DarthBrooks: Scope creep, the joy of every bureaucrat.

Speak for yourself, m'laddo.

ZAZ: That's a lot, but $100 million per year forever is cheaper than $5.2 billion now.

NotSureIfSeriousAndIgnorantOfDiscountRatesOrJoking.jpg

The bridge is over 3 miles long, that's part of why replacing it is so high. Also unless they tear down the existing bridge before building the new one, which I don't think is an option, you're looking at a lot of work on existing infrastructure to link it to the new bridge and a lot of work getting things ready for the bridge to be built, like piers and stuff.

Tappan Zee Bridge? I've heard of people having sex with picnic tables, even cars; but an entire bridge??

Kind of a meaningless comparison unless they're making an exact replica.

Angry Drunk Bureaucrat: ZAZ: That's a lot, but $100 million per year forever is cheaper than $5.2 billion now.

NotSureIfSeriousAndIgnorantOfDiscountRatesOrJoking.jpg

Yeah I'm not sure either - I suspect "IgnorantOfDiscountRates"

fusillade762: Tappan Zee Bridge? I've heard of people having sex with picnic tables, even cars; but an entire bridge??

Vell zee Germans are veird people.

GAT_00: So, Republican values would include letting bridges collapse instead of paying for a new one?

[www.constructionlawtoday.com image 299x450]

Oh, right. I guess it is.

/hot

Pretty sure most of the political establishment in MN is democrats, it being a blue state and all.

The general rule of thumb I was given in the insurance world is assume that prices double every 10 years over one's lifetime, which would mean expected price after 50 years would be about 1.2 billion IF the bridge was built to be an exact replica, built to the same standards and of the same materials.

According to that rule of thumb, we might project that this bridge is costing twice as much as the original ($162 million).

And this is what is known as tappan zee ass.

RexTalionis: The Tappan Zee scares the hell out of me every time I cross it. It's almost a decade past its expected lifespan and its foundation was made out of untreated, unpreserved wood(!) which is starting to break off and float to the surface every once in a while. That bridge is an accident waiting to happen, and when it goes, it could be catastrophic, considering the amount of traffic that goes over it between Rockland and Westchester daily.

Remember Mianus!

These people are all northerners, who the fark cares if they die?

Not just inflation. New requirements for labor, safety, environment, permits, greater traffic flow, materials, monitoring systems, more confined working areas, utility relocations, more concern to the traveling public (detours, traffic control, public announcements, public relations) and quite a few other things that they did not have to worry about 60 years ago.

FTFA Comments

"to maihtain the old bridge cost 100 million a year? thats 273,972 just under a quarter million a day to maintain?"

273,972 just under a quarter million...

/Basic math

Bgman123: FTFA Comments

"to maihtain the old bridge cost 100 million a year? thats 273,972 just under a quarter million a day to maintain?"

273,972 just under a quarter million...

/Basic math

Hey there Mr. Elitist, not everyone on the internet has access to Google Calculator.

RexTalionis: The Tappan Zee scares the hell out of me every time I cross it. .....

Try it on a motorcycle.

A nice discussion here about replacement cost compared to original construction $$$$$ (by folks who appear to know something about making these comparisons):

Link (new window)

BenJammin: RexTalionis: The Tappan Zee scares the hell out of me every time I cross it. .....

Try it on a motorcycle.

Careful you could eject.

http://articles.nydailynews.com/2009-09-26/local/17930843_1_tappan-zee -bridge-anne-scripps-douglas-james-scripps

Daughter of murdered newspaper heiress Anne Douglas Scripps jumps from Tappan Zee Bridge
BY LEO STANDORA AND JOE KEMP
DAILY NEWS WRITERS
Saturday, September 26, 2009

The daughter of a newspaper heiress jumped off the Tappan Zee Bridge nearly 16 years after her stepfather leaped from the span after beating her mother to death at their Bronxville estate, sources said.

Witnesses saw Anne Petrillo, 38, abandon her car on the Rockland County-bound side of the bridge, remove her clothes and jump into the Hudson River around 8 p.m. Thursday, sources said.

State police led the search for the woman, but the effort was called off Friday when conditions became too dangerous.

Oldiron_79: GAT_00: So, Republican values would include letting bridges collapse instead of paying for a new one?

[www.constructionlawtoday.com image 299x450]

Oh, right. I guess it is.

/hot

Pretty sure most of the political establishment in MN is democrats, it being a blue state and all.

Like Tim Pawlenty and Michelle Bachman?

Minnesota isn't as blue as you think.

Inflated union labor costs for NY is the reason.

Don't forget the additional 2.8 billion for the mob...err union bosses.

GAT_00: So, Republican values would include letting bridges collapse instead of paying for a new one?

[www.constructionlawtoday.com image 299x450]

Oh, right. I guess it is.

/hot

That bridge had design flaws dummy.

I tried to walk across that thing when I was a kid to visit friends in Terrytown.
The cops don't like people doing that.

bmr68: GAT_00: So, Republican values would include letting bridges collapse instead of paying for a new one?

[www.constructionlawtoday.com image 299x450]

Oh, right. I guess it is.

/hot

That bridge had design flaws dummy.

Shhh. He doesn't want facts. He wants to make the case fit the narrative in his head.

$42000 or so per inch if I pressed the keys on windows calculator properly. Criminal.

There are many reasons why America is failing, but the insane costs of getting relatively simple things done (bridges, while requiring expert engineers and designers of course, are still basically 1930s technology) is certainly near the top of the list.

5.2 billion? Yes, but, what is that in terms of meddling in other peoples civil wars in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya, Yemen, all over the goddamned world .... one, two months, at best?

Dear moron subby:
Vehicles and trucks are a LOT bigger now.

JohnAnnArbor: bmr68: GAT_00: So, Republican values would include letting bridges collapse instead of paying for a new one?

[www.constructionlawtoday.com image 299x450]

Oh, right. I guess it is.

/hot

That bridge had design flaws dummy.

Shhh. He doesn't want facts. He wants to make the case fit the narrative in his head.

So a bridge designed to handle traffic in 1950, while there was a material shortage due to the Korean War over the second widest point of the Hudson and 10 years past its expected life might not have integrity issues now?

I do think they would have at least considered moving the bridge to a slightly narrower point of the river within a reasonable distance to help reduce the cost. I would expect the costs of extra roads to get there to be less than the cost of the extra bridge length.

Wasn't that bridge built where it was, instead of further down river where it's narrower, to keep it out of the Port Authority and thus Robert Moses?

Ah yes. Here we go. (new window)

The Port Authority - the body that proposed putting the bridge further south - had a monopoly over all bridges built in a 25-mile radius around the Statue of Liberty.

If the bridge had been built just a bit south of its current location - that is, if it had been built across a narrower stretch of the river - it would have been in the territory that belonged to the Port Authority.

As a result, the Port Authority - not the State of New York - would have gotten the revenue from tolls on the bridge. And Dewey needed that toll revenue to fund the rest of the Thruway.

So Dewey was stuck with a three-mile-long bridge.