> No, it's not an insane engineering achievement. It's just a normal one, because nobody else has floating bridges, nobody else needed it. It's also years late and costs 10x more than it should.

Your other points aside -

Doing something no one else has ever done is the definition of an engineering achievement.

There isn't a set of best practices. There aren't a bunch of off the shelf parts, there aren't any contractors who can help you out because they've done it a dozen times before. It is an original engineering challenge.

Pulling it off is by definition an achievement.

That said, 100% agree about the station placement. Heck the stations that are well placed were poorly designed, they should be profitable by including commercial real estate and residences, with the revenue from both going to Sound Transit to pay for the system.

But no, we didn't do that and I can't even get a cup of coffee, in Seattle, at our light rail stations.