Here's a look at our new $8-million, 2.5-mile trail that connects McFarland (population 8,000) to Madison:
Talk about anything you want in the comments.
August 28, 2017
On the Lower Yahara River Trail.
Here's a look at our new $8-million, 2.5-mile trail that connects McFarland (population 8,000) to Madison:
Talk about anything you want in the comments.
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66 comments:
You think for $8 million they could have sprung for a few cans of Rust-Oleum.
At least you Wisconsin guys are marching through Madison and not through Georgia these days.
The real Agent Cooper is back on TP.
$8-million, 2.5-mile trail that connects McFarland (population 8,000) to Madison:
$606 per foot, and $1000 per McFarland resident.
You Madisonians sure know how to pad a project. $3.2M per mile for s bike trail seems a bit steep to this Virginian.
I love riding on boardwalks. Reminds me of cards in the spokes I guess.
The real irony is how no cost is spared for the bike trails down in the Madison area, whereas bike trails in northern Wisconsin are rarely even paved.
Fed govt paid for more than half of this.
Fed govt paid for more than half of this.
In other words, it will be paid for by taxpayers yet to be born.
Assume 6 ft across, so $100 per sq ft
Looks like a bridge.
Looks like a wonderful trail to go on.
Not sure that was the best use of money, especially with the huge federal deficit, but spilt milk.
@Althouse, so if the Federal government had paid nothing would you still have favored spending $4M of whichever taxing authority paid the remainder, for a 2.5 mile bike trail, even though the views, to be fair, are spectacular?
By comparison, using the standard rule of thumb, you could have built a two lane road suitable for vehicular traffic for $3M per mile. You folks spent a half million more than that for a bike trail.
Big Mike said...
@Althouse, so if the Federal government had paid nothing would you still have favored spending $4M of whichever taxing authority paid the remainder, for a 2.5 mile bike trail, even though the views, to be fair, are spectacular?
By comparison, using the standard rule of thumb, you could have built a two lane road suitable for vehicular traffic for $3M per mile. You folks spent a half million more than that for a bike trail.
But the graft involved in road building is minimal and fairly standard because the cost is well known. In a project like this you can be confident that a lot of money slipped into the hands of friends and political supporters.
Looks like a nice trail, but I don't understand why the Federal government should be paying for this.
You guys are stingy.
You just want to spend money on bombs and kill people by withholding their rightful medical treatments.
Humans have a right to health care, living wages, and a house.
We also have a right to ride bikes and save the planet.
Think of all the people lifted from poverty by this shovel ready work on the bike bridge for the few.
Its right there in the law of the land, "pursuit of happiness".
This are rights of all species, not just humans or privileged citizens. None of us are free from worry till every cell is freed from needing.
We must make the leaf into legal tender NOW!
The Restaurant at the End of the Universe
https://books.google.com/books?isbn=0330513117
A Houston area blogger said of the "Cajun Navy" that their civilian rescue mission is huge, unorganized and quite effective. There have been reports that they are being shot at by looters. That seems very unwise. The Cajuns I have met (delightful people) started learning how to shoot when they were 4 and they're pretty good at shooting alligators and nutria from unsteady boats. I wouldn't mess with them.
I saw what I think was a classic toadstool a week ago. Big and tall, maybe six inches high and four in diameter at the top, red with white spots. I'd post the crappy picture but can't figure that out from this new device that doesn't do voice input.
So: what's a toadstool? I hear that mushrooms are not as likely to be deadly toxic as we were taught. I'd type more, but my finnnnnnvgerrrrs noooooot worrrrrk
I think bicycles should be licensed like cars and the cost of the license should be proportioned to the amount of road space reserved for bike lanes. If I can't drive on part of the road, why should I pay for it?
An AA poll on why Hillary is doing her latest book and tour would be interesting. It's been a while since we had a poll.
Some tickets are $1200
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4830426/Hillary-live-Clinton-launching-book-tour.html
May be She's learning from the music industry where the money is?
Bet it was a servicable unpaved Rd, like the $3m one here that has seen no increase in traffic.
Hillary and her book tour. I don't understand power and the pursuit of it I guess. She's rich. If I were her I'd retire and enjoy my grandchildren. Travel, take cooking classes in Italy. Enjoy my life and what's left of it. Hillary just can't let it go.
It should be "A Smelling Tour". Just as in 1999, but with more nostrils, Hillary could embark upon a Sniff Around the Nation, or maybe a Countrywide Sniff...I'm just spit-balling here. She has my email address. We could do magic.
The top photo is stunning.
The commenters here are clever and funny. Every. Last. One. But Traditional Guy gets my vote as the top comment in this thread.
Yeeeaahhhhh..
Because...those two distinct civilizations can finally communicate.
Blogger Ignorance is Bliss said...Fed govt paid for more than half of this.
In other words, it will be paid for by taxpayers yet to be born.
8/28/17, 9:28 PM
--
In other words, pay for it? HAHAHAHAHAHAHHAHAHAHH!!!!!
Someone..maybe Madonna..needs to show respect for Kim's Dong.
Not clear why Fed $ should be involved in this project. Was this one of those shovel-ready jobs, that really wasn't ready, in 2009?
Does look like a great trail though... !
North Korea invading Japan's airspace with an offensive missile seems like an act of war. But maybe that's just me.
Bob Matthews nailed it with the first comment. The first thing I noticed was the rusty metal and what looks like untreated wood. How well are those going to hold up? My father taught me that any job worth doing is worth doing right the first time.
That's not rust, but "Patina."
The alloy only rusts so deep and then acts as a barrier. The deck boards are composite. Not wood.
...tell her audience a 'personal, raw, detailed and surprisingly funny story'
says the Hillary's promotional material. I'd go with "unintentionally funny" before surprisingly.
We were told in the 90's that the Clintons couldn't care less about making money for themselves. Perhaps it's just habit now, after 40 years of raising campaign funds.
What does the biki tag mean?
No scat. Apparently, the Madison homeless haven't discovered this trail yet.
McFarland? This trail goes to honkyville. It's racist!
It's not so much racist as classist.
The Taylor and Mensch tweets have been shown to be a hoax - Lurid Trump allegations made by Louise Mensch and co-writer came from hoaxer
I forgot to ask if there is a bicycle roundabout integrated into the trail to smooth traffic flow?
Spending other people's money. Fun.
President Donald Trump has defended his decision to pardon former Arizona Sheriff Joe Arpaio by listing past controversial presidential pardons or commutations — and in the process mislabeled Chelsea Manning as a “he”.
Oh, that's going to cost him some votes!
Nice work, Unknown@10:20pm. <golf clap>
"Looks like a nice trail, but I don't understand why the Federal government should be paying for this."
The Obama administration had something like $500 million to spend on developing alternatives to driving — walking and biking.
Someone upthread suggested this should have been made for cars: You realize this is over a mile bridge across a lake-like portion of river. And it doesn't connect big roads. I don't know how much more it would cost to build a car bridge, but no one would do that.
What is going on with The Guardian?
“Taylor asked no questions to verify my identity, did no vetting whatsoever, sought no confirmation from a second source – but instead asked leading questions to support his various theories, asking me to verify them,” the source said in an email.
After being approached for comment by the Guardian on Monday, Taylor posted what he described as a “mea culpa” on Twitter. “As a ‘citizen journalist’ I acknowledge my error and do apologize,” he wrote.
Mensch denied using the bogus information and said her allegations about Trump’s model agency came from her own sources. Asked why she had retweeted Taylor’s false posts, Mensch said: “I don’t think anybody can vet anybody else’s sources.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/aug/28/trump-tweets-hoax-louise-mensch-claude-taylor
Every once in a while they publish news that doesn't simply serve to further their agenda. They are different from the New York Times in this way. The New York Times would never see fit to print that story.
"Ann Althouse said...
The Obama administration had something like $500 million to spend on developing alternatives to driving — walking and biking."
The idiocy of this sentence is astounding.
There is a stretch of bike trail along an abandoned railroad track in Vermont that is interrupted by water. What they did was set up a pontoon boat as a bike ferry during the season. That's because, as looney as they are, Vermonters still don't like to waste money.
"The Obama administration had something like $500 million to spend"
Reminds me of The Simpsons, it does, back when it was funny...
LISA: "Didn't you wonder why you were getting checks for doing nothing?"
GRANDPA SIMPSON: "I figured it was because the democrats were in power again."
For a lot less money, they could have purpose built a pedal powered bike ferry, not only invented a new alternative to driving, but drawing visitors at the same time on account of it would have been fun, and lessening the environmental impact to boot.
I bet not a single person would have griped.
What became clear though, after, as one of his first acts, and a defining one, Obama illegally fired an Inspector General who was looking into stimulus fraud by one of Obama's supporters, this was always about graft and payoffs to Obama's supporters, who are no doubt legion in Madison.
I just built an 8 ft metal rack for storing steel outside from implements that I'm junking. Inch and a quarter square tubing (that was rusty), and half inch rebar (again rusty) every five inches. When I was finished, I sprayed it with Rusty Metal Primer from Rust-Oleum. I've done this numerous times, and it will not rust. You should remove flakes first, however.
Allen I need a rack with wheels to hold a cord of wood off the ground so the copperheads won'f set up camp. Can you hook me up?
Rusty, I was talking about the wooden railings, which look natural and untreated. The path itself is fine, but the rest looks iffy to me.
Weathering steel, often referred to by the genericized trademark COR-TEN steel and sometimes written without the hyphen as corten steel, is a group of steel alloys which were developed to eliminate the need for painting, and form a stable rust-like appearance if exposed to the weather for several years.
If that is what it is, it is expensive steel and indeed rusty. Do not stop and rest your arms on it while admiring the view!
Architects! Sheesh!!!
tim in vermont: What is going on with The Guardian?
[...]
Every once in a while they publish news that doesn't simply serve to further their agenda.
Louise Mensch is off-the-deep-end batshit crazy. That they're still treating her in any way as a non-insane person - oh, she was hoaxed, oh, maybe she's a dubious source toward whom one ought to exercise some skepticism - they're not really "publish[ing] news that doesn't fit their agenda".
Just because Hillary is asking up to $1200 per ticket doesn't mean that people are actually going to buy them. Hillary doesn't have potential influence to peddle any more. I suspect most would-be Democrat donors will be trying to bribe the next Democrat nominee rather than a has been.
Clyde said...
"Rusty, I was talking about the wooden railings, which look natural and untreated. The path itself is fine, but the rest looks iffy to me."
(In my best Zoidberg voice.) It'll be fine. Don't worry.
The cost is $1,000 per resident of McFarland, $32 per resident of Madison, or 2.5 cents per resident of the U.S.
They were handing out money, and my city stepped up and said okay, we'll take it.
Of course, we locals paid half of it.
We have a lot of amenities around here. I don't control the government. And I pay crazy property tax and don't like it. But no one around here listens to me. This isn't the place to live if you don't like govt spending and disregard of the taxpayer.
Engineers design bridges for people to use.
Architects design bridges for people to look at.
Unknown: Humans have a right to health care, living wages, and a house.
Define "right", please. The way I think you're using it, you're wrong. You can not, and do not, "have a right" to anything that requires the labor of other people.
Blogger Ann Althouse said...
The Obama administration had something like $500 million to spend on developing alternatives to driving — walking and biking.
The Obama administration paid for this? Well kudos to them. That was VERY nice of them.
Oh wait. You mean the taxpayers actually paid for it and it was just the Obama administration that spent the money.
"The Obama administration paid for this? Well kudos to them. That was VERY nice of them. Oh wait. You mean the taxpayers actually paid for it and it was just the Obama administration that spent the money."
Why are you attributing something to me that I never wrote?
They had it and they got it designated for this purpose. I express no opinion on the legitimacy of any of that. But once the money was in a position needing people to step up and take it, my city took it, jumped through the hoops that had been set up.
I shouldn't be saying "city," though. It's the county: Dane County.
@Althouse, if you were referring to my comment upthread, I never said that they should have built a road. I think it's fair to presume one exists already. But Dane County paid more per mile than the rule of thumb for planning a new two lane road in a rural area. I'm normally all in favor of bike trails because the alternative is relatively slow-moving bicycles clogging roads I need to drive on. But that's a lot of money.
I'll bet that railroad line is hardly used. They could have put the bikers on that most of the day. Everyone else can swim/wade.
Ann Althouse said...
"The Obama administration paid for this? Well kudos to them. That was VERY nice of them. Oh wait. You mean the taxpayers actually paid for it and it was just the Obama administration that spent the money."
Why are you attributing something to me that I never wrote?
They had it and they got it designated for this purpose. I express no opinion on the legitimacy of any of that. But once the money was in a position needing people to step up and take it, my city took it, jumped through the hoops that had been set up.
A version of the tragedy of the commons. The government is going to waste our money, so we might as well grab some back.
And yet there's a state capital that even today can be accessed only by boat or plane.
"Hillary just can't let it go."
I've never seen a vile, corrupt, power-hungry totalitarian who could.
@Sukie Tawdry, if you mean Juneau, there is now a highway leading northeast out of town, plus a bridge to Douglas Island.
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