$52M Fiasco! Seattle mayor suffers Trump and streetcar derangement – IOTW Report

$52M Fiasco! Seattle mayor suffers Trump and streetcar derangement

FOX-

Seattle’s $52M streetcar fiasco the latest setback for city’s anti-Trump mayor.

Seattle’s anti-Trump mayor, Jenny Durkan, may be on track for a political backlash: Her city’s $52 million money splash on public transit appears doomed because new taxpayer-funded streetcars apparently won’t fit the existing tracks.

Durkan’s office has braced city residents for the possibility, the Seattle Times reported.

The Seattle Department of Transportation (SDOT) reportedly ordered 10 new streetcars last year, to help expand the Seattle Streetcar system by linking the two existing streetcar lines.

But the new streetcars also are reportedly heavier and longer than the ones currently in use, raising concerns about whether they’ll be used at all.

“It appears the error will require either a change order for design of the streetcars or incur new costs for construction of new or retrofitted maintenance barns,” City Council member Lisa Herbold wrote in the city’s blog post last week.  more

19 Comments on $52M Fiasco! Seattle mayor suffers Trump and streetcar derangement

  1. This is the SECOND TIME Freeattle has DONE THIS. They installed the wrong gauge track for the equipment they were using in their transit tunnel and had to rip it out and start over. That was just a few years ago.

    7
  2. Back in the old steam days, the locomotive builders gave the railroads a form to fill out which listed all the clearances at bridges, tunnels and along the right of way. That way they knew exactly how big a locomotive could be. It’s why engines back east were smaller than in the west where there was wide open space.
    This was just idiotic.

    5
  3. It was likely a purely political deal to hand over cash to some politically aligned corporation. Some low level engineer probably warned about it vociferously, got smeared as a “racist” or whatever, got fired, and the purchase was expedited. The entire point was to shovel taxpayer cash to some connected company for kickbacks. The usual bullshit.

    8
  4. Hey, don’t dis on Seattle, bro’s! They sing Kum Ba Yah really well while sipping Koolaid, smokin’ weed, poppin’ opioids and shootin’ up heroin while livin’ in their Socialist utopia Obama huts!

    5
  5. From 2005
    Bus-tunnel error years ago is costly in shutdown today
    https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/bus-tunnel-error-years-ago-is-costly-in-shutdown-today/
    Seventeen years ago, the old Metro Council made a last-minute decision to install rails in the bus tunnel it was building under downtown Seattle so the tube wouldn’t need to be closed years later to be converted to light rail.

    Today, everyone knows the council was wrong — the rails weren’t insulated adequately to prevent stray electric current from trains from corroding nearby utility lines. With light rail under construction at last, Sound Transit last month shut down the tunnel for up to two years to — among other things — rip out the rails Metro spent $5 million putting in.

    4
  6. Went to see a lady once to install a new tub in her bathroom. The look on her face when I explained to her that the fancy 60″ (5ft) whirlpool super tub would not fit in a 54″ (4 1/2ft) space. She got mad and berated me but it still wouldn’t fit. Measure before you buy! She couldn’t return because she bought on closeout.

    4

Comments are closed.