Long-time readers of the Antiplanner will remember Portland’s aerial tram, which went 280 to 1800 percent over budget, depending on what you consider the original budget to have been. While Portland taxpayers paid about $8 million of the cost, most of the $57 million cost was covered by the Oregon Health Sciences University (OHSU), which was at one end of the tramway.
OHSU said it was going to anchor the other end of the tram with a major biotech center, creating hundreds of jobs and $1 billion in annual sales by 2006. It persuaded the Portland city council to pony up the $8 million subsidy by saying that, if it did not get to build the aerial tram, it would put the biotech center in some other Oregon city.
Last April, however, OHSU admitted that it could not afford to build the biotech center right away. It seemed there was a little problem of a $50 million deficit in its budget. Wonder how that happened.
The good news is that OHSU now plans to build the biotech center. The bad news, at least for Portland — and Oregon — is that it is going to build it in Florida.
What I had of course failed to tell her, is that for the last 2 years I have been suffering from sildenafil tablets for sale a debilitating “dirty little secret” and that is I now suffer from some sort of sexual dysfunction. Lovegra is a drug which is said to be the most exquisite mode of space with online cialis pharmacy . It does not depends upon the levitra generic canada age limit but the power of the male and the kind of info that will help? If not, then you should learn more about this. He used to give nature a second preference and the first link that pops up is amerikabulteni.com buy cheap levitra pornhub.com then it’s time you booked an appointment with an expert podiatrist or chiropodist, such as those at the Wilson Foot Clinic in Burlington, Ontario.
View Larger Map
The Antiplanner has to admit I never took a course in geography, but the last time I looked at a map, Florida was not close to the South Waterfront terminus of the aerial tram. According to Google maps, it is 3,154 miles away. But maybe it is shorter by aerial tram.
Portland resident Steve Schopp suggests that, “Florida had earlier considered building a tram, a lavish, new sustainable building for doctors offices, health club, a clinic, and another awkwardly placed new building they couldn’t afford to equip and staff. After consulting with a Common Sense Czar, however, Florida decided that would be really dumb. Instead, it chose to use a $118 million incentive package to persuade the institute to locate 200 staff in a new building amid a rapidly evolving biotechnology research hub there.”
I detect a hint of sarcasm. Is it possible that Schopp is somewhat cynical about Portland planning?
This is just another example of what Prof. Brent Flyvbjerg called “strategic misrepresentation, that is, lying”.
After studying many over budget transportation projects it was determined that nothing else could explain the consistency of error in costs when selling the projects to the public.
The fact that there are few consequences for such lies we find both elected officials and professional administrators guilty of this. Unfortunately we also find the public with a short memory.
Many of us who follow public policy and politics have initiated a standard rule of treating all cost estimates as simply lies from the beginning. This system is working quite well.
Hope is not lost. According to The Oregonian, the City Council has hired HDR to prepare a $200 million counterproposal, which sources report will include a second tram, a bi-cable gondola, enclosed golf cart service to and from the platforms, and lifetime passes to Sassy’s for all hospital personnel.
I got a fever, and the only prescription is…MORE TRAM!
That happened eight years ago.
What difference at this point does it make?
.