Comment by zahlman
4 days ago
> But then you realize that Seattle is going to spend $180B ("B", as in "billion") to build about 50 miles of tracks.
Well yes, but that's not at all something intrinsic to the process, it's just a dysfunction that Seattle is suffering — along with most of the rest of North America.
In 2002, Toronto paid less than $1b to build the 5.5km of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_4_Sheppard , which is fully underground subway running on a custom gauge for historical reasons.
Last year, we finished https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_6_Finch_West , which is light rail running at-grade on standard gauge. It's not even twice as long but cost 3.6x as much. For light rail. And it's apparently running well below design speed and at least initially with terrible signal priority.
Currently we are building https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Line_5_Eglinton, just over five times as long. It's light rail at a combination of underground, at grade and elevated; current projected total cost is $17.5b. So, three and a half times as much per unit distance, for what is supposed to be a considerably less expensive option.
Prices for other things have not gone so crazy in that time frame. But yeah, it isn't costing us anywhere near 3.6b USD/mile (about 3.1b CAD/km) for light rail. Yet.
This is a problem with cities. All new infrastructure is extremely expensive because of the planning overhead and because of labor costs.
Not just light rail, but even regular water and sewer. San Francisco spent half a decade repaving a few blocks (Van Ness bus rapid transit) because they had to slowly dig through unmapped ancient infrastructure.
Even in the case of Toronto, you're looking at amounts that can buy each incremental rider a new house. In case of Seattle, each household is going to pay around $150k for that rail.
It's simply ridiculous.