22 ways to die: choose one

Our esteemed governor re-elect just donned his hard hat in celebration of another successful California currency bonfire.  Thanks to the dedicated sales-tax sacrifice of Orange County consumers coupled with prop 1B the bonfire was able to efficiently burn $550 million dollars!  But from the ashes arose something ginormous and to quote  schwarzenegger “spectacular”:  A glistening black phenix in the form of 2 new lanes on the Garden Grove 22 Freeway!  The new lanes will allow drivers to shave a whopping 15-20 minutes from their commute.

The project was implemented with a new style of public works development called “design-build” where the same contractor designs and builds the project allowing construction to begin before the design is complete.  Thankfully rail construction hasn’t been able to grasp this concept and is woefully behind, which makes me wonder, is it really even worth including in the transportation bill at all?  Why are we throwing away $4 billion dollars on this silly rail idea when we can add it to the $11.3 billion slated for highway/road improvement for a grand total of $15.3 billion!  And really, there’s no good reason to not skim another billion from those absurd earthquake safety improvements and $2.2 billion slated to retrofit and replace school buses.  After those simple number moves highway and local road improvements would have grand total of $18.5 billion, almost enough to build of the freeway of all our dreams: a double-decker interstate 101!