Arguments that should make you immediately skeptical about any public work include “It’s so cool it will pay for itself”:

A proposed $125 million ride-in-the-sky gondola system connecting Governors Island to Brooklyn and Manhattan would be such a tourist draw, it could pay for itself, officials said last night.

Paul Kelly, interim president of the Governors Island Preservation and Education Corp., told a public-information session the system “could be self-financed” either by the private sector or through the corporation, “given the tourist element.”

Backstory: “Stunning Doesn’t Even Start To Convey The Majesty Of This Century’s Roosevelt Island Tram”.