Originally published at: https://boingboing.net/2019/06/06/massive-boulder-that-rolled-on.html
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So cost to state to remove $200 grand.
Cost to feds to accommodate this new tourist attraction $1.3 million.
This is better for tax payers how? My mind boggles.
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Just push it to one side to get to the diamonds underneath…
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I had the same first impression.
However, the figures were …
$0.2M for blowing up the rock, and
$1.3M for making a new road.
The rock hasn’t left a lot of the origial road, so you are going to have to blow up the rock, and cart it away before you can start putting in a new road. Or you can put the new road around the rock, and start straight away. The road may be a bit longer, and perhaps there is a car park so you can stop and look at the rock.
Do we have a price for blowing up the rock and routing the new road through it? I don’t think they have priced that.
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You have to redo the highway in either case.
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That was my thought as well. That may include road repair work or not.
I think what gets me is that there was a time not too long ago that we were regularly blowing huge tunnels through mountains (mind you at the expense of human life at times) and now a boulder lands on a road and we are like meh it’s too much work to move it so lets spend lots more money and make it a tourist attraction.
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If they were really serious, they’d build a parking lot around it, and a rest area with food concessions, and recoup some of the costs. It would also cut down on the number of people getting run over while they tried to take selfies with it.
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What is it with Colorado and boulders?
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Maybe there is a downside to legalizing weed after all…
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If you mean giant rocks on our highways, well, we blasted roads through comparatively young mountains fifty to a hundred years ago and didn’t take into account the propensity for the rock to fracture. Add in a few hundred freeze-thaw cycles, and you’ve got a propensity for boulders.
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Come to Washington DC and see the biggest ball of shite in the world! (Currently on loan to France).
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is there a fork in the road
not like building the panama canal
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I presume our money will be building the tourist plaza next to the boulder as well.
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Blowing up a rock = 2 guys and a drill rig
Building a road around said rock = Multiple road crews working 'round the clock for the next five years.
Jerbs = Votes
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Superman was half Canadian…
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While I doubt the boulder itself* would bring many new tourists to the state, it might be enough to get visitors to stay an extra half day, or take a drive to a place they weren’t intending to go. That means more money being spent on fuel, food, souvenirs, maybe accommodation etc.
There is a glacial erratic of similar size where I used to live. It was a massive draw for the small town.
*That said, I wouldn’t doubt that this would attract geology enthusiasts from far and wide.
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Why not just move it to the border and call it a wall?
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Yep. It might even make sense to move the road out of the way of where giant boulders tend to fall, regardless of what you do with this particular boulder.
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