The magic sand strikes again

Years ago, on the old blog, I wrote more than once about the insanity regularly occurring in plain view on downtown Portland's transit mall. The geniuses who designed the needless renovation of the mall had decided that parts of the streets that the buses rumble over should be paved in brick, and that the bricks should be held together using sand instead of cement. The sand had to be replaced regularly, it seemed like every few months, and there were always bloated crews of workers out there blocking the street and standing around smoking and chatting. It was an enormous waste of money, one that for all I know is still ongoing today.

Now, when you're an arrogant Portland "transportation" bureaucrat, nothing succeeds like failure, and so I wasn't surprised to read today that another magic sand blunder has been made in Old Town/Chinatown. There, the city decided that the sidewalks should be lined with some sort of black granite pavers, held together (or not held together) by more of the magic sand!

There are just a couple of problems with this. First, the loose pavers make excellent missiles if you're a psychotic individual in the mood to break some storefront windows. And they've been used for that purpose plenty in recent months. And second, the pavers also hold heat quite nicely if you heat them up in your garbage fire, and so if you're a junkie living in a tent on the street, they'll keep you warm. They're also getting quite a workout for that purpose.

So now the bureaucrats are going to redo the whole thing.

[T]he Portland Bureau of Transportation is ponying up $40,000 to replace the missing pavers—and, this time, mortar them down.

The work is financed by the city and performed by contractors. It’s “part of the city’s overall response to safety concerns,” PBOT spokesman Dylan Rivera says.

An added bonus: “We didn’t have to buy any materials,” Burke says. A dozen pallets of leftover pavers were found in storage under the Ross Island Bridge.

You can't make this stuff up. The follies at Portland City Hall are endless. It would be funny if it weren't so sad.