Due to all the construction troubles they suffered over the winter, Six Flags has canceled Dark Knight for Six Flags New England:

http://www.thebostonchannel.com/money/1 ... etail.html
According to this article, the ride is dead, not even opening in 2009. All work already done will be dismantled. Seeing as I'm headed to SFNE in July, I am very angry :angry:

RANT ALERT
It is my opinion that both Agawam and SFNE screwed this up royally, however, I give SFNE most of the blame.

I'll start with Six Flags New England management. They announced the ride on September 27th, 2007, and certainly knew the ride was coming well before then. What were they doing in September? Why did they not go before the Agawam village board in September? They knew what they were getting and where it was going, they should have applied for ALL neccessary permits IMMEDIATELY. Instead, they waited until mid-December before they first went to the Agawam village board.

Agawam felt it neccessary to put up 567,672,470,287 miles of red tape calling SFNE on every technicallity anyone could imagine. SFNE finally get the permits in mid-February, and then only days later, Agawam issues a stop-order because it was obvious that SFNE had started construction well before actually obtaining any permits. What was SFNE thinking?!?! Did they seriously think nobody would get suspicious when the entire building frame was finished less than a week after they got the permits It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out you can't put up the entire frame for a building of that size in less than a week. :roll:

Then more details came out. After SFNE had submitted plans to the village board, they moved the building over 10 ft but never submitted revised plans. Obviously, SFNE wanted the ride open ontime, so that would be their reasoning for building without a permit. Still doesn't make building without a permit legal. :roll:

This is one of the biggest amusement park screw-ups in recent history, and I hope everyone involved in filing for permits and/or making the decision to build before obtaining said permits is FIRED . . . IMMEDIATELY :angry:

Someone probably will get fired because of their incompetence over this. I know there are ordinances and laws regarding the construction of large structures and stuff. However, I think major amusement parks like Six Flags or CF parks should be granted a little leeway in the construction of roller coasters under a certain height (say 100 feet) since they have done this stuff for a while. Some laws are just there to be a pain in the neck. I'm beginning to hate eastern cities because of their anal interpretations of their laws and ordinances.

One thing seems weird though, since part of it is already completed, why not just say "ok, we messed up," try to do things right and try to get it finished later during the season and then open it for next year? SF has had some blunders on new rides before *cough* Deja Vu *cough* Mr. Freeze, so it just goes with their reputation. I'm not saying those rides had the same problem, but they didn't work and didn't open when they were supposed to. And then again, sometimes stuff just happens and theirs little control over it.

I actually like this a little though, it makes TDK at our park a little more exclusive than it was going to be. However if it was our park that did this, I would be pissed.

Better them than us. :D

That has to suck so bad.