You have to read Jim Schutze’s latest story in the Observer about DART and its budgeting woes all the way through to grasp two things: Schutze can really tell a complicated story well, and DART is such a mess it’s a wonder any rail lines at all have been built. Schutze’s point in this piece seems to be that it’s no wonder DART underestimated the cost of future construction by a couple of billion — the way the agency hands out money is a little curious, to say the least. Not illegal, mind you, but curious for an agency that should be counting pennies rather than pitching them to contractors. For example, Schutze points out that DART says it competitively bids projects, but then indicates that two companies won bids for a few million dollars only to each be awarded — without bid — several hundred million dollars in additional contracts, without bidding. DART calls the companies "teammates" on the rail team, which I guess would be OK if we all knew what they had been signed for at the beginning of the season. Which is precisely Schutze’s point.
