By McSweeney’s San Francisco Panorama Newspaper Project Hello Spot.Us community members.
I trust by now you've seen the report produced by The Public Press which was published in McSweeney's Panoroma. If you haven't, all the relevant links are at the end of this post.
The pitch is still active on Spot.Us and will remain so until January for two reasons.
First: McSweeney's is planning to do a second printing run in January and more Panorama's will be made available at that time. We will keep you updated on when and where you can pick them up.
Second: We are still trying to recoup some of the costs of reporting. As you might imagine countless people-hours went into the reporting and writing of this fantastic report on the bay bridge. There were travel costs, labor costs, printing costs and more. We have calcuated the bare minimum and it comes out to just over $600 more than what we have raised to date.
So we are asking for your help to spread the word so we can reach our goal. If you want to make that last end of the year tax-deductable donation, consider contributing to this pitch. If you know others that want to support good reporting like this, please pass along the word. With your support we can come out of this being able to support the reporters who worked tirelessly to produce this reporting.
We hope you have happy holidays.
Their Bay Bridge report can be broken down into the following.
Unparalleled bridge, unprecendented cost
Patricia Decker and Robert Porterfield, McSweeney's San Francisco Panorama/SF Public Press — Dec 8 2009 - 12:50pm
When completed, the new east span of the San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge will be not only the most complex engineering feat in California history, but also the most expensive, with a cost never subjected to public scrutiny. Although today’s price tag stands at $6.3 billion, the figure accounts for only salaries and hard materials—things like concrete and steel and cranes. When all is said and done, the new Bay Bridge will wind up costing tax- and toll-payers more than $12 billion—a figure that leaves even the officials in charge “staggered.”
How Wall Street profits from bridge building
The Bay Area Toll Authority has the unique power to raise bridge tolls without the Legislature's approval, which it has done repeatedly to pay off the $6.9 billion bond debt amassed so far to build the new Bay Bridge and upgrade six other spans. That makes BATA particularly attractive to Wall Street, which has pocketed more than $122 million in fees to arrange the borrowing.
Building the bay's signature span
When all the pieces are finally welded together and tethered by the main suspension cable, the Bay Bridge east span will be not just a new American icon, but also a truly global monument. From the enormous solid steel castings of cable saddles, brackets and bands being forged in Japan and England to the gigantic bearings and hinges being manufactured in South Korea and Pennsylvania, fabrication of the bridge is under way in seven foreign countries and in more than two dozen American cities, including 12 in California.
The fine print: Interest doubles the total price-tag
Overall cost estimates have been presented to the public in annual reports and press briefings, but the cost of interest on money borrowed to pay for construction has not been included.
A cool timeline for the bay bridge
Heralding the Panorama: People who covered the Panorama.
Posted by Spot. Us on 12/22/09
