Source Code Dispute in Boston's Big Dig 207
JoshuaDFranklin writes "Boston's 'Big Dig' is famously long-running and over budget as noted before on Slashdot. But now Computerworld is reporting that a Software Ownership Battle Adds $10M to Cost of 'Big Dig'. The legal dispute was over whether Massachusetts had the right to share Transdyn source code with Honeywell, causing $2.72 million in damages and $7.2 million in costs of a four-month delay in the project."
Sounds like a dodgy contract to me. (Score:3, Interesting)
The state argued that Dynac had been modified as part of the project and had thus become a customized piece of software not subject to the legal safeguards for off-the-shelf applications.
Bt of a dodgy arguement though...
Re:Sounds like a dodgy contract to me. (Score:2, Informative)
Current Federal law concerngin states and software is
If we give you money for it it becomes ours to do with as we please, source included.
Thats just the way it is. There is more code sharing that goes on between states then goes on on Kazza.
Unfortunatly 99% of the stuff is so state specific it takes 6 months to get it to work anywhere but where it was designed to run.
For those of us who don't live near Boston (Score:3, Informative)
Re:For those of us who don't live near Boston (Score:5, Informative)
It has taken close to 20 year to do and has been extermly over run with greed, mismanagement, poor construction, and cost overruns.
Re:For those of us who don't live near Boston (Score:5, Funny)
Re:For those of us who don't live near Boston (Score:5, Funny)
Re:For those of us who don't live near Boston (Score:5, Informative)
A little political history (Score:5, Informative)
We were discussing the now infamous leaks in the tunnel. The basic reason the tunnel leaks comes down to politics. Back in the day, ordinary people were treated as less than pawns when transportation projects were planned. They'd think nothing of bulldozing an entire historic neighborhood if it made some phase of the project a bit easier. And they put roads whereever the straightedge put the line, and anything the line went over be damned. Douglas Adams fans are familiar with this attitude. Boston neighborhoods have suffered particularly from this way of doing things. The West End, which was an ethnic neighborhood very similar to the now toney North End, was simply leveled in the name of "slum clearance", which meant razing the cozy little brick neighborhood and putting up massive, antiseptic, windswept concrete structures. When the original Central Artery was planned, they did not have the chutzpah to raze the old Faneuil Hall and it's marketplace, but they did plop a huge highway down between it and the waterfront. This process delayed the redevelopment of the old industrial waterfront for years, probably cost the economy billions.
This process was so egregiously insensitive that entire political careers were made opposing transportation projects (how else does a guy like Mike Dukakis get to be governor?). People swore that never again would they destroy a neighborhood for the convenience of a transportation project. The political pendulum has swung so far the other way, that the decision was made when the new Central Artery was planned not to destroy a single building more than was physically necessary. As you know, in any engineering project, when one priority rises to the top, the others have to drop. That includes cost and water proofing.
The way to accomplish this priority was to build the new highway almost entirely within the footprint of the old one, while the old one continued to run, not to mention avoiding any disruption of Boston's utilties, some of which date to the 19th century. The process was compared to doing open heart surgery on a patient while the patient played a game of tennis.
Now, the leaks. In order to build the new tunnel more or less on the footprint of the old one, they excavated on the sides and built a slurry wall by injecting concrete into the excavation. Is it any surprise that it leaks? But, they did manage to build the thing without disrupting neighborhoods, other than the regular rerouting of traffic. And the artery, amazingly, actually does work -- traffic flows much better than it did before. And no building, no matter how old, unatrractive and decrepit, was taken down unless absolutely necessary, and cost be damned. But of course the tunnel leaks, and now Bechtel is stepping up and performing its predestined role as scapegoat. The rumors say that Bechtel was the best choice for this role because as a firm with strong Republican connections working on a Democrat instigated project, they wouldn't be sued quite as much.
And thus the political excesses of one era make up in a rough (but expensive) way for those of another.
Re:A little political history (Score:5, Informative)
You seem to imply that the use of slurry walls is the reason it leaks. I'll admit, I haven't read a whole lot on the problems with the Big Dig, but the ones I have seen indicated slurry contamination. It's a difference between a flawed application and a flawed process.
I do remember reports that the World Trade Center used slurry walls to create the 'bathtub'. The WTC was build in 'reclaimed' land, and even after having two 110 storey building fall on it, it still only had minor leaks. And I can't swear to it, but I think LA used the process in parts of their subway system as well.
For those that aren't aware, slurry walls are used in areas where there is too much ground water to pour conventional concrete.
Re:A little political history (Score:2)
Really, the thing is an engineering marvel. It's a marvel that it works at all.
Re:For those of us who don't live near Boston (Score:2)
Re:For those of us who don't live near Boston (Score:3, Informative)
This project gave them a direct link. 90 now hits 93 directly. (So
Federal Money (Score:2)
Sadly I left boston just before they opened the first stretch, ah well.
Re:For those of us who don't live near Boston (Score:2)
Anyway, the Big Dig was Boston's completely corrupt attempt to put a major highway underground in a metropolitan area. This was of course chosen over the 11000x more sensible "bypass bridge" idea that would have swept around Boston to the east by using an island-hopping road.
Any fool knows that as soon as you put a road underground, lane for lane, it slows down. And what with Boston's traffic being so congested in the first place, choosing the undergro
Re:For those of us who don't live near Boston (Score:2)
He may keep Ockham's razor in there.
And where'd that last .08 million go? (Score:2, Insightful)
Ask a silly question...
It seems... (Score:4, Informative)
http://www.computing.co.uk/news/1139418 [computing.co.uk]
Re:It seems... (Score:2)
Re:It seems... (Score:2, Insightful)
£425 million spent on a database. A big database with an interface. The sort of IT project companies roll out for customer databases, or workflow management systems. Hell, some Lotus Notes installations
Re:It seems... (Score:5, Interesting)
We have a multi-billion pound project on the way at the moment in the UK. This is running into huge problems as well, who knows what the end cost will be, but I blame the approach rather than the consultants. Instead of spending money on huge monolithic systems with attendant ongoing support tie-ins, the government bodies should be defining the data that needs to be stored, the interfaces to them and the interactions between them. If they produced a well defined model they could then place a general specification out there and let individual authorities purchase compliant systems from the market. The degree of competition that this would introduce would improve the quality and reduce the chance of cost overruns.
Re:It seems... (Score:3, Insightful)
Look at this internet thing we are using. It has defined objects and interfaces and methods of accessing them. Apply the same principles to government IT projects. The government can define the objects and interfaces and keep control of them. The information stored is based on the input of forms that the goverment writes in the first place after all. With a pu
Typical (Score:5, Informative)
Once again, a triumph for dumbasses in Project Management everywhere. I guarantee you nobody lost their job over this. Not having the foresight to either keep the code Open, or secure the rights to the code when the contracts were signed, they should be though.
Re:Typical (Score:5, Informative)
Company A wins the contract to do phase 1 by modifying their existing software product.
Company B wins contract for phase 2. Company A refuses to deliver source code as it contains significant proprietary info. Segue into N month court battle ending up with a settlement in which company B sublicenses company A's info (for an undisclosed amount) & A gets
Company B goes way overbudet & negotiates a premature end to it's contract. BigDig is now negotiating with Company A to finish what it started.
The 10M$ pricetag is from 3M$ BigDig wished they could have fined Company A for, + 7M$ in overruns from Company B.
Opensource could have been a solution to the problems they encountered, but only if BigDig was ready to finance the development of the software from scratch. Company A came to the table with a big head start as they were only modifying their own existing software.
Supplementary info: Company A is Californian & Company B is local. IMHO it sounds like somebody thought that the developers of the software was generic interchangable pork that could be used to buy votes locally & got burned when company A refused to play along...
Re:Typical (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Typical (Score:2)
Re:Typical (Score:3, Insightful)
Concur. This whole fracas happened because some moron project planner(s) assumed "softwares is softwares" and segmented the project in a way that was neither feasible nor logical, but was worth a few political brownie points.
If phases 1 and 2 both relied on a single product, the same company should have bee
Re:Typical (Score:2)
It happens more often than you'd think, and it's not as much lack of foresight, as some beancounter having no fucking clue about maintenance or dev
I submitted this ages ago (Score:3, Insightful)
* 2005-02-28 15:58:21 Software ownership battle adds $10M to cost of 'Big Dig' (Politics,Programming) (rejected)
Who do you have to be sleeping with to get the
I sent this story into
Pathetic.
Don't look to
Open code requirement in contract? (Score:4, Interesting)
Poor Contract Writing (Score:4, Informative)
Whenever I've written software for the federal government, they get the source code and everything they need to maintain the software themselves or have someone else do the work.
Transdyn have to source (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Transdyn have to source (Score:2, Informative)
A scam from the beginning (Score:4, Interesting)
They shouldn't even exist. It was formed to build the Mass turnpike. The tolls were added to pay the debt of constructing it. It was stipulated by law that it would be toll free once the debts were repaid. It should have been toll free in the 1960s. They keep spending money so it will never be finished.
These are the guys trusted with god knows how many billions?
I particularly like that they paid some outrageous amount (millions and millions, 48?) for a lot for material disposal, never used it, (here's the kicker) gave it back to the previous owner for free! People should be in jail for the shit that's going on.
Re:A scam from the beginning (Score:5, Interesting)
No, that's not what happened. At least, not quite. They siezed a parking lot from Frank McCourt (IIRC) using eminent domain, paying him the value of the lot, according to whatever court determines such things. Supposedly they did not end up using it for materials staging (not disposal), and then sold the lot back to McCourt. They sold it back to him for less than they paid for it, 'tis true. McCourt is now looking to sell the lot himself at a large profit.
So, to clarify:
1. The Big Dig paid for the lot from McCourt after using eminent domain to force the sale.
2. It was to be used for staging.
3. The Big Dig sold it back to him, at a loss.
Mismanagement? To be sure. The worst part of the Big Dig? Nope, not by a long shot, in terms of cost, timeliness, risk exposure, nuisance for the city, etc.
Then again, I don't think that the Big Dig is as big a screw-up as everyone makes it out to be. It was an incredibly difficult engineering problem, full of suprises and risk. Furthermore, since Massachusetts pay $1.21 to the USA in income taxes for every $1 the USA spends in Massachusetts, I feel as if the other 49 states "owed" us the Big Dig.
Re:A scam from the beginning (Score:2, Funny)
"The federal government owes us money."
"What shall we do with it?"
"Let's throw it in a big hole."
Sounds reasonable.
Re:A scam from the beginning (Score:2)
$20 billion to get to Eastie 10 minutes quicker,seems like we could have got something better for the green. I agree it's an incredibly difficult project. Though I wonder how the tunnels that go under the larger build
Re:A scam from the beginning (Score:2)
Re:A scam from the beginning (Score:3, Informative)
False. Most states receive more from DC than they pay to it. Here's a complete list [geocities.com], with reference.
Re:A scam from the beginning (Score:2)
You'll never get a government grant that way.
I have a desperate need for a subterranean pool installation. I'd like it installed under my house, but with fresh air and sunlight ducted/windowed in. The pool should meet all relevant standards, including olympic regulations.
An environmental impact study should also be performed - if the construction would negatively
Re:A scam from the beginning (Score:2)
Of course, a huge amount of money comes from counting the military bases and indian reservation aid. The population is small too.
Re:A scam from the beginning (Score:2, Funny)
Yes: Never listen to you when it comes to money.
We have the same issue here in Georgia (Score:2)
Once a government gets a taxing authority THEY NEVER WILLFULLY give it up. That is one reason SPLOST (special local option sales taxes) fail miserably anymore. No one wants to vote them in as they government still raises taxes even after get
Re:A scam from the beginning (Score:2)
And parts of it ARE toll free. And what happened ? The pike is not nearly as well maintained as it was before they got rid of the tolls. I don't have a problem paying REASONABLE tolls ( most were like 35
sounds awfully expensive (Score:3, Interesting)
I know nothing about this type of software, but hundreds of millions of dollars sounds like an awful lot. I gather that this is not the first attempt to develop such software, that it is a category that has been around for some time. Why is this not a relatively inexpensive matter of buying or licensing some off-the-shelf system and configuring it, rather the way people buy a database system and then set up their own record structures, specialized queries, and so forth? Can anyone explain why this would cost such an enormous amount?
Huge Waste (Score:5, Insightful)
I watched them take down a bridge, then actually rebuild the same bridge. I don't know what exactly they accomplished, but it just seems like a stupid thing to do. There are so many unaccomplished goals, you would think that breaking down and rebuilding would be tasked for a later date while they focused on doing things that actually provided a tangible improvement.
When I think about Government Waste, I think about how my schools were run. Every school I ever went to from elementary school through college was wrought with waste and mismanagement - and those people all had a real desire to improve things. Now make the organization millions of times bigger with employees that could give a care and you end up with a trillian dollars in waste all from situations like this where it took months for somebody to say "hey, if this is costing us so much money wouldn't it make sense to just settle and move on?"
The apathy that government employees have is staggering. If half of the government organizations simply had one whistleblower that alerted the press about waste that they witnessed, we would... well, we'd be in the same situation because nobody would do anything about it... but theoretically we could reduce waste by billions of dollars.
Why is it that after all this time and all these budget overruns that the people of Mass. haven't just said "This is a bad idea. Lets kill it!"? Eventually, they'll just call the project done and we'll have another Bradley Fighting Vehicle on our hands.
Re:Huge Waste (Score:2)
As for the wisdom of cancelling the project at this stage of
Re:Huge Waste (Score:2)
When money for t
Re:Huge Waste (Score:3, Insightful)
Wrong. Economists call this the Sunk Cost Fallacy. "We've spent so much it would be madness not to finish the job."
The only rational approach to spending more money is to consider today to be day zero. Forget the money you've spent. Calculate how much is needed to finish the job and decide whether it's worth it.
Re:Huge Waste (Score:2)
so the fact that the old highway has been torn down and the new tunnel is in use has no impact on your reasoning...
yea... just shut it down and let the city of boston die for lack of a highway.
that sure is bright of you.
Re:Huge Waste (Score:2)
His reasoning is this:
Look at the current situation. Sure, you've spent $50 million on the project. That money is gone. You're into cost overuns. This does not matter.
What does matter is that you/they/estimaters are predicting it'll take another $50 million to finish the job. Do you spend $5 million to do a patch job and abandon the project, or do you spend the $50 million to try to complete it? Is it needed enough, that with your current financial situati
Re:Huge Waste (Score:2)
no... certainly not difficult. but it is difficult to reason that the life line of the capitol of the state... which brings in huge amounts of tax revenue for said state... is worth more than the cost of finishing up the project.
I dont understand why anyone would want to kill this project now when it is so close to completion and there is no other viable support infrastructure in place for the city.
now if you could go back to the beginning and compare the value of the upgrade to what it actually ended u
Re:Huge Waste (Score:3, Funny)
yes... canning it now would be dumb... its practically finished.
The plumbing and sewer infrastructure upgrade was sorely needed. I remember a few years ago there was a water main break in boston and when they dug it up the found the pipe that broke was made of wood.
wood.
as in hundreds of years old... made of wood...
yea... maybe we should upgrade those.
and the sewer system has needed an overhaul for years. the way the storm drains and residential drains are linked together causes massive pollution of
You missed the point entirely (Score:5, Insightful)
The whole point of the Big Dig was to free up the land where the above ground artery ran. This is a huge, nearly priceless benefit for Boston. Not only does Boston regain several billion of dollars in downtown real estate- but it re-attaches the North end and Longwharf to the rest of the city. Cut off from the highway, those neighborhoods were difficult and unpleasant to get to, and severely devalued by the big ass highway running right past them. The benefit will be to make a more livable, more walkable city, with a downtown worth visiting.
Re:You missed the point entirely (Score:2)
I find it hard to believe that highway ever runs. Maybe at 2 in the morning. When I've been on it, it occasionally managed to raise a crawl.
As to whether that makes it more or less pleasant to live next to is debatable. I've always tended to think congestion causes more rather than less pollution.
Lets see - pollution caused by a vehicle is roughly proportional to P = A + Bv^2 per second.
Let the number of vehicles passing a point be N per second. Distance b
Re:You missed the point entirely (Score:2)
I'm sorry, the last thing Boston needs is more downtown skyscrapers and associated increase in traffic
Well then I have good news. The whole area previously occupied by the horribly ugly, falling down, unmaintainable 93 sky-way, will NOT be replaced by skyscrapers.
they are going to build a large, beautiful snaking park that will go from the north end to south station.
should be absolutely beautiful.
but it wont help you find parking... maybe the new MBTA upgrades will help you get into boston easier
Re:You missed the point entirely (Score:2)
Or have air bridges between the buildings, and airport style slideways for increased speed.
Does Boston have a decent subway system?
Private also (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Huge Waste (Score:2)
The reason that this, and some (not all) government projects are often overrun and mismanaged, is because they are simply not held to the same market forces as REAL companies. There's a reason that you, and I, and most slashdotters don't buy a ferrari, even if we could get financing for it. We know it would bankrupt us right quick. Yet governments are charged with a task, but governments can't go
Re:Huge Waste (Score:2)
> budget overruns that the people of Mass. haven't
> just said "This is a bad idea. Lets kill it!"?
Because eventually the elevated highway the tunnel replaced would have fallen into the streets. This needed to be done at some point.
> Eventually, they'll just call the project done
> and we'll have another Bradley Fighting Vehicle
> on our hands.
Actually, the tunnel is just about done. Thousands of people drive through it every day. See the B [masspike.com]
Re:Huge Waste (Score:3, Interesting)
Once someone wins the contract from the government, they'd pull the exact same shit, because the government knows that if they didn't pay up for whatever "cost overruns" and grant whatever time extensions, NOBODY would finish the job if the current bidder walked off the field, everyone would want to rip it out and start over.
Where I live all road projects are done contractually, and we get crap like this all the time. Near my house there is a 2 mile section of road t
Re:Huge Waste (Score:2)
Re:Huge Waste (Score:2)
Re:Huge Waste (Score:2)
Let's say that I'm building a private toll road. Am I going to put up with a contractor/subcontractor not finishing on time or within budget? If they don't
Point to be made (Score:5, Informative)
Also, this project was slated to take nearly a decade, at which point it was more than likely that other software might be available that would be able to handle the task.
It's interesting to note that on top of the $10M, Honeywell upped their charge from a bidded $104M to $188M and explains away their cost overrun as a result of this dispute. So really, we're looking at now 94 Million Dollars being blamed on some poor schmuck in a purchasing department for not knowing that he should have included a source code clause in one of the 85 contracts he supervised that quarter.
Now the purchasing people I know would blacklist any contractors associated with that kind of catastrophe, but then again, I don't know any of the bozo's working on the Big Dig.
I understand that things can get out of hand occassionally and sometimes deadlines get missed and costs get to be over-budget. But nearly 100% over budget with no end in site? Just for this piece of the overall project that is wrought with this kind of thing? Maybe you shouldn't be hiring your project managers from the "welfare-to-work" program.
Big systems, big problems (Score:2)
UK's NATS has had its share of problems. Their air traffic control system was supposed to go operation in 1996. Instead, the £623m Swanwick centre opened in 2002 - six years late and £180m over budget. [pcw.co.uk]
And the kicker at the end of the article, is that this brand new system is dependent upon an ancient mainframe! (the point of the article I linked to is that the mainframe is the bottleneck and problems bringing it online rippled out)
Of course, the US [socalscanner.com]
Re:Point to be made (Score:2)
"What are the requirements this week?"
Anonymous Cow-orker
Re:Point to be made (Score:2)
This seems to be a typical problem. Government hires project manager for $50k. Vendor sends in $300k laywer specializing in IT contracts. Guess which side gets the better deal?
How many
I've look
Bad deal for Honeywell (Score:5, Informative)
HTSI eventually managed to recover. Lockheed royally screwed up their contract with NASA so it was ended early and HTSI managed to win on recompetes - by slitting their own throats but that is a story for another day... HTSI negotiated a way to end their involvement in Big Dig early (I guess HTSI learned a lesson and will only get involved in federal level contracts). Rumors are that Transdyn are negotiating to get back into writing the code for Big Dig. Hopefully they will have better luck the second time around. I'm sure there are lots of helpful comments in the current source revs in the ITS software for whoever develops it (particularly Transdyn :P)
So let me get this straight... (Score:2)
Hmmm...does Bill Gates own this comoany??
Government should ALWAYS buy source code... (Score:2)
If a company doesn't want to sell them the souce-code or enter into a non-competition agreement with them, they don't have to.
Failure to buy the source code is a prime example of buying a "Pig in a poke." It may cost more but I'd rather pay more and get the product than get stuck with something that can't be modified without pay
Re:this is so miniscule compared to total cost- Fp (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:this is so miniscule compared to total cost- Fp (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:this is so miniscule compared to total cost- Fp (Score:4, Funny)
"/me puts tinfoil hat on and raises hand"
Re:this is so miniscule compared to total cost- Fp (Score:3, Funny)
That would be a tinfoil hard hat, right?
/me wonders if the canary also has a tinfoil hat.
Re:this is so miniscule compared to total cost- Fp (Score:2)
Are you kidding. I want to know about government X-Rays when they kill the canary, and tinfoil will block them[1].
[1]Anyone who wears a tin foil hat will believe that.
Re:this is so miniscule compared to total cost- Fp (Score:2)
The application is probably too specific (a traffic management system for tunnels) that open sourcing it wouldn't have helped society too much (any geek here with a tunnel in his backyard?).
With good software engineering there would be tons of great reusable code underpinning the system that would hugely benefit the open source movement and, in theory at least, make it cheaper and faster to develop software for other government projects.
What you'd really need is a set of standards for government softwar
Re:this is so miniscule compared to total cost- Fp (Score:2)
~Lake
Re:this is so miniscule compared to total cost- Fp (Score:2)
I beg to differ: Had the government had an opensource policy in place ( yeah yeah, 10+ years ago ), this would have obviously negated at least this whole silly episode, saving quite a bit in cash: Thus helping society out by saving it.
Re:this is so miniscule compared to total cost- Fp (Score:2)
Big projects get more eyes, critical projects ( ie: stop lights ) get more experienced eyes.
I'll tell you what, i wish most of the lights in my town were controlled by something I helped bug test. Most of the time, you sit there and wait for the damn thing to cycle. I see the sensors in the road, but it doesn't seem to do anything. Even the ones tha
Re:this is so miniscule compared to total cost- Fp (Score:3, Insightful)
Seriously, with an off the shelf product, I can fully understand the company keeping the source, etc to themselves. But for bespoke software? If you pay me to write code for you, I expect you to want to own it completely, not licence it from me. Sure, I may use a library that I want to keep hold of, but even then, I'd expect you to licence it from me in such a way that you can
Re:this is so miniscule compared to total cost- Fp (Score:2)
Re:this is so miniscule compared to total cost- Fp (Score:2)
Re:My Rights OnSubwayLine (Score:5, Funny)
Re:My Rights OnSubwayLine (Score:2)
Re:My Rights OnSubwayLine (Score:3, Funny)
Worcester's basically the place that mothers tell their kids about to make them eat their vegetables or whatever. And it's not an interesting place.
Certainly I think we can all agree that there's nothing further out, that the cosmos more or less ends at 495 except for Worcester which is sort of barely attached by 9 and the Pike.
Re:My Rights OnSubwayLine (Score:2)
Worcester's basically the place that mothers tell their kids about to make them eat their vegetables or whatever. And it's not an interesting place.
Certainly I think we can all agree that there's nothing further out, that the cosmos more or less ends at 495 except for Worcester which is sort of barely attached by 9 and the Pike.
B-b-but surely! Worcester is where Worcester sauce [birminghamuk.com] comes from! How can that not be interesting!
And what was that about the 9? Worcester is on the 5 (the M5) halfway between
Re:My Rights OnSubwayLine (Score:2)
Re:My Rights OnSubwayLine (Score:2, Interesting)
You wouldn't get into this mess if states would pass a law like that. Look at the figures, 104M for a transportation manageent system? Most of us know that probably could have been done for close to $20M.
Re:My Rights OnSubwayLine (Score:3, Insightful)
While not as revolutionary as something like the tunnel betwe
Re:My Rights OnSubwayLine (Score:2)
It's really a story about a big goof up in software procurement -- like the Oracle/California story from a few years back.
The interesting thing is that Mass was looking at a move towards open source in government procurements -- which might have prevented this problem. Last I heard, there was legislator making a stink about it. This is an example of how open s
Re:My Rights OnSubwayLine (Score:2)
Not quite. Its ( I believe ) a primarily state funded project. We people in Western Mass ( Springfield area ) are the ones being screwed by Boston. We pay higher insurance so the crappiest drivers don't have to, we have to pay for the Big Sinkhole.. I mean Big Dig and we're not the ones going to benefit from it.
Re:My Rights OnSubwayLine (Score:2)
Wrong. It's an Interstate highway project, which, like all Interstate highway projects, is 90% federal-funded.
Re:My Rights OnSubwayLine (Score:2)
What the hell is that? Massachusetts doesn't go any further west than Worcester. There's just nothing past there. And no reason even to go that far.
Re:My Rights OnSubwayLine (Score:2)
Re:My Rights OnSubwayLine (Score:2)
Re:My Rights OnSubwayLine (Score:2)
Re:My Rights OnSubwayLine (Score:2)
Obviously it's not very productive territory, but it'd probably be a good idea to have the Dept. of Revenue make sure that anyone out there is paying their taxes.
Re:My Rights OnSubwayLine (Score:2)
Re:My Rights OnSubwayLine (Score:2)
actually, the reason you pay the insurance you do is because mass has state regulated insurance prices for autos. one of the reasons that you cant get progressive or geico in mass is because the state sets the price structure for all insurance.
if you have a clean record you are on the good side of the structure, if not you are on the bad side of the price structure. Where you are in the state only factors in with theft rates.
that said, insurance is expensive here.
Re:For that much $ (Score:2)