group. NOW.
All of the current group must be directly connected to the “high speed rail” project that California is saddled with.
About the only time you’ll see a construction project come in at its proposed cost, or UNDER cost is if Trump is in charge.
Ending project labor agreements for federally-funded projects, as well as the Davis-Bacon “prevailing wage” nonsense, and making all federal courts loser-pays for lawsuits, would end some of this cost overrun nonsense.
There are some projects that have been completed on time and under budget, but as a percentage of all projects, I have no idea what that percentage would be.
That can happen on a personal level, too. When I dig around in the garden bed, at the top of my driveway, in order to uproot weeds, I keep bringing up this old TV cable. I’m basically thinking, WTH?
Minnesotans are the nicest Yankees
In my opinion
BOYYYYY!!!
$100 million, thats just peanuts. The Washington State department of transportation had to write a $400 million change order in the first month of construction of the 520 Floating Bridge Project. They knew the floating pontoon design was flawed but bid it out anyway.
Must’ve been those incredible sinking pontoons that were initially fabricated.
Also with respect to unknown locations of buried utilities and about the same time as the Floating Bridge fiasco, Big Bertha was tunneling along the Seattle Waterfront when it hit a 6-inch abandoned steel well casing and killed the tunneling machine, delayed the project for a year and ran up the cost by over $100 million...
It was a banner year for WSDOT. They only fired 2 people over these mistakes.
In the real world, you’re fired! When it’s a gubmint project, the impetus to move forward and gouge the taxpayers for more loot will be; “well, we already spent this much money, we can’t stop now”.
That reasoning/ excuse will be used at least three times for this endeavor.
Projects might not be approved if the actual cost is presented up front. Pitch it with a best case cost estimate, get the approval and $$$, then come back for more $$$ when the predictable and fully expected cost over runs arise. Profit!
re: “...or a riser on an old fuel tank... Dug one up for TXDOT in the middle of Highway 377 many years ago. It was full of groundwater but tested for so many parts per million of hydrocarbons. Nobody researched old maps and whatnot.”
You would think the old USGS 7 1/2 minute topo maps would show this stuff, and, I’ll bet it does ...
Those old topo maps would show houses and dirt roads that existed when the mapping was done.
The High Five interchange in Dallas was finished well ahead of time and under budget not too many years ago.
Project was probably low-balled to get it started. Once started the tax payer is on the hook to finish it. The Big Dig in Boston was a boondoggle that played that scenario. Many get wealthy during the project. The California train is the ultimate boondoggle.
The High Five didn’t work that way:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High_Five_Interchange
https://planningtools.transportation.org/290/view-case-study.html?case_id=53
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.