WHEN GOVERNMENT USES NEW MATH

In 2017, the new branch of the Green Line of Light Rail Transit ... Street Cars of a sort, but they have the set route of the tracks -- you have no idea how many times these things have been delayed or even cancelled for a day or 2 -- any how ....
In 2017, there was a proposal to extend the rail from downtown Minneapolis to Eden Prarie - a fairly peaceful town, with lots of workers in the Twin Cities area - so the did a study ... planned some designs ... set up the budget ...

14 Miles of rail + a tunnel = $1.3 - 1.6 Billion, which the city did NOT have at the ime ... out came the new taxes, new regulations, new fines, higher fares on the existing trains & buses, and property taxes took a hit like you wouldn't believe - I was so glad I didn't live there any longer!

I grew up in Prospect Park, a neighborhood in Minneapolis - we had the U of Mn there, KSTP-TV, KSTP-RADIO, "Don's Store", and the "Witch's Tower" ... I went to Sidney Pratt elementary right across the street from Tower Hill, and have fond memories of sliding down the side of the hill in my snowsuit, no sled, just the snowsuit ... oh what fun!

In the 1980s crime came to the U of MN after the high school was closed and the kids got bused to other parts of the city - since there was no longer a bond to the neighborhood, it wasn't long before families stared to leave ... houses were no longer owned, they were rented.  Businesses were torn down and multi-low-income housing went in ... crime skyrocketed.
Every other week the neighhood newspaper had yett another story of a house being broke into while the owners were home ... the scariest was the one that said someone had been robbed by knife-point right across the street from my parents' house while there were out shopping.
Scary crap
Now a days, its goten even worse -- they city has tried rearranging the roads (first in the 80s because lord forbid if there wasn't a square corner there) to cut down on "speeding" and easy getways from police chases.

It caused congestion like crazy

Most students at the U of MN rode the city Metro Transit buslines ... the moe popular routes (such as the 16A that went from Downtown St. Paul to Downtown Minneapolis) had a bus every 12 minutes, every 16 minutes on Sundays & holidays ... most of the time, there was plenty of space.

I only remember the system only being shutdown once, in college, when we had a massive ice storm and the buses couldn't get traction until later in the day.

When Jesse Ventura became governor he jumped at putting in a LRT system - mostly for the billions of dollars the feds were going to invest == he'd get the credit but the nation would pay for it, basicalluy.

So the LRT went in ... first route was from DT St. Paul to DT Minneapolis, thus killing the 16A busline ... businesses were "given" small business loans (although they didn't call them loans), just enough for those who had to shutdown for 4 months could survive until the project was done ... the issue was, it took years for it to get done.

Family businesses which had been there before I was born were suddenly gone ... others moved away ... many more simply disappeared.  very sad.  And the cost was a lot higher than Venturea's government had budgetted for 

Well now comes this Eden Prarie line ... $1.3 was the original budget ... then they decided not to use the original plan, they changed it ... put in a different tunnel ... the price went up just a little.

Then it was a workers strike ... ugh ... price went up more.

Then there was an issue with that damned tunnel ... it took longer to research how to fix it ... all the while, the price tag was rising, even if nothing was getting done.

Then there was a housing issue -- it seems that while putting in the rails/power for the train, the machines/workers had accidentally caused some structural damage to some existing houses along the route ... ka-ching ka-ching ...

Now they have finally gotten to the point of figuring out how much this thing is going to cost before its all done.

Good thing they saw everything that went wrong in St.Paul, right?

It went from $1.3 Billion to

$2.86-3 BILLION

And no - they do not have that in their budget ... but the project is so far along, they can't just let it sit.

So the word problem of the day is:

              How much does it cost to put in a railway system, stop stations, and a tunnel if no one has been taught to balance a budget??

The Answer:

                Ask our great-great grandchildren since they will be the ones to finally pay it all off