someproteinguy wrote:
That seems to be the interesting question on everyone's mind. How much of this is salvageable and it what way? I only hear vague descriptions like "some of the costs can be recovered if the next replacement project is similar enough to this one." I think the article (well one of them) was pointing to things like geological surveys and what not still being useful several years out, assuming the replacement bridge is eventually built near the same location. I imagine that goes for real estate as well.
The data collection stuff, (archeological surveys, soil test boreholes and core samples, design feasability and alternatives, models, etc.) will be very relavant to the next bridge planning thingy, if there ever is one. This is actually the second major effort to replace that bridge that failed. See "I-5 Partnership program" for further hilarity. Whoever does the follow on will almost have to redo the very expensive traffic modeling studies. The tolling crap studies and whatnot will probably still be relavant by then, and if nothing else getting the laws changed on both sides of the river to allow it to be tolled means it has a better chance of being built someday than not. The facility is paid through 2014 already, and part that kills me is that I "Just" got done pulling 2 months of weekend and all nighters to get all the new server and network hardware in play, recabled and ready to go. And now we have to gut it. $3,000 worh of new copper and fiber network cables alone. Something on the order of 2,000 printed labels. and no one knows whats going to happen with it all. if they manage to do a phoenix on the project, someone will want the gear to bring up a turn key new project, but aside from that, 2 state governments own half of everything. It's going to be wierd. All the desks and furnature and whatnot will probably go with the building and be sublet since there is no money to even pay someone to remove them and no where to store it. The files and drives from all the workstations and the SAN will go into archive somewhere and be preserved intact. They may be able to hang on to the real estate for a while. if i were the people in charge i'd at least turn them into temporary staging depots to claim the space is being used since all that requires is some gravel and maybe a fence or two. The labor expended over 10 years is gone, and thats not coming back. Whether the deliverables were worth that cost is completely up in the air and open to debate. There are 3 completed bridge designs that exist now. including all the accompanying interchanges up and down the road, including all the cad files and digital terrain models. I suspect some of the interchanges will get completed in future years regardless of the bridge itself moving forwards, and those are all literally ready to go to construction the minute anyone has funds for them. Which won't happen at all for at least 2 years now since they declined to fund them this biennium. At least on the washington side. The oregon side may haoppen alot sooner, and the island interchanges and local traffic back cross bridge may actually buy the bridges themselves a few years since thats alot of the traffic bottleneck north and southbound on the oregon side.
Whats really going to be fun and entertaining is when all the freight shipping companies that have been threatening to move elsewhere for the past 7 years of the project if a new bridge isn't built (you know, the ones that are basically 90% of the economy of clark county, and 40% of the economy of washington state overall) decide to say ********** it" and head south so they don't have to deal with the damned bridge.