YinzPitt

Luke Ravenstahl and The Port Authority can’t be happy about this.  Their highly “touted” economic boost project failed, and it’s failed hard.  Not to mention that it’s failing and it’s not even open up yet.  The North Shore Connector has been rated the 3rd highest wasteful spending project by stimulus tax payer money.  That just isn’t great news to hear, in fact, people of Pittsburgh should be outraged.

In all honesty, if I were a bus rider, I’d be revolting right about now.  While the Port Authority is floundering, the Connector has had millions of dollars worth of cash thrown at it for the past two years.  We’re also not talking a few million, we’re talking hundreds of millions.  I don’t even see how they thought it was a great idea to begin with, but I guess when you’re pushing for the G20 at the time, and doing all you can to promote a city that wasn’t ready to handle the load of people, you’ll do anything to try and get it.

So the Tribune Review published this article yesterday, and it’s worth every second to read it:

In a report released Tuesday, Oklahoma’s Tom Coburn and Arizona’s John McCain said the $528.8 million light-rail extension beneath the Allegheny River to bring T riders to destinations such as PNC Park and Heinz Field is an example of stimulus dollars spent to fund projects with “questionable goals,” or those that “are being mismanaged or were poorly planned.”

The “Summertime Blues” report, their third in a series, identifies 100 projects throughout the country that received money from the $787 billion American Recovery and Reinvestment Act signed into law 18 months ago by President Obama. Those projects, they said, “give taxpayers the blues.”

“Almost immediately, the North Shore connector went over budget, blowing through cost projections at alarming rates,” the senators said. “Original estimates put the final tally at approximately $390 million, but quickly ballooned.”

Beyond its cost, they said, “The North Shore Connector has become a political hot potato,” citing a 2006 Tribune-Review editorial labeling it the “tunnel to nowhere” and warning taxpayers to expect politicians to take credit for jobs and growth it created.

It really is unbelievable.  I don’t even see how the jobs created were worth it in the long run, especially if it cost funding for the failing port authority who will eventually either have to do mass job cuts, or face the eventual strike from the union.  I guess it’s funny how that all works out.  Take jobs from one place, and say you’re creating more, when all you’re really doing is removing them for another.

The Trib Article goes on to explain the situation, and obvious disagreement by other politicians:

White House officials and Rep. Mike Doyle, a Forest Hills Democrat, dismissed the publication by Coburn and McCain as a transparent, error-filled partisan attack.

“Not only did they make the mistake of labeling projects as ‘unwise Recovery spending’ that weren’t even Recovery Act projects, but they also attack Recovery Act projects that have been praised by members of their own party,” said Liz Oxhorn, White House spokeswoman for the stimulus bill.

“Everyone should keep in mind that in 2004, the North Shore Connector was chosen in a peer-reviewed, merit-selection process as one of the top five transit projects in the country, and the Federal Transit Administration signed a full funding agreement for it,” Doyle said. “With the project 75 percent complete, it makes no sense not to finish it.”

Construction began in January 2008 and is scheduled to be completed in late 2011, said Jim Ritchie, spokesman for Port Authority of Allegheny County. The 1.2-mile line between Downtown and the North Shore should begin carrying people in early 2012, he said.

Port Authority put $62.5 million in stimulus money toward the project. The senators cited criticism by Gov. Ed Rendell, who in February 2009 described the project as “a tragic mistake” and said, “I wish the project had never started.”

But Rendell spokesman Gary Tuma said yesterday, “Governor Rendell would disagree that the project was a waste of stimulus money at this point,” noting the project was under way when Port Authority sought stimulus money to help pay for it. “We had to finish it at that point; otherwise, we would have spent several hundred million dollars and been left with an unfinished hole in ground,” Tuma said.

So not only did the Port Authority ask for stimulus funding for it, when they had reported losses of $100 million?  Sounds like a whole lot of mismanagement from all parties, and it’s a situation that should have been looked at more closely.  Oh, and of course Rendell will disagree with his comments from the past,  republicans disagree with it now, so why would he want to show the same feelings as his counterparts.

In the end, the North Shore Connector will be looked at as a giant hole to nowhere.  It’s almost just as good as Sarah Palin’s bridge to nowhere in Alaska.

Rendell and lawmakers are debating how to fill a $475 million hole in the state’s transportation budget for bridges, highways and mass transit systems. Port Authority warns its $47 million deficit could bring drastic service cuts and hundreds of layoffs.

The senators chastise the North Shore project for cost overruns. Despite eliminating an $85 million track to the David L. Lawrence Convention Center, Downtown, the project costs about $100 million more than a February 2009 estimate of $435 million, the report said, citing Port Authority’s website. Coburn and McCain quote a 2007 audit by state Auditor General Jack Wagner that concluded “poor planning” mushroomed its cost.

In all actuality, I blame the local politicians and the Port Authority for sucking all around.  They knew what they were getting into and still pushed for it.  So now we have a giant hole to nowhere, and a failing transit system that can’t find money from anywhere.  Today is one of those sporadic days where I just want to see Ravenstahl and just give him a facepalm.  People need to realize what’s going on.  That money could have helped the situation a ton, and instead, it was wasteful spending.

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