Bob Dole: “I wish to make it clear. I am not opposed. I am just saying we pay for it. I know it is a word we throw around here a…”

“I wish to make it clear. I am not opposed. I am just saying we pay for it. I know it is a word we throw around here a lot. But I would like to read for the Record excerpts from an article--I did not write this article--which appeared in the San Francisco Chronicle of July 19, 1993: As Bay Area monuments go, the new Cypress structure in Oakland won't be much to look at. . . but mile for mile the 2.2-mile concrete ribbon of freeway has turned into one of the most expensive construction projects in Bay Area history. With an estimated pricetag of $695 million-- It is going to go up to $1 billion-- which includes the cost of about 1 mile of ramps, the new East Bay connector will cost as much as two Golden Gate Bridges, five Candlestick Parks or six TransAmerica Pyramid towers in 1993 dollars. The new elevated Cypress roadway will cost about half of what it cost to build the entire 800 miles of Interstate 5, California's main north-south artery, which was started in the late 1950's The new Cypress will replace the deadly double-deck freeway that collapsed in the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake, although the route will be somewhat different. At about $200 million per mile, the price of the new freeway comes to nearly $500 per square foot. That's 200 times more expensive than a mile of I-5 roadway, and more than three times as expensive as the standard per-foot cost of building a skyscraper.…”