Tuna and Light Rail

From time to time I wander from my desk to a nearby food court and my favourite purveyor of semi healthy foodish things.  Here I frequently order a tuna roll.  I started doing this largely because it turns out that tuna is the only sea dwelling creature (apart from otters) that I can actually eat.  Now, however, I have an entirely new reason for ordering it.  The order is quite a simple one; tuna roll with salt, pepper and vinegar.  What could be simpler?  I watch them as they go through it.  Roll procured, sliced open and spread with butter? Check.  Mashed lump of something putatively tuna scraped out of bowl and plastered over aforementioned roll? Check.  Salt and pepper waved sparingly in the air mere inches away from my roll?  Check.  Vinegar?  At this point the entire process comes to a screeching halt.

The server blinks, holds the docket closer, frowns, turns to a colleague who looks at the docket and repeats the process.  The person who took my order is urgently consulted.  Said person nods in confirmation.  The first server stares at the docket as though she just can't believe it and then looks around somewhat helplessly as if she's expecting vinegar to leap out from behind a bench and beat her to death.  After a couple of minutes, with obvious trepidation, she walks into the back of the shop and returns gingerly carrying a huge flask of vinegar.  With wincing care she squeezes precisely three drops of vinegar onto the tuna, wraps up my roll and presents it to me with the same sense of triumph and accomplishment that the ancient Egyptians must have felt on completing a pyramid.

The time afforded me while the serving staff plumb the Mysteries of the Vinegar lets me contemplate our latest public transport disaster.  Everybody has heard of light rail right?  It seems to be the go to thing at the moment.  Every city from Cairo to Kuala Lumpur has got itself light rail.  Surely Sydney must have it too.  Our state and city leaders certainly thought so.  Tenders were announced, contracts were issued and the main street of Sydney's CBD has been a construction zone for yea these many months now.  It was supposed to be completed around March 2019.  The contractor has just announced that 2020 is a more plausible finishing date and by the way, can they have another billion dollars?

The state transport minister has responded with shock and astonishment thus raising the number of people in NSW who were shocked and astonished by this to a grand total of one.  I don't know how it goes elsewhere in the world but I cannot remember the last time a major infrastructure project in NSW was delivered on time, to budget and actually did what it was intended to do.  Part of the problem is that to get the contract the builder has to more or less agree to the government's timeframe and budget.  If these are unrealistic (spoiler alert, they always are) then disappointment is building up for someone further down the line.  Another part of the problem is that nobody can predict all of the problems that are going to come up and when we get to the government that phrase can be amended to "any of the problems that are going to come up".

A major cause of the delays is that the contractor keeps digging up various cables, pipes and other pieces of extraneous infrastructure.  The government doesn't appear to have plans for any of this and nobody is entirely sure what they're for but they don't dare just rip them up in case the intensive care ward at St Vincents Hospital is suddenly deprived of power.  So there has to be a wincingly careful voyage of discovery to figure out what all of this stuff does and whether its still important.  Some of it has been there for decades.  At least at the end of it someone might have a slightly better idea of how the city actually keeps going.

The government is adamant that it will not accept any delays and it won't pay any more money.  The contractor is adamant that it can't finish any quicker and without the money it can't finish at all.  Ultimately the contractor will win if only because they don't have to stand for reelection with half the city gridlocked by a paralysed construction site.  I suppose we'll get the light rail eventually, it probably won't go as far as the government originally wanted, it will cost a great deal more than intended and take longer to complete than anyone expected.  What I do know is that when the ribbon is finally cut on our three hundred metres of light rail running once or twice a day the length of a city block all of the relevant politicians will be out their crowing about its magnificence.

Meanwhile the sandwich server has finished the vinegar ritual and has presented me my roll with a face that beams with pride but also manages to be a little apprehensive.  I smile to reassure her and idly wonder if there is a way I can persuade her to let me see more of her chest tattoo than is visible through her work clothes.