Ed Williams writing about the cost overruns of the South line as some sort of recent event that soured public opinion on CATS is still bugging me. The truth is we have not had an update on the actual cost of the South line in just about one year.
Worse, we are being systematically misled about the other city funds which have gone to help support what we were told last September is a $463 million project. Todd Fuller has a very interesting document up on his Web site showing that another $73 million in non-transit tax supported revenue was spent on the South line.
That brings the total public cost of the corridor to $536 million. Now you might argue that some of that money would have been spent along South Blvd. without the rail line, but in government — just like the private sector — money follows money.
Was this a wise investment of city resources that could have been spent anywhere? Doesn’t matter. We got a $9 billion transit plan to feed. Any more questions?