Brio madness getting worse

November 28, 2014

Following up on the unfortunate waste that is Brio I got to thinking about the construction costs.

According to their web site the Brio system for Mesa street cost $27.1 million.

They bought 10 buses for $790,000 each giving us a total of 7.9 million dollars for the buses.  That leaves 19.2 million dollars to build the bus stops.

Once again according to their web site there are 11 areas where the buses stop with each area having two stops, one on the north bound side and the other on the south bound side of Mesa.  That gives us 22 stops.  Actually they have yet to build the permanent one on the north bound side of Monticello and they only had to build the south bound one at the Glory Road transfer station.

I’m going to leave the number of new stops at 22 for purposes of this post.

Taking the 19.2 million dollars and dividing it by 22 stops gives us a cost of $872,727 per stop.  According to our local tax and spend authorities the average house in El Paso is valued at $124 thousand on the tax rolls.  That puts the cost of each of the stops at about the equivalent of seven homes.

We could have added regular buses without the special stops if we wanted to have more frequent service.

It gets worse

Of the $27.1 million the Mesa corridor cost, $19.6 came from feral and state funds, leaving us with a $7.5 million bill.

Sun Metro plans to build the Alameda corridor next.  The Alameda corridor is projected to cost $35.5 million.  Who will pay that bill?  The answer is local taxpayers.  Our city council voted to pay for the project with local funds to show El Paso’s commitment to mass transit.

Can this be stopped?

We deserve better

Brutus

 

5 Comments | City government, Federal Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Thanks

November 27, 2014

On this Thanksgiving day I would like to express my appreciation for the regular readers and commenters on our blog.

With people who care enough to stay informed and active in local situations we have a chance of making our local conditions better.

It takes commitment and time to stay informed and active and I appreciate those of you who do.

Have a safe and enjoyable Thanksgiving.

Brutus

6 Comments | City government, County Government, El Paso Independent School District, Federal Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Abdicating power?

November 10, 2014

The federal influence is evidently infecting Texas.

Our state’s secretary of state offers a web listing of “Election Night Returns” with a button for a “Statewide Race Summary”.

You can see it here.

The listing provided starts with the contest for United States senator.  Personally I think that the state offices are more important to us but at least the senatorial race was actually one that included the whole state.

The site then goes on to list the races for United States representative, all 35 of them.  By definition they are not statewide races but evidently someone at the secretary of state’s office thinks that these federal district elections are more important than our state races.

The state races are listed last.

By the way, if my counting is right Texas will be sending six democrats to Washington next year.  None of the six winners had a republican opponent.

It seems that some of our state officials consider the federal government to be more important than our state government.

We deserve better

Brutus

2 Comments | Federal Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

Reckless endangerment

October 25, 2014

I do not understand.

Ebola is highly contagious.  We do not understand it well enough to develop an anti-virus for it.  Arguments persist about the methods of transmission and the period at which it becomes contagious.

Yet we have health care professionals that know that they have been in direct contact with the virus who go out in public before the 21 day incubation period that the CDC is telling us about has passed.  Now the World Health Organization is telling us that they think the incubation period is 42 days.

The latest case is that of a physician who travelled to west Africa to help with the crisis.  Good for him.

When he returned to the United States he did not show his fellow citizens the respect that I would expect.  He has told us that he rode the public subway in the city of New York.  He also went to a bowling alley and at least one restaurant.  He feels he was symptom free at the times.

Now he has Ebola.

Now businesses in New York will suffer economic disasters.  People have been exposed needlessly.

Why wouldn’t a highly trained medical professional like this doctor quarantine himself voluntarily until the currently understood incubation period  passed?

Then again why haven’t the authorities mandated quarantine for these people?

We deserve better

Brutus

13 Comments | Federal Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

We need some real jobs

October 24, 2014

I found this chart on city-data.com:

CITYDATAOCCUPATIONS

Take a look at the bars on the left.  The data for females also showed higher percentages of people involved in public administration here in El Paso than in the rest of the state.

We deserve better

Brutus

 

3 Comments | City government, County Government, El Paso Independent School District, Federal Government, State Government | Permalink
Posted by Brutus

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