Herald thinks there be dragons past Rte. 128
By adamg - Thu, 12/18/2008 - 9:09am.
The Herald's Dave Wedge goes through Deval Patrick's 32-page wish list of infrastructure projects he hopes to have his pal Obama stimulate and finds several "potential pork projects," including:
$6 million to replace 20,000 trees damaged by "beetle infestation."
Nice use of quotation marks there, Dave. Never heard of the Asian Longhorned Beetle and how the feds are trying to prevent it from spreading from Worcester to, oh, every single maple tree in New England? Perhaps, as Worcester cuts down all those trees (well, the ones that didn't fall down last week), some enterprising arborists will save all the beetles they find and mail them to Wedge. After they've been killed, of course.
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Painting a bridge is "pork" ?
Also on Wedge's list of "potential pork projects":
Painting a bridge isn't really optional. You can paint it now, or you can watch it rust away later.
The Cost?
Maybe it's the cost of the paint job he's complaining about?
I know very little about painting large structures, but that seems like an awfully high bill. As I say, though, I know very little about it.
Suldog
http://jimsuldog.blogspot.com
High risk, high cost
Aside from union wages for construction work, etc., you also have the high risk factor of painting on a raised structure (over land and houses, no less, so no dripping allowed, etc). I'm imagining $27M is getting off pretty cheaply. But the first response is right...we don't paint metal bridges just to look pretty. We paint them to prevent rust.
There's paint and then there's paint
It's probably the part where Deval wants to paint it with roses and unicorns that he objects to. See, here's what he wants it to look like.
Hilarious
That is one funny painting.
Together we can, baby
bow-chicka-bow
Kaz is right
The logistics of doing a good job painting a structure that massive and that high up are mind numbing. Its not like you and I could just go to home depot and get some rollers and DIY that sucker.
There is a dirty jobs
There is a dirty jobs episode on painting a large bridge that looks like the Tobin Bridge. It was a huge project, and they even ended up having people inside the bridge painting too (Im not sure if the Tobin has the same interior caverns to deal with anywhere.) Im also sure multiple coats would be needed, and Im also sure the paint doesnt come from Home Depot. My hope is if they do paint it they choose a better color.
I remember that episode
I don't have claustrophobia normally, but the scene where Mike Rowe goes the very bowels of that bridge and squeezes into this tiny little compartment to paint it, well: Shudder.
Video
video.aol.com/partner/discoverychannel/dirty-jobs...
I cant figure out how to make it an actual video in the comments, but heres the link.
The scenes of him squeezing through the tunnels makes my head literally spin, I dont like small spaces myself but normally dont get the feeling of being trapped and terrified of not being able to get out watching someone else on tv.
don't forget all the donutstuffer overtime
"Gotta make the overtime"...
He obviously has never seen
He obviously has never seen the bridge up close... When a bridge is not properly maintained things actually start to fall off, it gets rusty, and you end up with hundreds and thousands of hours of man power spent just trying to get the thing to stay up.
Lighting it up could be considered pork (although its pork I can believe in, wouldnt it look nice) but painting it is not a pork issue. I mean seriously chances are nobody in these areas will really even be able to tell the difference anyway, if Capuanos congressional district wanted 27 million dollars in pure pork to spend Im sure they would come up with much better ways to spend it that would result in a bigger political bang for their buck. Nobody on the "street" is going to herald Patrick for getting the bridge painted (he just knows its the fiscally prudent thing to do, and maybe he will get appreciation from local pols but thats about it.)
Things have already fallen off the Tobin Bridge
Anyone remember this, from August 2007?
Yacht club under Tobin Bridge hit by falling concrete chunks, rust shards
The state is lucky that nobody has been killed so far.
classic wedge
Wedge thinks everything involving the nature is pork. A couple of years ago he was ranting about pork for fish. As in, the cold flappy things that collectively prop up about $2 billion worth of Massachusetts industry.
Basic arithmetic is a lost art
$6 million divided by 20,000 trees is $300/tree. I haven't seen the wish list to know what's included in that $300, but that doesn't seem particularly outrageous to me.
I'd also be curious to know what the Tobin cost to paint the last few times they worked on it. Anyone know where I could find that data?
$60 million?
This Globe story mentioned Massport spending $60 million over 16(!) years to repaint the whole thing.