Posted on 04/07/2013 9:50:43 AM PDT by grundle
It expects to build 23 more at over $900,000 a piece
The city of Arlington just recently opened an impressive bus stop with a not-so-impressive price tag of $1 million. The “super stop” in Arlington, Virginia is unlike any other bus stop. It has a custom designed roof made of glass and steel; a wall of etched glass; heaters in the floor; gorgeous landscaping, and concrete/stainless steel benches.
The bus stop has 10-inch high curbs, 90 feet of concrete and can shelter 15 people at a time while waiting for buses to arrive – all at a cost of $1 million.
The cost comes down to $575,000 for construction/fabrication and $440,000 for construction management and inspections, where federal/state money took care of 80 percent of the total price tag.
When Arlington citizens discovered the cost of the super stop, many were outraged.
“That’s ridiculous,” said Robin Stewart, a citizen who was waiting at the super stop. “From a citizen, from a voter, whoever put that budget through needs to get their butt canned. It’s an outrage.”
The super stop opened on March 11, and 23 more are planned for Arlington’s streetcars. The county has set aside $20.8 million for all of them, which is about $904,000 a piece.
The idea behind the fancy bus stops is to not only accommodate Arlington’s plans for its streetcars and buses (about 16,000 people use the Columbia Pike buses for transportation) but to also draw people to the area. New housing is expected to be built in the area over the next two decades, and the county hopes the bus stops will help it flourish.
“When you do a prototype, you end up heavily front-loading on the costs,” said Dennis Leach, Arlington’s transportation director. “These are more like high-capacity bus or rail stops.”
But citizens are concerned about the budget, saying that Arlington can build nice bus stops without having to spend $1 million.
“Oh my God. How much steel? How much cement? How much glass? One million? Bring them to court,” said Husain Hamid, who was waiting at the super stop. “People are hungry. People are sleeping on the street. It doesn’t need $1 million.”
They hate the private car because the car empowers the individual and not the collectivity. They are willing to spend millions of dollars to prove how crazy they are.
“The federal govt is paying for it”
Isn’t it great to have the modern day version of the biblical manna?
What? No Starbucks and wi-fi? This bus stop is a ripoff!
It disgusts me beyond expression how these insane LIBs spend spend spend...other peoples’ money. Can’t the arlington bus crowd stand and wait for their lousy subsidized buses alongside the curb? Oh...excuse me. They are my betters.
Not much there. Where did the rest of the money go?
Looks to me like three guys could build just as good a structure with $500 worth of sheet metal, plywood and a few 2x4s.
Million dollars and no basketball goal?
Let’s not forget these things will have a never ending maintenance and replacement cost. Now who do you suppose will reap the benefits of those jobs?
It’s not a bus stop but a future home for homeless bums.
But they got rid of the streetcars because buses were more car-like and the bus operators were private and non-monopolistic (i.e. unlike the privately-owned electric power companies that ran the streetcars), didn’t they . . . ? And now they spend more on state-run city and commuter buses than was ever spent on “monopolistic” streetcar companies, especially on making the bus stops a bit fancier. How ironic.
The automobile remains very popular overseas (especially in Europe) where they spend lots of dough subsidizing public transit, too. This is in countries with long histories of state ownership of public transit; and the real irony there is that Europe is where the automobile was invented.
Union workers and contractors with the right political connections. And a fair amount gets "recycled" as political contributions.
“Looks to me like three guys could build just as good a structure with $500 worth of sheet metal, plywood and a few 2x4s.”
Naaah.
It would take at least $1,500.
or give everyone in arlington an umbrella that you can buy at the dollar store
LOL! I missed that.
A little less than half of it is management and drawings.
Think of it this way. First they made several designs, all within some scope of size, shape and cost. These were drawn with a materials list, each had a structural analysis to make sure they would each survive some wind, snow, rain and earthquake as well as a car ramming into it.
Then these designs were modeled; and each design was then presented to some authority committee who decided which approach that they would take. Each design was given equal representation, and equal testing data.
The committee chose one from among the various designs offered - and the taxpayer paid for each design effort.
Now, the final design had to undergo ADVANCED analysis. 3D modeling, stress analysis, had to have timelines drawn up, and go out for bids for each of the particular aspects of building the stop. Time studies were taken for each step; such that the NEXT build will be faster.
Whenever you make a new design - the first product is MUCH more expensive than the second, third and so forth.
The question I would ask is “What was wrong with designs used previously, or used by other cities in the USA?”
This would have saved the $400k initial phase.
$575,000 for construction/fabrication
$440,000 for construction management and inspections
federal/state money took care of 80 percent of the total price tag.
That price tag was taken care of by the taxes paid by individuals/companies not some gov't entity.
One million dollars?
Where’s the midnight basketball court?
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