Ongoing Calgarians complaining about pedestrian bridges thread

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by fotze

They never did fix the welds they found someone to sign off on them


well.

Did they accomplish that in the usual Grahem way?

[jayswin]

Originally Posted by fotze

What way is that?

I should say the rumored way. Intimidation.

[Regulator75]

Originally Posted by flameswin

Did they accomplish that in the usual Graham way?

Originally Posted by fotze

What way is that?

They raped it?

[Sylvanfan]

Originally Posted by fotze

They never did fix the welds they found someone to sign off on them.

Graham probably should have checked some stuff before moving 400 tonnes (or whatever the weight was) of steel across the ocean.

That hometown rumour is false as well unless you consider Halifax to be Calgary since the two cities are on complete opposite sides of Spain.

Except that Spain is what the same size as The lower chunk of Alberta in terms of area. There was obviously a welding screw up by the Spanish fabricator, and someone had to work on it after it arrived on site to strengthen the wrong welds, whether it ever got done to the original spec or not.

I know that most engineers do not know their elbow from their arse when it comes to welding and often show terrible weld details on their drawings, and have even less of a clue about how someone would actually go about doing the weld. Chances are the original welds specified were way beyond what was required. Doesn't excuse these Spanish clowns for doing it wrong, or not demanding clarification, but Graham may feel that they have a case based on how bad the contract documents are, and what the Engineering company was like to deal with. But Graham did not do their homework here and slipped big time on Quality Assurance.

Still to me it's funny. Calgary tax payers are angry that this bridge cost too much and was a waste of money....the General Contractor lost several million dollars because they could not complete the project for anywhere near that price tag. Just imagine if tax payers had to pay what it actually cost to build that bridge. But at least the Architect got in a magazine by screwing over two parties for a lot of money to agree to build his magnificent creation.

[SebC]

Originally Posted by Sylvanfan

Still to me it's funny. Calgary tax payers are angry that this bridge cost too much and was a waste of money....the General Contractor lost several million dollars because they could not complete the project for anywhere near that price tag. Just imagine if tax payers had to pay what it actually cost to build that bridge.

I imagine the outrage would be about the same. The price doesn't matter, as the bridge is actually dirt cheap compared to the money that gets squandered on sprawl. But you can't drive over it, so therefore it's wasteful spending.

[Bill Bumface]

Originally Posted by Sylvanfan

But at least the Architect got in a magazine by screwing over two parties for a lot of money to agree to build his magnificent creation.

The architect stole money from local contractors how??

He drew up a bridge. The City paid for the drawings, and put it out to tender. Graham said they could do it for $24 million.

They couldn't.

Whoops.

[MrMastodonFarm]

This debate has been going on for almost 4 years, over 2500 posts, back-and-forth the entire time...and Hulkrogan just gave the best beatdown of the entire thread.

[Bigtime]

I have never understood that hatred of Calatrava that so many of this bridge's detractors seem to gravitate towards.

You'd think he had personally come over here and kicked their dogs or something...

[jammies]

Shut up fotze you dirty inner-city hippie, Calatrava boned us on this bridge and that is FACT. He was the one who specified it be made of toddler bones. He was the one who made it cost 25 billion dollars with his fancy-pants unsupported span. He was the one who made gas prices drop so the Tories couldn't balance the budget.

All Calatrava, the sneakiest thievin' commie ####### since Stalin built the Chunnel with slave labour and charged union rates.

[Table 5]

Originally Posted by fotze

I think people underestimate how much of a minor project this is for his company. When compared to his next project in Qatar this bridge seems hardly worth his time.

Ha, no kidding, I was surprised he even came over to Calgary for this. He was probably on his way to Beijing or something, and the plane had to refuel in Calgary, and his secretary told him one of his interns was working on a project here, so he decided to take advantage.

[octothorp]

Originally Posted by fotze

Check out the video of the bridge going in at Doha Bay. wow.
http://www.calatrava.com/#/Biography/All?mode=english

Jeez, now there's something that could justify taxpayer outrage in any place that doesn't have a pretty-much bottomless pit of money: three above-water bridges in the middle of an underwater tunnel system. That's the epitome of 'we don't actually need bridges here but they would look cool so we'll spend big on them'.

But yeah, if it wasn't on the opposite side of the world, I'd travel there and rent a car just for the awesome experience of driving through them.

[Bunk]

Peace Bridge was right in the midst of the global recession, not exactly the best times for architecture firms, especially fancy pants ones like Calatrava. Probably very happy for the work.

[Sylvanfan]

Originally Posted by hulkrogan

The architect stole money from local contractors how??

He drew up a bridge. The City paid for the drawings, and put it out to tender. Graham said they could do it for $24 million.

They couldn't.

Whoops.

I never said he stole the money. But he had some influence in convincing the city to accept this design, and in turn the general contractor botched the bid.

In the end tax payers are fuming and the bridge is nominated for wasteful spending awards. But they also got it at a huge discount. Ultimately he is the one guy who didn't lose on this project.

I will admit a bias having recently completed a building in Haiti in which the Architect and Engineer were from Spain. Brutal design drawings, and impossible to get answers from.

[Table 5]

Originally Posted by Sylvanfan

In the end tax payers are fuming and the bridge is nominated for wasteful spending awards. But they also got it at a huge discount. Ultimately he is the one guy who didn't lose on this project.

What are these wasteful spending awards? What kind of loser basement organization holds such an award anyway? Do they have anything to do with the Dinger?

For every tax payer that's "fuming" there are probably 10 who think its great. Personally I think it's some of the best 25 million I've seen this city spend. Frankly, I really don't care how it came together behind the scenes as long as we get these types of projects that push the city forward. I'm even glad the city sole-sourced it... if you're only going to consider one guy, might as well make it the best guy.

[Sylvanfan]

Of course you like the value. It's a probably a 40 million dollar bridge that cost 25.

[MrMastodonFarm]

Originally Posted by Sylvanfan

I never said he stole the money. But he had some influence in convincing the city to accept this design, and in turn the general contractor botched the bid..

You mean the guy who designed the thing tried to influence someone to use his design?

Well, yeah.

[Sylvanfan]

Whatever....I guess the company that Graham hired to make the bridge safe after the foreign company screwed up deserves to be put out of business.

I have no issue with Graham feeling some pain, but it's sub contractors who did do their job right who aren't getting paid that I feel bad for. You guys evidently think it's funny.

[BlackArcher101]

Originally Posted by Sylvanfan

I have no issue with Graham feeling some pain, but it's sub contractors who did do their job right who aren't getting paid that I feel bad for. You guys evidently think it's funny.

Who said Graham's sub-contractor wasn't being paid?

[Sylvanfan]

Originally Posted by BlackArcher101

Who said Graham's sub-contractor wasn't being paid?

When a company loses this much on a job, they stop paying the bills.

[burn_this_city]

Originally Posted by Sylvanfan

When a company loses this much on a job, they stop paying the bills.

If this is true, the sub should have stopped work when the first invoice wasn't paid on time.