Quote:
Originally Posted by bmfarley
I am not familiar with the LA projects, but the SF one is a no-brainer.
|
It's not considered a no-brainer in SF. I'd guess most of the SF SSP forumers (other than me) have expressed opposition to it at one time or another. Most often, the view seems to be that the money could be spent elsewhere to better effect but, of course, one reason I favor it is that there is not much reason to think the money would be available to spend elsewhere if it isn't spent on this project. If somebody would say, "You can have the $700 million to spend on either this project or a Geary subway" I'd go for the Geary line every time, but nobody is saying that and nobody ever would.
"How did (we) get the funding so easily" was asked and it's a fair question but a slightly mistaken premise--that it was easy. This project has been in the works for a long time. Basically, its genesis was the 1989 earthquake which damaged the Embarcadero Freeway beyond repair. But when it was proposed that that simply be torn down and replaced with the surface boulevard we have today, there were wails of protest from some pretty politically powerful folks in Chinatown--big Democratic fundraisers and contributors--who protested that the absence of the freeway would inhibit people from coming to Chinatown and hurt business there. A "deal" was worked out and I believe Nancy Pelosi, as a Democratic power broker, had a direct hand in that deal: that a crosstown subway to Chinatown would be built to bring business to Chinatown if Chinatown dropped its objections to the removal of the Embarcadero Freeway. This was 15 years or so ago and Pelosi was a rising star in Congress but her future roll as Speaker was not evident to anyone. Nevertheless, it seems likely to me that she still feels obligated to carry out the deal she helped broker and used her present power to make it happen.