Posted on 05/08/2014 5:57:18 PM PDT by Veto!
By Dan SpringerPublished May 08, 2014FoxNews.comFacebook476 Twitter508 Gplus0
At 57 feet in diameter, it's touted as the world's biggest tunneling machine. It was even given a name, Bertha.
But now, after digging just over 1,000 feet, Bertha is broken down and stuck underneath Seattle's downtown waterfront.
And fixing the massive mess could cost taxpayers millions.
The tunneling machine is the key workhorse in a $3.1 billion tunnel project aimed at replacing the Alaska Way Viaduct, a double-decker elevated highway that was damaged in the 2001 Nisqually earthquake. Bertha's meltdown, though, has put the project in jeopardy of being the West Coast version of the biggest public works boondoggle in U.S. history,
Read on for the unbelievably stupid details
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(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
China expects to be here with high speed rail soon.
I’m sure there’s an app for that.
No idea, I’m not bright enough to be mechanical, just dumb enough to be civil. We’s just helping dig the hole to get down to the TBM so the clever Japanese can fix it
The crew is still getting paid aren’t they?
Bttt.
” Didn’t they have one of those in Shelbyville?”
Indeed. And the outcome there was no better than the situation with “Bertha”.
Politicians love these huge spending projects. Plenty of campaign donations, kickbacks, and do-nothing jobs for friends come out of them.
When you dig through the fill of the Glacial Till,
It jiggles and wiggles ‘neath the tide.
A Hollywood Terror Film it sure would make,
When the tunnel is filled: SPLASH! after a ‘quake!
Oh who wanted to dig ‘neath Puget Sound?
Was it those of “Seattle Street” or the anti-profit crowd?
Or was it “Shovel-Ready” dollars that turned it around?
A Waterfront Park might best replace,
The planner’s pet project that treadmills taxpayers cash.
To copy Vancouver BC would harm civic pride,
So Seattle must keep on digging to save face.
;)
The wellhead can be buried yards below the today's surface; or it can be in one of millions of manholes; or it can be in a basement of a new building; or it can be on inaccessible territory; or it can be misidentified; or it can be marked as completely or partially removed, when in fact the casing is still in the ground. Tunnelling under cities is hard exactly for that reason - too many old, abandoned obstacles or essential but poorly marked communications.
Because the low-information voters know that the Hackorama RATs are smarter than they are.
Considering what taxpayers will be faced with they should call this the “Big Gouge.” Pun intended.
I want to save your little story because my daughter has expressed an interest in moving there after she graduates college.
In the early 50s Walt Disney offered to run the Disneyland monorail into downtown Anaheim at no charge to the city. The city took a pass.
My daughter was scouting out apartments, when we went there to visit relatives; fortunately, she came to her senses ;)
A big tunnel in Seattle sounds like it would become a storm drain for a lahar at some point.
That’s really good. You should send it over to our friend David Bose at KTTH.
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