From Diego Mendoza-Moyers at ElPasoMatters.com:
The effort to build a deck park suspended over Interstate 10 in Downtown El Paso hit a snag last week after the U.S. Department of Transportation did not award El Paso a $5 million federal grant, which would have paid for construction blueprints.
Apparently, when it came to federal funding, the Downtown Deck Park didn’t make the cut.
Do you suppose that means that the U.S. Department of Transportation has cooled to the idea of building a deck park over the Interstate?
But don’t worry. I’m sure the newly elected crop of city officials will find money for the deck park somewhere.
Probably in your bank account.
If not today, then soon. It is still a dumb idea.
By their own (likely too optimistic) estimates, this was going to cost $207 million. So even if they had gotten this grant, they’d still have to come up with $202 million. And that much money can’t be raised one $5 million grant at a time. The only was this ever gonna get done was with taxpayer money. Maybe they figure we won’t notice the difference between $202 million and $207 million.
The Deck Park was proposed as a climate project by the city in its Priority Climate Action Plan submitted last year to the EPA and accepted by same. Also, the PDN Trail and the Ysleta POE expansion. Supposedly, pouring a million or so cubic yards of concrete is considered a GHG emission reduction project.
It’s all spin with no relation to reality.