From the Daily News:After several years of delays, planning and community opposition, the cost of replacing the 108-year-old City Island Bridge has risen to $120 million.
Back on Aug. 20, 2003 - when Mayor Bloomberg announced plans for a new high-tech bridge "as unique as the island itself" - the cost was estimated at $32 million.
The new bridge project has yet to get started, with the latest launch date now set for next year.
"What are they building, the Bridge on the River Kwai?" groaned Councilman James Vacca (D-Bronx), whose district includes the tiny, isolated community surrounded by Long Island Sound and Eastchester Bay.
He and other critics of the city's plans to build a "signature bridge," with suspension cables evoking the island's sailing past, said they'd be far happier with a cheaper remake of the current ugly-duckling span.
Photo by jag9889 on Flickr
8 comments:
I bet that they could out source that bridge to a main land Chinese contractor and rebuild it for many millions of dollars less.
If they were building the Bridge on the River Kwai it would be done already. Ask any army corp of engineer veteran how fast bridges went up in World War II, Korea or Vietnam.
The difference is their bridges were designed to be built quickly--ours to line pockets quickly.
sell the charming old bridge to a collector.
tear down the bridge and let them take boats back and forth, like fire island. property values will skyrocket!
There is no way inflation caused a 4x increase in costs. If anything with the slow down in construction due to the economy, you'd think it could be done even cheaper. Somebody is lying, either on the first estimate or this estimate.
Like to see the actual line by line estimates. Probably $40million for lawyers.
Closing hospitals, can't build schools, power grid fragile, flooding a problem for generations, sewage inadequte, but they can paint bike lanes and waste millions on this.
Blumturd knows how to manage, eh?
recently went to city island and the traffic getting into that area is crazy and the bridge does need work, but to spend this amount of money when we could spread it out in all areas of the tri-state.
I doubt the bridge needs replacing in the first place !
The roadbed and lighting fixtures perhaps.
Too much pocket lining.
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