Local governments routinely spend resources on infrastructure they don\u2019t really need or want simply because available funds are sitting in a federal account and are therefore viewed as \u201cfree,\u201d according to Sen. Jeff Flake\u2019s new edition of the Wastebook.
That\u2019s one takeaway from a litany of transportation and engineering boondoggles highlighted by the Arizona Republican Tuesday. Flake is the de facto successor to Sen. Tom Coburn, the Oklahoma Republican who created the first Wastebook and was known by his peers in the Senate as \u201cDr. No\u201d when he retired in 2014.
Among the transportation and infrastructure examples highlighted by Flake in the latest Wastebook are the \u201ctwo federal Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery (TIGER) grants totaling more than $65 million\u201d supporting a streetcar that no one seems to want.
\u201cI\u2019ve never been on a car with more than 25 other people; it\u2019s usually about a dozen, in a car that can seat 60 and carry up to 195,\u201d a journalist observed, and many passengers are homeless people just looking for shelter, who often \u201cgot a little bit rough with the operators\u201d and left it smelling foul, according to the Wastebook.
Low streetcar ridership notwithstanding, Atlanta, Georgia Mayor Kasim Reed bragged that \u201cthere have been five rounds of TIGER and we\u2019ve won two. And in the two rounds that we won, we got the largest grants.\u201d
Up north, in the Hamptons of New York, federal officials replaced natural dunes with a sandbag structure that was immediately eroded.
\u201cThe Army Corps came in, the funds were available, and this is what they proposed,\u201d said East Hampton Town Supervisor Larry Cantwell. \u201cWe wanted no walkways at all, and we certainly didn\u2019t want the walkways they designed,\u201d but the New York State Department of Environmental Conservation and \u201cthe [Army Corps of Engineers] insisted that they be there.\u201d
The chief of planning and policy for the North Atlantic Division of the Army Corps said \u201cwe were asked to do this work. We don\u2019t just go places and do things,\u201d according to the Wastebook.
An East Hampton resident said \u201cit was disgusting. Half the beach was gone, and there\u2019s this pipe spewing who knows what.\u201d A coastal geologist said \u201cthe project will likely result in significant degradation of the public beach, while providing little protection for property,\u201d he said.
In California, federal officials spent $3.1 billion for a bullet train whose first segment was supposed to be completed in 2018, yet no track has been laid. The train was initially planned to drop passengers off in a dusty pistachio field so the project could be called \u201cshovel ready\u201d under President Barack Obama\u2019s economic stimulus program.
That turned out not so easy to do, and taxpayers are consequently now paying to keep construction equipment idle, even as most Californians say they don\u2019t want the train.
\u201cDespite the billions of dollars provided by the federal government, the rail system is struggling to attract capital and is $43.5 billion short. Private investors have shown little interest in the project. Financial support from the state has also been lagging, in part because the federal government waived the requirement for the state to make an upfront dollar-for-dollar match. The unusual agreement allows California to spend federal dollars first before putting up any of its own money,\u201d Wastebook said.
The foreign company building the train said on its bid application that it \u201cwill require large government subsidies for years to come,\u201d but California deleted this warning when the proposal was posted online, according to Wastebook.
In Florida, federal dollars bankrolled \u201cgolf tournaments, a music and wine festival, holiday wine glasses, and a private boat cruise\u201d by a barely-accountable independent government arm called the Lake-Sumter Metropolitan Planning Organization, which gets $100 million in federal and state funding annually.
Federal money even covers staff who often don\u2019t show up for work. An auditor also found that \u201cmismanagement of grants has occurred consistently.\u201d \u201cI\u2019m unapologetic,\u201d the organization\u2019s director said, claiming that it\u2019s \u201clegally an independent agency,\u201d even though it gets its money from other governments.
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