(07-15-2018, 06:24 AM)danbrotherston Wrote: I think you are making a lot of assumptions about both the salary of and motivations of the people who designed the system.
I have too have little respect for the transportation specialists in the civil engineer field at this point, but I don't feel it's fair to accuse any individual people of negligence, or a lack of attention to detail, this is a systemic issue, not an individual issue.
And to point at them and call them "the elite" and driving in "luxury automobiles to their large homes because they really didn't care" seems to be an entirely unjustified and unearned personal attack--while I'm sure that the head architects of these companies make a great deal of money, they are also not the ones who design the details you're talking about, and I fully believe that the vast majority of the thousands of individuals involved do care about their jobs.
As for the crossing, there is no excuse for not installing a level crossing (as a level crossing is both appropriate and better than a bridge) within days of the transfer to regional ownership--I don't know how many contractors are capable of installing railway crossing equipment, but clearly we have a few in the region...they should have equipment ordered and waiting.
The justification that grandlinq owns it, is a weak and bureaucratic excuse, but unfortunately, probably hard to overcome, but the moment that is not true, it should be done, no excuse for waiting.
I would suggest in that someone in this entire group of people that designed, approved and built the LRT brought up the design flaw (that is, no crossing(s) along the old hydro corridor), but they were likely discounted for bringing it up.
Let's just say that I've worked long enough in .gov to understand how many, many, many "simpletons" are ignored because 'they don't get it' when in reality, it was senior staff that 'didn't get it'. I won't give an example that I was very familiar with, as I don't want to ID anyone, good or bad. But the short of it was this, staff with the 'hands-on' experience were ignored by staff that had their doctorate (Ph.D.) in engineering. Who was right? Well, it wasn't the one with a Ph.D.
I think there were three main reasons why no thought (by those in charge) was given to this. 1) They simply didn't care, or they were too lazy to do comprehensive research to make an informed decision. 2) Crossing the hydro corridor was technically illegal, trespassing, so too bad. 3) The desire to come close to budget.
My guess, and it's only a guess, is that when this issue was brought up, they would have come up with point 2 and 3. It was trespassing before so no, and it will affect the budget.
Reminds me of this quote: The society which scorns excellence in plumbing as a humble activity and tolerates shoddiness in philosophy because it is an exalted activity will have neither good plumbing nor good philosophy: neither its pipes nor its theories will hold water.