Best way to waste $200K of taxpayers money

[draco664]

This has to be a title contender.


Quebec taxpayers pay $200,000 for escalator to nowhere

Essentially, there are nine immovable steps of an escalator leading into a blank wall. The rest of the escalator goes on behind the wall, but that area is still under construction, and is not likely to finish anytime soon.

[bara]

I could think of a much better ways to spend 200k. Like going back to college.

[HYHYBT]

I don't see the problem. Yes, the escalator looks silly. But, *without* knowing the project would fall through in advance, what else would you do? As it is, they can use what they have, and if and when there's money to expand, they've got part of that done too... and you can get there by taking out that wall and turning the escalator on.

There's a building at the University of Georgia that has the bottom four floors connected by escalators, in addition to the elevators that reach all seven floors. (At least, they were there last I checked. It's been a few years.) I have no idea why they exist at all, but they were shut off in, I think, the 80's and have just been badly spaced stairs since. They do have one other oddity, which I've never seen on any other escalator: the handrail, instead of being a single piece, flexible ribbon, is made of segments maybe half an inch long of hard plastic linked together.

[protege]

I can think of another way to waste taxpayer money... That would be the North Shore connector, which has been referred to as the "523.4 million tunnel to nowhere" by some residents. Basically, our transit agency decided to tunnel under the Allegheny River so it could expand service to the new stadiums. Instead of spending the money to extend the system into Oakland (which has many universities and a huge traffic problem) which would actually help ease congestion during the week...they decided to go to the North Side instead...so people could ride the subway to football or baseball games a few times a week. Otherwise, that line will never see the type of service that the unbuilt Oakland line would.

As for the OP's escalator, the situation probably went like this: I have a feeling that it was paid for, installed, and then the project fell through. To prevent access, the escalator was blocked off.

[HYHYBT]

One thing to remember about things like that tunnel. It's not just what will do the most good, but what will make visitors like your city. And making your city more visitor-friendly brings in outsiders, tourists, etc with their "free" (in that it doesn't come from where it's used) sales tax money. Whereas people who live there already know traffic is horrible on the roads they use and to plan accordingly.

Of course, that's just a guess.