Written by Why doesn’t the state like to give money to Tucson:
Rio Nuevo/City of Tucson $46M Underpass: 50% Overrun, $10M Bridge: 67% Overrun
Apparently things are very expensive when Rio Nuevo and the Tucson Sleeper Cell City Council are involved. Re-doing an underpass with rail lines involved costs $46M. Mayor Walkup said that was a good value. They’ve been advertising it as a $31M project for six years–Oops! A 50% overrun is a good value? Then there’s the Cushing Street Bridge which was going to cost $6M and is now $10M and growing. It had to be redesigned four times because it wasn’t “elegant enough” and needed to have trees. For what is a bridge without trees?
Meanwhile, far away from the Rio Nuevo officials and the City of Tucson, ADOT is going to do an entire interchange reconstruction at Marsh Station on I-10 for $18M, that’s barely more than the overrun for 4th Ave job. There are train tracks at that overpass too. According to the bidding instructions, the cost of the entire project including the reroute of the railroad track is $24M. Funny, they are only taking sealed bids that will be publicly opened and read. No “construction manager at risk” bids. What a novel idea.
In fact, for $46M, the same cost as the 4th Ave. Underpass, ADOT is going to do quite a bit in Pima County, in addition to the Marsh Station project, as spelled out in the linked article.
Improvements at the Marsh Station Road may not seem like much to you but the low bridge there at the railroad tracks is below interstate standard and forces some detours via scenic highways.
Freshman State Representative Frank Antenori got this project moved way up the prioity list so it’s finally going to happen. He is the Vice Chairman of the Transportation Committee. So much for the incorrect whining from the Arizona Daily Star and the now defunct Tucson Citizen that Southern Arizona lost clout in the legislature with the loss of McClure, Bee, Hershberger and Burns.
I guess it’s true what they say, everything is more expensive in the big city.
When you start to look nuts and nutty too, just post about Rio Nuevo and all will be fine again.
The 4th Ave underpass is not a Rio Nuevo project. Perhaps if you had a minimal understanding you wouldn’t compare apples to oranges for a petty argument.
I think both of you guys missed the point. Ro was comparing project complexity and cost to project complexity and cost.
Both projects include an overpass, and railroad track relocation. The difference is one was done by sealed bid, the other by manager at risk bid.
It has nothing to do with Rio Nuevo other than the Rio Nuevo board had a hand in gumming up the project my requiring certain “artistic” improvements.
ADOT just wants a safe and efficiently built road. Hence one project costs around $24 Million, the other costs $46 Million.
Anyway you cut it, the city of Tucson has been notoriously poor at selecting contractors awarding contracts. Whether it is a sewer line that they paid $650K for that many said could be done for $250K, or a movie that cost over $800K that could have been done for $50K, or a bridge/overpass project that was done for $46 Million that could have been done for $20 Million.
Their contracting process sucks, no bones about.
P.S.
Kralmajales, How much are those left leaning groups like MoveOn and George Soros paying you to police the net and go around commenting behind every post that’s critical of incompetent Lefties? You seem to very busy these days on several blogs protecting the delicate egos of Gabby and the rest of the Dem funky bunch.
kenny
can you give us one more reason that the city council is a bunch of incompetent whack jobs? first nina trasoff has been telling everyone that the underpass is a rio nuevo accomplishment–contrary to the fact that it’s a city of tucson job, second rio nuevo is responsible for a quarter of the over run of the underpass cost third, rio nuevo has totally screwed up the cushing st bridge. whatever. keep defending your boobs on the city council.
so your “minimal understanding” is that rio nuevo did nothing to add to the problem of an already pathetic city of tucson mismanagement and city council lack of oversight. thanks for sharing that with everyone.
The difference is one was done by sealed bid, the other by manager at risk bid.