Hang on to your hats, folks. Here comes another doozy out of – where else? – California. With that state on verge of bankruptcy, and its bonds just downgraded dangerously close to junk status, what, do you suppose, is the latest trendy thing around here by way of urban design, that according to the Architects Newspaper (Greg Townsend, Driving Green, Feb. 24, 2010) is in a state of “frenzy,” and is estimated to cost a trillion dollars? That’s right, not a billion, a trillion (which we hope is a typographical error, but then again what do we know?). See for yourself at www.archpaper.com/e-board_rev.asp?News_ID+4275
It appears that a local investment banker and planning poo-bah has come up with a brilliant idea: Develop so-called freeway cap parks which are essentially covers on parts of below-grade freeways. Concrete lids on freeways, so to speak, on which parks would be constructed.
The inspiration for this brainstorm comes “from an article he read about Boston’s Big Dig.” Alas, the article fails to note that the Big Dig – without a doubt the champion of Congressional pork-barreling, and a tribute to the clout of the late House Speaker Tip O’Neill — was originally estimated to cost somewhere north of $2 billion, but wound up costing over $16 billion.
Just what we need in California right now. So the state and possibly the country may be sliding toward a fiscal cliff, but for the politicians it’s business as usual. According to the Architect’s Paper article, “heavy hitters like [California] Senator Dianne Feinstein have pledged support.” And why not? After all, it isn’t their own money.
So here we are, folks. California, the state whose Supreme Court is on the record as limiting compensation for property owners whose land is taken by eminent domain, lest “an embargo” be declared on public projects, is calmly proposing a trillion-dollar boondoggle in the form of “freeway parks” that like so many other urban public spaces favored by modern architects, are likely to go largely unused.