California would find a much more expensive solution that worked far less well. The Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing cost an estimated $115M--a total waste of tax payer funds. Bravo to this practical and effective solution.
I think the idea of more opportunities to cross is good but the pricetag is absurd still. After all, they are terraforming a hillside. I think it is a little misplaced though. We assume animals need this to cross but it seems they can take a regular old bridge just fine. You can probably build a cheap "animal only" overpass, e.g. maybe a light load mesh metal or plank bridge or somesuch, for a fraction the cost and offer many fold more crossing opportunities across more of the freeway vs just one big budget spectacle. I'm sure the contractor was connected in some way. A sort of storm drain like underpass design would probably also be cheap if done during routine freeway work.
Instead of guessing you could look into the research literature on animal road crossings. Its a surprisingly large area of study because it is hard to get animals to use these constructions. Maybe they did a bad and expensive job, but you have nothing to base that on at all.
I base it on the mountain lions in question already urbanized enough to walk on sidewalks in los angeles. I mean there were people seriously claiming the griffith park mountain lion was somehow isolated to griffith park, and yet it was showing up on people's ring cameras miles away from the park. I think a lot of people assume that animals are only found in "nature" and don't know what to do in an unnatural setting. They can figure it out. Look at your housecat figuring out your entire home, and realize this is basically a smaller brained mountain lion.
Do you know how much accidents cost? $100M is nothing in comparison over the long term. Plus this was a 10 lane overpass and a unique build during a high inflation period. That is not simple terraforming amigo.
At the cost of $115M we could have built a new public university or added more light rail somewhere it's desperately needed like Orange County or San Diego. I am not against land crossings for animals, but the way the government just blows tax money with no accountability on projects the public has almost no direct benefit from is quite extraordinary.
You're making my argument for me. Infrastructure costs in California are outrageously more expensive than any other developed country--for no reason other than grift.
Ah yes, let's ignore that California has spent ~$15B on high speed rail and has literally nothing to show for it... I guess that just makes sense to some people...
To me, I can't accept it when I see other countries rapidly doing these infrastructure projects at a fraction of the cost and multiple times faster. Compare our costs to Switzerland or any other high income developed first world country--we're off the charts. It makes no sense other than lobbyists and environment lawyers and other ticky-tack bullshit that helps no one.
I also see it as a longterm competitive disadvantage and liability for the country. We can't complete big projects any more without squandering most of the tax payer money. It also lowers our quality of life when we're spending this much time in traffic and wasting our tax money for such little to show for it.
> It makes no sense other than lobbyists and environment lawyers and other ticky-tack bullshit
Those other countries also have lobbyists and environment lawyers, so your thesis reveals a lack of discernment.
The poster child in the west for infrastructure projects is Spain, and i can assure you that Spain is not light on regulation.
America has an interesting political structure - look there for your answer.
Ultimately, a democracy with a strong concept of individual rights will inevitably surface nimbies. America's fractal disorganisation gives them multiple venues to oppose any project. America's love-hate relationship with federal bodies creates overlaps. America's semi-regular cycle into small-government administration means it regularly expunges institutional infrastructure experience. You could shoot every environmental lawyer and lobbyist, and your projects would still be bunfights.
> that helps no one
You're welcome to your own values. I believe there's a place called "Flint Michigan" where the citizens would disagree.
You're really quick to just get angry mad and throw out insults over me saying something as benign as 'wow it'd be nice if California used our tax money as effectively as the example in the article?' Just seems like a bizarre totally mundane thing to get hung up on and then have this nauseating Karen-like condescending tone 'actually... the costs are totally justified, it's fine that California spends 7-10x what every other developed country does--it just makes sense'. You reek of assigned opinion and just conformist talking points from Newsom.
I've lived in California for 40 years and every year the government becomes less effective and more tax money is embezzled and fleeced and squandered. I don't know how someone could travel to Europe or Japan and then come back to California and defend the state of our infrastructure and not be wholly embarrassed. Our schools, roads, bridges, everything that matters are decades behind (despite a sufficiently large tax base to fund those same projects).
We could be doing better, but simps like you just keep giving the one party system a free pass so there've never any accountability whatsoever. Good job, let's just keep lowering our expectations and shrugging this magnitude of incompetence off.
> I believe there's a place called "Flint Michigan" where the citizens would disagree.
How do you think Flint reinforces your argument? If anything it is evidence of exactly what I'm talking about---government bureaucrats making unaccountable decisions that then devastate and rip off the local constituents. They never fixed the Flint crisis... even Obama and Biden did nothing.
I was perfectly diplomatic, and you've responded with yet another rant.
You've flooded the comments with your California railing, none of which offers any new insight. I don't believe you've put any work into understanding the problem.
You have convinced me, and likely many others who are capable of reading your tone, that you're more interested in identity signaling than analysis. Maybe you'll find your crowd on Facebook?
My point stands about the lack of discernment you've shown here. I won't be talking to you again.
Wah wah wah, make it personal because you're mad about facts:
-China built 820 miles of high speed rail in 3 years.
-The Golden Gate Bridge took 4.5 years.
-Millau viaduct in France took 3 years.
-But now we can't even build 2 miles of LAX train in the same time...
Costs and the completion time for infrastructure to be completed are horrible. You can keep defending this as totally reasonable all you want but it's exactly why our quality of life keeps going down and we keep getting outclasses by every other country.
California could be so much better if we didn't have a bunch of people like you always making excuses for everything and removing any accountability from our government. Keep electing the same people and you'll get the same results.
You think $115M is a reasonable price to build a 200 foot bridge that doesn't have to support any real heavy weight? You wouldn't rather have that money spent on you know... humans? The money is skimmed off the top by the people who pay for the politicians to get elected who sign off on these projects. It's all about money and political patronage.
Sure, but that's not the point. My point is that infrastructure costs are like 20-50x more in California than in other developed countries for no apparent reason. We spend a million dollars of tax payer funds to build one single public bathroom in LA or even more in SF. There's something fundamentally broken... I appreciate seeing cost effective solutions that actually works. In California, it seems like most government 'solutions' are a complete scam to divert tax dollars into someone's pet project and create a funnel for their own income/profit.
> infrastructure costs are like 20-50x more in California than in other developed countries
Is that really true? For a simple example, it looks like a simple surface light rail line in the US typically runs about 100M/mi. That's pretty much the same as what it costs in the UK.
I may be exaggerating the exact number, but it's a well known fact that infrastructure costs more in California. The subway in San Francisco's Chinatown was more expensive than most modern airports... we're being scammed.
A "low-cost" subway is generally figured at about $80-100M/km, and in many more countries, you'd figure more like $150-200M/km as a good number.
The Chinatown subway was $600M/km, which is 3-4× "reasonable" construction costs, and fairly far from the most expensive subway, which is I believe NYC's Second Ave phase 2, at almost $4000M/km.
The US in general is a high-cost construction country (for a variety of reasons), but relative to the rest of the US, California is neither particularly expensive nor particularly cheap.
Google it yourself. I've lived in California my entire life and will never leave. I'm allowed to criticize it. I want it to work harder and more effectively and stop wasting resources. Unfortunately there's zero accountability to voters because we're a one party state and the party nominee practically always wins. You can let an entire neighborhood burn down while out of the country at a party and the voters will still defend you.
There's no reason we pay such high taxes and have so little to show for it. I get tired of the endless excuses. Every other country--even the more expensive ones like Switzerland--have more effective infrastructure projects. I honestly don't even think this is debatable. Go look at how poorly maintained practically everything in the state is--schools, roads, bridges... It doesn't make sense when we're paying such high taxes and have all the big tech companies here... I don't know why people are so comfortable with that cognitive dissonance.
