An insanely expensive light-rail project in Minnesota just got more insane. The cost of the Southwest light-rail line, which had previously been estimated at $1.65 billion for 15.7 miles, or just over $100 million a mile, is now estimated to cost $341 million more, or just shy of $2 billion. That’s $126 million a mile, or more than seven times the inflation-adjusted cost of the initial San Diego Trolley, the nation’s first modern light-rail line.
Considering that freeways with many times the capacity of a light-rail line can be built for about $10 million a mile, spending more than $100 million a mile on light rail makes no sense at all. The only way people could support it is if they have no understanding of numbers, which explains why many politicians do support it. The good news is that some in Minnesota are having second thoughts about the Southwest line, including Governor Mark Dayton (who professed to be “shocked and appalled,” though he doesn’t say why he wasn’t appalled at the previous price) and Metropolitan Council chair Adam Duininck.
As the Antiplanner has previously noted, Eden Prairie, the destination of this line, is one of the wealthiest suburbs in the Twin Cities area. In order to provide “transit equity,” regional transit planners have promised to build a few bus shelters in poor neighborhoods. That’s so equitable.
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This isn’t the first cost increase for the Southwest line. In 2011, it was estimated to cost $1.25 billion. The Antiplanner’s perpetual question is: how expensive does a light-rail line have to get before advocates admit it is a bad idea?
The increase in costs seems mainly tied to EIS findings. Would a new road also be subject to the same overruns due to similar EIS findings?
The Antiplanner needs to stop lying about the cost of freeways. Yes, you can build a freeway across open country in Montana and similar places for $10 million a mile. But not in urban areas, even small ones. You need to add structures and interchanges, and land purchases. In most places, this will be $100 million or more per mile for new freeways. There are still some loons in Los Angeles who want to build an underground freeway through a low density suburb (South Pasadena) for well over a billion dollars per mile.
@msetty
His $2.4 million/lane mile highway is in Texas, not Montana.
http://www.downsizinggovernment.org/transportation/urban-transit
If you look at historic aerials of the area
http://www.historicaerials.com/
you see that there was room between subdivisions for a highway the whole time. It’s almost as if someone was planning for a highway to be there.
Maryland’s Route 200 toll road cost $2.56 billion, or just over $146,000,000 per mile (most of it six-lane Interstate-class road), with several large (and expensive) interchanges. improvements to the mainline of I-95 north and south of the Md. 200 interchange, a bike/pedestrian trail in segments, and some very expensive stormwater runoff controls and extra-long bridges over stream valley floors to reduce environmental impacts.
In most places, this will be $100 million or more per mile for new freeways.
Of course, building a worthless toy train for a cool 200 million a mile, to replace a handful of 300k buses, is perfectly all right, however.
@Frank, in relation to your question, I wouldn’t call this a cost increase. The problem with these large projects – and not just transit .- is that we place far too much emphasis on initial guestimates. We incorrectly move to make commitments based on those instead of doing more planning.
As for the costs, I’m curious to know how they compare to other options. For example, how much would it cost to add 2 – 4 lanes to the Crosstown Freeway? How much more volume could occur with that? It’s hard to find something to compare it to. In a lot of ways, the route isn’t served by freeways.
The latter point is why I find the project in it’s current length so befuddling. There isn’t anything that serves the entire route today. If you’re in Eden Prairie and working in downtown Minneapolis, the current SW Transit buses are faster and have better amenities ( wifi, reclining seats, etc ). Officials have never been clear with so much of the lines likely usage not reaching past Hopkins, why they don’t just build it to there and call it a day. They already own the right-of-way and will have the option to build an extension in the future ( if warranted ).
Any word on how the double decker buses are working out for Southwest Transit?
@antiplanner, a good example of the flexibility of buses can be found in Eden Prairie. As you may know, Target’s official headquarters is in downtown Minneapolis. Long ago, they build a huge corporate campus in the northern suburbs. A lot of people have been moved there and it’s arguably their true headquarters.
In response, Southwest Transit added a bus route to serve the Target corp. campus in Brooklyn Park from Eden Prairie.