Thursday, May 13, 2010

Ah, government "efficiency"

It always amuses me when people explain to me how inefficient things like infrastructure would be if we didn't have a "central government to plan and coordinate it" all. How could we possibly have private roads?? What, would you have to stop and pay a toll every block?

Constructors of such silly strawmen really ought to consider the bar that their preferred system is setting before casting stones. In this post from Washington State's department of transportation, they gleefully announce the success of their planning process:

The announcement of a preferred alternative marks a milestone 13 years in the making. Since 1997, WSDOT and regional leaders analyzed design alternatives for a replacement SR 520 bridge and improved corridor.

13 years? 13 *years*?? 13 mother fucking YEARS???

It took these clowns 13 years - and who knows how much money went into this planning - just to decide *what to do*? And all that while, the bridge has been "seismically vulnerable", so it's not like there wasn't a cost to this delay (beyond the obvious costs).

A free market alternative may or may not be better, but anyone trying to claim that there's just no *room* for an alternative to be better has their head up their arse.