Why hasn't Caltrans been ousted yet?

[Sentientbydesign]

I did a few quick searches to see if anybody had the same thinking I do about Caltrans (California's highway building and maintenance agency).

It seems to me that mismanagement, poor design, and over paid employees are costing California tax payers Billions of dollars.

One recent project her in SoCal was over a 100 millon dollars over budget AND took 2 years longer than estimated. To top it off, the revised interchange is still seeing EXTREME congestion because of poor planning. 6 lanes get shrunk down to 3 in less than 1/2 a mile.

I know I'm not seeing the entire picture here, but Caltrans seems like a prime candidate to be audited, disbanded, deregulated...something.

Here are a few "great" mess ups on their record:

http://www.pe.com/localnews/ri....html

http://newsgroups.derkeiler.co...6.pdf

http://www.freerepublic.com/fo...posts

[Armelius]

I never could figure out why California has Caltrans. Soon as I heard they spend about 3 bux for each of those little pieces of crap in the road that lets you know you are changing lanes I just started thinking the rest of it has to be a rip off too.

[smockers83]

I've seen your construction projects in California...someone needs to teach your guys on how to do construction while having the free open at the same time instead of diverting all traffic onto side roads and back onto the freeway. With the current operation of construction, a crew can only work on a couple miles at the most of freeway. To me it doesn't seem very efficient, at all.

Are you talking about those circle things they put in the roads there? Yeah, those were stupid. On state roads here in MI last year, what they did was take something that ground a rumble strip down the center line. I hate it, but it's probably a lot more cost effective than those circle things I saw.

Another thing California needs to work on is freeway signage. It was pretty poor.

[Sentientbydesign]

I agree with both points. I was just ranting to somebody about how Caltrans will shut down 2 lanes for 2-4 miles and when you see what's going on, there are 3-4 guys painting a pole or digging a hole or something ridiculous.

First off, for the money they get paid, let them deal with less of a "safety barrier". Second, LEARN HOW TO bit off what you can chew.

In any event, I was hoping somebody with some background as to how the entity made it's way into our government, why they have over 200 people on their legal staff alone. Why they get paid so much for such poor work. Also, where can I sign up to be the "Stop/Slow" sign holder?