Amidst great hoopla and an as yet unknown amount of expenditure to promote itself, the city of Grand Junction is opening up the world's only 1 1/2 lane parkway.
We would like to be on record as finding Gary Harmon's column in yesterday's Daily Sentinel on this topic infuriating as he coined the term "Porkway" before we could think of it. To read Gary's column click on this paragraph.
At only 25% above the projected cost which was more than 25% above the estimate giving us almost 50% more than they expected it to be when discussing it initially; Eureka, a vastly overbudget piece of construction that will be undersized in five to seven years and built in such a way as to make it next to impossible to expand along its smaller pathways.
The actual cost of the project and its attendant personnel expenditures to say nothing of the cost of having the original planned shredded will certainly be as difficult to locate as the original plans for the Manhattan Project.
Our fair city has an interesting habit of hiding costs under different cost centers so that the total "cost" of a project can seem less than it is. This is possible because the tax revenues are constantly above even their dizzying expectations which means that the money is always available, somewhere.
The fact that the project continuously changes lanes sizes and eventually ends up the size of a hypodermic needle will not interfere with the hearty round of self congratulation we'll be hearing over the next few days.
If someone has the time to drive the loop towards D road you might want to ask yourself- what will happen if there is a car accident beginning at about 9th St? Or, suppose law enforcement would like to stop a vehicle; try and imagine how that's going to work out.
Never mind though, as at least one thing worked out correctly -- by tying up existing arterials they managed to make it feel a lot more roomy once they open up the existing roads and the Parkway at the same time.
