It's likely my only post of the day.
"Water leaks spring up in N.Y.’s new train stations" by Michael Balsamo Associated Press March 26, 2016
NEW YORK — New Yorkers paid $2.5 billion for a new subway station built deep into Manhattan’s bedrock near the edge of the Hudson River, but Mother Nature is putting a damper on the depot’s inaugural year.
Just six months removed from its grand opening, the station on the No. 7 subway line is suffering from water leaks that have discolored ceiling tiles and sent rivulets spilling down upon commuters as they ride escalator banks. During the winter, the drops hardened into long icicles.
Meanwhile, a few miles downtown, more vexing water leaks have contributed to delays in the opening of an underground shopping mall built within a $3.9 billion commuter train terminal beneath the World Trade Center complex.
Civil engineers say the problems at the two sites illustrate the challenges of keeping water out of subterranean projects built below the water table.
‘‘Water is always going to seep and water is always going to seek the lowest level and it’s always going to find its own path,’’ said Robert Paaswell, distinguished professor of civil engineering at the City College of New York. ‘‘If there’s a tiny crack anyplace, water is going to find it.’’
That's where I started to rise with indignation before being brought back down to earth!
Still, the fact that water found a way into two of the most expensive train stations in city history has drawn lots of eye rolls from passengers and frustrated officials in charge of the projects.
‘‘It shouldn’t be trial-and-error for $2 billion,’’ said Jonathan Ballan, a member of the board of the Metropolitan Transportation Authority, which operates the city’s subway system and oversees the new Hudson Yards station on the No. 7 line.
Look, shoddy workmanship and endemic corruption are part of the AmeriKan $y$tem now. It's all about money. Everything in my Globe sure as hell is.
Officials have blamed the leaks on work performed by a subcontractor, Yonkers Contracting Company, which said it was working with the MTA to resolve the issues.
Don't want to hear any more excuses!
Michael Horodniceanu, the president of the MTA’s Capital Construction division, said at a recent meeting that contractors will now try a new method to keep the water out.
The MTA said Yonkers will cover the cost of repairs, estimated at $3 million.
The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey, which owns the World Trade Center site, had blamed the water leaks at the new transit hub there partly on water continuously sprayed by contractors to control dust related to construction. Officials have said the leaks were significantly reduced last fall.
WTC dust, huh?
The station’s architectural crown, a soaring hall called the Oculus, opened earlier this month, but the shops and restaurants will not open until at least this summer.
Eyepiece for sight?
Built on where the event known as 9/11 happened?
Is that some sort of inside job joke and sly laugh-in-their face mind f*** or what?
Dan Stapleton, a principal and senior vice president at GZA, an engineering and construction consulting firm, explained the challenge of keeping water out of underground chambers. It is harder, he said, than protecting the roof of a building above ground.
‘‘It’s a function of the pressure the water is exerting,’’ he said. ‘‘The deeper you go below the water table, those pressures get higher and higher,’’ he said.
One begins to wonder about the feasibility of building such things at all.
Leaking water has also been a challenge in Boston’s Big Dig project....
Exhibit A!
The bill for that pos overran to $15 billion and taxpayers will be paying off $8 billion in interest payments for years, even more of the defaults swap or they try and enter out of the contracts.
Oh, yeah, and someone got killed a few years back.
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"World Trade Center transit hub opens under cloud of $4 billion cost" by Karen Matthews Associated Press February 27, 2016
NEW YORK — The soaring, white transportation hub opening next week at the World Trade Center was designed to evoke a bird in flight, but it is hatching under a cloud.
There will be no ribbon-cutting celebration when the train station’s grand hall, called the Oculus, opens this coming week because the head of the bistate agency that controls the hub has blasted it as a ‘‘symbol of excess,’’ with runaway costs approaching $4 billion.
(Blog editor whines "Why?" and begins to whimper)
That’s roughly the same price as the nation’s tallest skyscraper, next door — the 104-story One World Trade Center.
The hub, which includes a commuter rail station, retail shops and connections to several subway lines, appears destined to take its place among the city’s most talked-about landmarks.
Intended to serve partly as a monument to the victims of the Sept. 11 attacks, the hub was designed by Spanish-born architect Santiago Calatrava to convey the feeling of a bird released into the air, with steel wings poised for takeoff. Some critics have compared it to a dinosaur skeleton or an armadillo.
Adjacent skyscrapers can be seen through the bird’s curved white ribs, which enclose a vaulted, cathedral-like space.
Yes, one can never question the official story that is damn near religion in this militaristic avatar of an empire. War to be worshipped over the altar of the false flag.
Steve Plate, the chief of major capital projects for the Port Authority, called the hub ‘‘the eighth wonder of the world’’ and described how the building ‘‘is aligned precisely to allow the sun to come in exactly in that opening on Sept. 11 at 10:28, when the last tower fell, to capture that light and remember that moment.’’
Yup, ‘‘mission accomplished!’’
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Also see: ‘Self-supporting’ N.Y. Thruway could get billions in subsidies
Is it $afe?
