Digging into the waste, fraud and abuse of taxpayers
This I-5 Interstate Bridge Replacement (IBR) is a huge crime scene, with many, many facets of waste, potential fraud, and abuse of taxpayers. The IBR’s own information reports the new bridge is about $1.9 billion. The rest is unnecessary pork barrel spending, including a $3.5 billion transit component.
This series will explore and reveal just some of the many potential areas of abuse of the taxpayers trust and money. These include replacing an over-congested 3-lane bridge with another 3-through lane bridge. It includes allocating 54% of the bridge surface to transit, bikes and pedestrians and only 46% to cars and freight haulers.
It includes a demand to spend $3.5 billion for a 1.83 mile extension of TriMet’s MAX light rail into Vancouver. Then there is TriMet’s demand for 19 new light rail vehicles, when in 2024 they told the Federal Transit Administration they had 40 “surplus” vehicles. There’s a $320 million “upgrade” to TriMet’s Gresham Ruby Junction maintenance facility.
And much more.
