Posted on 07/23/2017 8:00:59 AM PDT by gattaca
Oh Canada. The City of Toronto estimated the cost of new steps would range between $65,000-$150,000. Like everything else, the city also dragged their feet in getting the work done.
Fed up, a Toronto man built the steps for $550. No, I didn’t forget zeros. Five-hundred and fifty dollars.
So of course the city tore the steps down.
retiree in Toronto was unhappy with the length of time the city was taking to build a flight of stairs on a precarious slope. And so he did it himself — at a fraction of the cost.
Adi Astl, with the help of a homeless man he hired, built eight steps for $550, more than 100 times cheaper than the $65,000-$150,000 the city had estimated for the job.
Gee, it’s almost as if the private market via private citizens are more skilled, capable, and feel a greater sense of urgency than the elected officials who read notes from TelePrompters. Who’d have thunk it.
“So of course the city tore the steps down.”
Tore them down??
They should have mage a monument out of those steps with a big plaque honoring Adidas as a reminder of the corruption, waste and unresponsivenes of our so called “public servants”.
The people of that town should have gone in mass to stage a sit in on the steps when the city sent their vandals to destroy Adi’s steps. A great opportunity missed.
When I moved to Washington (state) the fist thing I did was hire someone to build stairs so I could get down to my beach. I found the best guy in the area, waited a year for him to have time and he gave me a plan to build the whole thing for $29K. He wound up taking $2K off because I paid him the second half in cash instead of by check.
The staircase was well engineered. 30 foot pilings sunk into the side of the cliff. It was designed to allow natural falling of mud/soil that happens all the time there. In the event of a major collapsing of the hillside it was designed to have sections break away rather then pull the whole thing down.
Pictures: here
NOTHING CAN COMPETE WITH BOSTON'S BIG DIG
The "Big Dig" (Central Artery/Tunnel Project) was originally scheduled to be completed in 1998 at an estimated cost of $2.8 billion ($6.0 billion adjusted for inflation as of 2006).
However, the project was not completed until December 2007, at a cost of over $14.6 billion dollars, at a cost overrun of about 190%.
But there is more:
It is estimated that the project will ultimately cost $22 billion, including interest, and that it will not be paid off until 2038.
That will be a final cost overrun of almost 400%
In spite of the tremendous cost the tunnels have been plagued with leaks and falling concrete panels that weigh about 26 tons.
—The article did not say the steps were removed—
Yes, it does.
“So of course the city tore the steps down.”
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/07/20/americas/man-steps-trouble-trnd/index.html
On the flip side, in my town, the US Post Office has no wheelchair ramp.
Despite many calls to install one, including citizen groups and the Mayor, the US Government hacks steadfastly refuse to follow their own laws.
(insert Gomer Pyle photo here)
Big government proponents are all about fake achievement and false impressions, not actual productivity.
Inefficiency means that many people must be involved; many are therefore "productive" (employed), "caring", and "concerned".
The last thing they want is to get something done efficiently, quietly, and without any fanfare or attention. Their way costs hundreds, thousands time more, but that's just the necessary cost of keeping up appearances.
It's like the criminals who expend all sorts of efforts scamming the system, e.g. collecting welfare, disability, SS from dead relatives, on and on. They can really work it to death. It would be a lot less work if they had a regular honest job, but when dishonesty is king, it's not any work for them if it is love. They love cheating, so a regular paycheck doing something proper and useful? Forget about it.
The conservative wing of the chattering class, employed by all the usual media outlets, earns its paychecks by repeating all the worn out *reasoned* arguments against big government, a government that is not interested in reason, only control. Good pundit bad pundit, what a circus.
/rant
The government of Canada could have saved thousands of dollars that they could have given to worthy jihadis.
This is well built, worth the wait.
The State of California, a few years ago “rehabed” a section of I-680 through Contra Costa County. At each underpass there were “handicapped yellow bumpy pads” that were surface mounted at the crosswalks that were at the bases of the on and off ramps ( the curbs were installed with the required wheelchair slopes, and the lights were in place to protect those wishing to transit under the freeway). Well the State had the contractor come in and jackhammer out all of that concrete and re-pour it with a depression for the yellow bumpy pads. So for what I estimate would be at least a dozen underpasses with four ramps each, the concrete was removed and replaced just so a 1/4” pad would sit flush with the surrounding concrete. Toronto has nothing on California for knowing how to pi$$ away the taxpayers hard-earned money.
Oh my, don’t tip them off to *that* angle.
About a mile from my house in WA there was a salt-water (or brackish more likely) pond by the side of the road, no bigger than my swimming pool, that got a "stimulus" grant to clean up. They had a big proud sign up announcing the Obama stimulus project for $2.5 million.
They came in and spent about a week ripping out bushes/weeds that where growing on the banks of it and got all the dead leaves and stuff out of it. In about a year the thing was back to what it was before their "project" and that was that. $2.5 million down the tubes.
Drive past any govt project, there are usually three people standing around watching one guy work.
The new approach road to the Golden Gate Bridge cost the same amount in inflation adjusted dollars as the original bridge and took TWICE as long to build.
They did tear the steps down.
Even if those steps aren’t up to standards(and they may not be)there is still a huge difference between his price & their estimate. What’s the city have to say to that? Supposing the city had them built to their estimate...who’s to say their wouldn’t be cost overruns on that?
So am I. The Emperors don’t like being proven wrong.
I guess you didn’t read, they did remove the steps.
This is a nice story, but the guy’s stairs were poorly designed and probably unsafe.
At a glance, no hand rails....Ummmm,,,Look over his right shoulder. Hand rails. Code says only one side needed.
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