Bertha halfway celebration is utterly ridiculous

I’m not sure why we’re pretending that Bertha being halfway done is something worth celebrating. It’s utterly ridiculous. Yet, that’s the latest bizarre talking point coming from the Washington State Department of Transportation as they attempt to gin up excitement for a horribly mismanaged project.

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“Bertha has been steadily on the move and made her way to the second half of the tunnel,” Gov. Jay Inslee said with faux excitement. “This is good progress and I appreciate everyone’s focus on making sure we safely complete this project.”

First of all, since when do we celebrate being halfway done with anything? Being halfway done with that book you’ve been working on won’t get it published. Being halfway done working on a project doesn’t mean we get to see the fruits of your labor any quicker.

Second of all, you’re not halfway done. You can’t be halfway done when you’re already over-schedule. You’re setting the pace to be three years over schedule and hundreds of millions of dollars over-budget. Halfway done to being over-schedule? How’s that work?

Ultimately, I wouldn’t make a big deal about something so silly, but it goes to a bigger issue with the mindset of transportation agencies in Washington. Sound Transit made a big deal about being on-time and on-budget with their U-link connection in Capitol Hill. It was neither on-time nor on-budget – a fact Sound Transit continues to lie about.

But I guess WSDOT and Gov. Inslee think this is a big deal, so who am I to complain? Congrats WSDOT, the project that should have been done last year is somehow halfway done now.

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