Wednesday, June 14, 2006

I had to read for myself

Ok, so you probably heard Lars talking about the tram today. He quoted spokesman for Sam Adams, Rob Barnard, several times. I just had to read it for myself:

Rob Barnard: This particular tram is a custom one-of-a-kind facility. The tram’s cabins are hand built: Each piece of their metal is hand formed by Swiss craftsmen who came out of retirement to build this cabin. The intermediate tower is designed as a sculptural icon. The upper station cantilevers twenty stories out of the ground and is resisting 160 million foot-pounds of force. A simpler, off the shelf tram would have been less costly.

Read the whole thing at Sam Adams blog. Land-use guru and all around great guy Steve Schopp gives Mr. Barnard a run for his money. You can also check out http://www.portlandtram.com/.

3 comments:

BEAR said...

This fiasco, along with the other boondoggles perpetrated on the middle-class, will surely stop the stampede of families out of pdx! LOL.

Anonymous said...

Now, who do you suppose was the Commissioned Agent that arranged for all those Swiss Craftspersons to forsake retirement so as to help we Oregonians become more like Amsterdam?

OHSU and SoWhat to become the Health Care Center for the World's Wealthy while the rest enjoy taking numbers at the Oregon Health Plan Centers!

Ric said...

Retired Swiss Craftsman doing the jobs Oregonians won't do.

It might have been easier to find them if, you know, we had a city where artists felt welcome were, kinda, close by, er, something.

Or, they could have dropped a dime on Californian Chip Foose - he might know just a little something about metal forming.

Isn't having someone work after retirement Elder abuse?

< / sarcasm >