Comment by diogenescynic
5 hours ago
California would find a much more expensive solution that worked far less well. The Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing cost an estimated $115M--a total waste of tax payer funds. Bravo to this practical and effective solution.
Whoa that's awesome. I didn't know California had one of those. Keeps animals, humans, and cars safe and looks beautiful too.
At the cost of $115M we could have built a new public university or added more light rail somewhere it's desperately needed like Orange County or San Diego. I am not against land crossings for animals, but the way the government just blows tax money with no accountability on projects the public has almost no direct benefit from is quite extraordinary.
> new public university
I assume you meant to say building, yes?
> added more light rail somewhere it's desperately needed like Orange County or San Diego
In San Diego, 115M would get you what, half a mile of light rail?
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Not exactly apples to oranges though, is it?
Sure, but that's not the point. My point is that infrastructure costs are like 20-50x more in California than in other developed countries for no apparent reason. We spend a million dollars of tax payer funds to build one single public bathroom in LA or even more in SF. There's something fundamentally broken... I appreciate seeing cost effective solutions that actually works. In California, it seems like most government 'solutions' are a complete scam to divert tax dollars into someone's pet project and create a funnel for their own income/profit.
> infrastructure costs are like 20-50x more in California than in other developed countries
Is that really true? For a simple example, it looks like a simple surface light rail line in the US typically runs about 100M/mi. That's pretty much the same as what it costs in the UK.
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Ok what’s your solution? I’m seeing more and more wild life bridges and tunnels so clearly the engineers think they work.
Or maybe it's just a good project for lawyers and lobbyists to get kickbacks...
This is a solution specifically for arboreal animals, while the Wallis Annenberg Wildlife Crossing is explicitly for mountain lions.
I think the idea of more opportunities to cross is good but the pricetag is absurd still. After all, they are terraforming a hillside. I think it is a little misplaced though. We assume animals need this to cross but it seems they can take a regular old bridge just fine. You can probably build a cheap "animal only" overpass, e.g. maybe a light load mesh metal or plank bridge or somesuch, for a fraction the cost and offer many fold more crossing opportunities across more of the freeway vs just one big budget spectacle. I'm sure the contractor was connected in some way. A sort of storm drain like underpass design would probably also be cheap if done during routine freeway work.
Instead of guessing you could look into the research literature on animal road crossings. Its a surprisingly large area of study because it is hard to get animals to use these constructions. Maybe they did a bad and expensive job, but you have nothing to base that on at all.