Originally Posted By: mechanicx
It's all a big sham probably. Who knows who is getting greased and getting kick backs.
Let's see, the original contract has 1 bid with American and Japanese partner. Someone cry foul.
Then the governator decided that only San Francisco area should pay for this instead of the whole Kalifornia, stalled it for a while.
Then the governator decided that he doesn't want a suspension bridge, and want a redesign without suspension, stall it for a while, a redesign came and it isn't much cheaper and people dislike, and stall it for a while.
Finally 2 bids are in, both are more expensive than the original 1 bid we got, but Chinese is closer and the American is more.
Then there're other quality delay and construction schedule to catch up. Each day of delay is penalty for $300k and each day ahead is 300k.
And the state have to split the 1.2B cost increase with the cities because of this "it is not cheap enough we need 1 more bid and we need to redesign it for cheaper" partisan stupidity.
So a lot of money is wasted, but a lot of people are sick and tired of wasting time with construction detour and just want it over with.
I've been crossing that bridge in 2002-2005 every day and watch its toll jump from $2 to $4 (free if you carpool), and spend on average 10 mins get to near the bridge 20 mins each way getting on the bridge, and 30 mins crossing it and go all the way to Livermore.
If they didn't fuzz about it and build it in the 90s it would probably only cost the original estimate of $1.4B instead, with overrun may be $3B top.