If only every bridge designer/engineer in the world had an unlimited budget on every project..... sometimes ya get lucky though: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sundial_Bridge (gorgeous (and ingenious) bridge IMO though if ya ever get the chance to see or study it).
That's taxpayer money baby! (albeit one of the nicer uses of it)
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The bulk of the $23.5M overurn from the original $3M from Redding was covered by the McConnell Foundation out of pocket. Redding city councel wanted a simple steel truss foot bridge. Santiago Calatrava was given carte blanche because a small concortium of Lawyers and doctors in Redding wanted a Calatrava to bring in tourism dollars. It didn't hurt that majicly california issued Calatrava his CA license the same day he applied. Kinda like a day after he got off the plane from Spain. He had no U.S. bridge building experience before that. But again it's only a really expensive "Foot Bridge".
The sacramento river did it's 100 year peak flood in the 1980's. So everyone tied to this project will be dead and gone when the area under the dial end of the bridge washes away in 2080. Before then all that expensive Spanish tile covering all of the exposed concrete will have fallen into the river.
Yes this is what a "Private Foundation" carte blanche buys you. Something the city councel won't be able to afford the upkeep on and the state will ignore because it's not a vehical traffic bridge. I guess it will fall on the taxpayers then. Sounds like a dry run for our fearless Bamster today.....
