"I do not believe that there is any evidence that a visually pleasing bridge is necessarily more costly"

It will be. From paying someone extra for an artsy design to the firm speaking German and the mis-commmunications with AMericans, there are several opportunities for screw-ups that will cost the taxpayers along the way.

In addition, Mr Adams is not even a college graduate and we are trusting him already with an annual $2B CoP budget and he wants to call the shots on a $4B bridge. Does this make sense? I mean if he had some training in finance, engineering, heck even architecture, I'd feel a littel better.