From Stimulus Watch, this list of projects for the Rochester New York area. My comments in bold.

• Brighton: $3.6 million for Senator Keating Blvd. This street is less than a mile long and lined by medical office buildings. I was there last week and it is in great shape.
• Rochester: Broad Street tunnel rehab: $10 million. An old subway runs under Broad Street. Due to lack of attention over the decades, it is now creating problems overhead. Full of winos most of the time.
• Rochester: Mt. Hope Ave. reconstruction $5 million. Busy street near University of Rochester Medical Center. Narrow, poorly marked, lots of driveways for businesses and many pedestrians.
• Rochester: Art Walk 2. $3.3 million. To extend an “urban art trail” and improve a key intersection. Intersection sucks. WTF is an “urban art trail” and how is it different than a sidewalk?
• Rochester: Milling and resurfacing. $3 million. Doubles the City’s existing program for street repairs.
• Rochester: Jefferson Ave revitalization. $2.5 million. Moving the hookers, gangbangers and drug deals to another part of the city?
• Rochester: Genesee River Crossroads Park Plaza Deck $2.2 million. Fixing the place up for the four people who use it yearly.
• Rochester: East Henrietta Road Reconstruction $2 million. Same dealio as the Mt. Hope work. Road is wider and not as full of pedestrians.
• Rochester: 2009 Hazardous Sidewalk Replacement Program $2 million. Doubles the City’s program. Guns don’t kill people, sidewalks kill people.
• Rochester: Genesee Riverway Trail Rehabilitation $2 million. It’s a nice walk in the summer, but in Rochester it’s unbearable a good part of the year.
• Rochester: Brooks Avenue Reconstruction $1.775 million. Another street project. Heavy truck traffic.
• Rochester: South Clinton/Mount Hope $1.25 million. Improve intersection for hookers, gangbangers and drug dealers.
• Rochester: Cultural District Sidewalk Replacement. $1.1 million. They failed to raise enough money for a performing arts center, but they can fix up the sidewalks for the theater goers at the Eastman, etc.
• Rochester: La Avenida Streetscape Improvements. $1.1 million. Ensuring that the rioters at the annual Puerto Rican festival have a nice area to enjoy their random acts of violence.
• Rochester: 2009 Bridge Maintenance Program. $1.1 million. Doubles the City’s program.
• Rochester: Stutson Street Reconstruction. $400,000. How this did not get down when they put the new bridge in several years ago is beyond me. Part of the “Port” revitalization. Will be just as empty of tourists after it’s completed.
• Rochester: Orchard-Whitney Brownfield Site. $200,000. Obviously unable to make original polluters pay.
• Rochester: Durand Eastman Beach Water Quality Improvements. $1.6 million. To filter the water being discharged from the water treatment facility into Lake Ontario. Apparently water treatment doesn’t mean what I thought it meant.
• Rochester: Charlotte (West) /Summerville (East) Pier Safety Enhancement. $1 million. To keep drunken boaters from running into the damn piers and killing people.
• Rochester: 425-435 Mount Hope Site Environmental Remediation Project Erie Harbor on the Genesee River. $1 million. I don’t have a clue. Sounds like it might be intended to support a private development on the river.
• Rochester: Rundel Library HVAC Upgrades. $2.2 million. They have a new library building. This is for the old building. I have no idea why the building is in use.
• Rochester: Revitalizing Vacant Properties with Clean Energy Systems Grant. $1.5 million. Will this be before or after the drug addicts and arsonists set the places on fire?
• Rochester: Edgerton Recreation Center Upgrades. $1.315 million. It might keep some at-risk kids out of trouble.
• Rochester: Mercury Vapor Streetlight Replacement Project. $1.1 million. More light with less electricity.
• Rochester: Blue Cross Arena Energy Efficiency Upgrades. $831,000. Ice making made more efficient to support pro hockey team at no cost to the team.
• Rochester: Chestnut Street Firehouse HVAC Upgrades. $575,000. 70 year old firehouse. Worth all the trouble?
• Rochester: City Facilities Energy Efficiency Program. $500,000. You’re gonna love this. Change exit signs to more efficient lighting. Tint windows. Improve insulation in 18 buildings. Change exit sign lights????
• Rochester: Rochester Riverside Convention Center Energy Upgrades. $400,000. The Convention Center, where there is no place to park but it gets $$$.

The great mind behind Suitably Flip has produced the following images that illustrate the current Obama economic stimulus package. You can easily see why all the Republican Congresscritters and 11 Democratic ones voted no.

What the stimulus package buys. (a chart from Suitably Flip)

A graphic comparison of the stimulus package with other costs. (a chart by Suitably Flip)