Golden Fleece Award – Issue 57

A Fleece Car Named Desire

Remember the cliché “Once burned, twice shy?” The wizards in Rose City government have turned that into “Once burned, let’s see if it’ll happen again.”

In 2009 the Portland City Council approved spending $20 Million to buy six new streetcars from United Streetcar. Cost overruns and delays forced them to cut the deal to five cars.

The order for five was filled more than a year late. Did that make the Council wary of tossing your bucks to United? Heck no. Now they’re buying a sixth car!

The only good news coming out of this United fleecing is that Portland is owed $350,000 in delay penalties at the rate of $300/day. Unfortunately, this is more than offset by the $3.6 Million Portland has spent extending oversight contracts.

Fleece on, United, fleece on!

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