[Overpaid Slacker]

Hmmmm. First $2 billion. Then $11 billion. I've never seen a public agency mess up that badly with math.

See:
Union of Soviet Socialist Republics
United Nations (Oil-for-"Food", et al)

..voters approved $2 billion because that's what the private interests said it would cost.

Sounds like serious contributory incompetence and/or dereliction of duty on the part of the government officials in charge of bidding out this project and/or putting it on a ballot to begin with.

'Cause nobody here has had a five-fold cost overrun on a project they've decided to undertake....

I'm also taking your word on the figures involved and the accuracy of the initial RFPs and the stasis of what the gov't has decided it actually wants done vis-a-vis the package they put out to bid.

I don't think a gas (and diesel) tax is a bad idea for road infrastructure ... it does a decent job of spreading the cost amongst the users. What I'm very wary of, however, is the government, in its infinite greed, repealing said tax once the project is paid for. Where is the incentive to stop taking money from the teeming masses so in need of your stewardship, guidance and hectoring once the express purpose for which they were being taxed is removed?

Witness the NYS Thruway -- "oh, once the financing bonds are paid, we'll repeal the tolls on the Thruway," said the gov't when putting the plan to the proles. The bonds have been repaid and the state RAISED the tolls.

If instead of eliminating tolls as promised, they'd lowered the tolls, mumbling something about Thruway maintenance costs, etc., then I could understand, but it's just too easy to gouge folks for pet projects/interventions/welfare effectively unrelated to the NYS Thruway. A government is only about as powerful as it spends itself into being (enforcement costs...); and what government pointyhead is going to reduce his power?

JP