The Baffling Economics of Transportation Policy in Washington State

Can someone explain why China can build a 6-lane, 22 mile bridge for $1.7 billion, but Washington leaders can't build a 6-lane 520 span between 405 and I-5 for less than $4 billion?

The first 520 bridge had a cost of about $225 million in inflation adjusted dollars. That means we could build about 20 of the current 520 structures for the same cost WSDOT estimates the new version will cost today.

Comments

[Emmett O'Connell]

Are you serious?

I guess if we didn't have to worry about those pesky human rights, labor unions or actually paying people, we could scrape by at roughly under half the cost.

Then again, I'm comparing a free society with worker protection to a totalitarian regime.

[Todd W.]

It does seem costly..but I agree with the previous comment by Emmett..they are not a good country to reference. The project should be checked out by a seperate organization to ensure our Transportation Department are using the money wisely.

[Stacie]

I agree with Mr. O'Connell. I suppose China would just wipe out parts of Capitol Hill, Montlake, Madison Park, Roanoke, Medina, Clyde Hill and the Points communities, and ruin Laurelhurst with noise and visual blight, but they would get it done for "half" the money.

It's not about the fact that those are wealthy communities. The point is that every community near a freeway (405, I-5) is impacted by numerous individual impacts that add up to a far greater collective burden: noise, visual blight, physical encroachment, condemnations, environmental issues, and air quality(particulate matter)issues that burden peoples' health. Mitigating for those impacts requires funding.

[Baynative]

At 48 cents per gallon tax confiscated from citizens the state takes in an estimated 4 - $9 million every day. Yet, accounting for that money is something Olympia can't (or won't) do. Every tax increase is fed into the general fund and subsequently squandered on every program under the democrat sun only to be followed by the same short hand analysis - "NEED MORE".

[erock]

The biggest problem we have in the state of WA is the bidding and awarding of contracts situation. Here, we just pick the lowest bid and go with it...lowest doesn't mean best or most accurate because all the companies have to do is file amendments to the bid once its awarded. In a couple other states they have a system where they take all the bids, throw out the highest and lowest, taken the average of all the costs and award it to the company closest to it OVER the average. Arizona has not had very many cost overruns since using this method AND their projects have been on time.