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If that's an 'asset,' I'd hate to see the liabilties

August 21, 2009

From the "I don't think that word means what you think it means" department, we have this from The Des Moines Register:

Tram seen as asset to D.M.'s downtown

Des Moines is a prime candidate for a downtown tram, a feasibility study released Thursday shows.

The proposed tram, which initially would cost an estimated $104 million to build and $5.6 million annually to operate, would run on electrified rails on a route that links downtown's Western Gateway Park to the East Village. The alignment creates a four-mile loop between East Sixth and 15th streets.

So it would cost $104 million (you know it would cost more), but bleed $5.6 million annually. Some asset.

Des Moines Register map of proposed $104 million trolley route.

If you brought this sort of proposal before a corporate board, you'd have to flee for your life. Only somebody playing with somebody else's money would sit still for this sort of nonsense. The idea that the highest and best use for this much money is to run empty trolley cars back and forth 21 blocks is an indictment of our politicians, and ultimately of the rest of us who elect them.