Runaway Train

Capital Metro Rail is about to begin operation in 30 some odd days. In the interest of examining how they are really spending the public dollars we are gathering documents to give the accurate information. Everyone needs to remember that this project was approved by the voters at $90 million. I have heard too often lately the rationalizations about how often these public projects run over budget, and it appears that the effort of these statements is to persuade and wear down the public so that we simply shrug our shoulders and say to ourselves; "well, they say that things always cost more than they planned on" or, "they say that they made it better with that extra money" etc etc. Well, that is not good enough.

The public is really supposed to say to these entities, look- we approved the costs at "x" and four years later you have changed the number, knowing that you are so far into this project that we have to let you finish it. This is the shell game of how public infrastructure projects always run over cost, they know from the start that it will cost much more, so all they really want is the voters approval that they can start the project, and once they have that they know that they are locked in to spend more to get it done. Considering the Stimulus Bill that was just signed by President Obama will infuse lots of cash into transit systems across the country these are not small concerns.

In the next few weeks we will be presenting the information in detail about how much the Austin CMTA Commuter Rail Project is really costing, and will cost in the future. You can expect the CMTA marketing and public relations staff (and consultants - they love consultants) to be working overtime spinning the numbers in the media.