A stimulus funded subway bites the dust

Another subway project bites the dust as Obama withholds stimulus funds.

But a recent letter from a top Obama administration transportation official obtained by SF Weekly suggests to critics that the ground-breaking ceremony may have been premature. In order for Muni to obtain $942 million in federal funding essential to the project's completion, the Federal Transportation Administration has demanded that San Francisco prove it can come up with an extra $164 million in local and state funds, and — harder still — prove that the subway won't screw up the rest of San Francisco's bus and light-rail network.

The project was a political boondogle, but it points up the costs and flimflam that the stimulus is causing local planners.

That directive suggests the federal agency won't tolerate accounting flimflam such as that highlighted in a 2006 report by engineering consultant Tom Matoff that concluded the Central Subway project was wasteful, and that its rationale was based on bogus financing and ridership numbers.

The problem here is that stimulus economists and their unreliable stimulus theory. Clearly the stimulus from Congress is interacting in a very costly manner with local governments and causing them to engage in worthless, roundabout projects., and this is Nancy Pelosi's district.