Rail transit construction is so farking expensive that the people overseeing lose all sense of proportion. Take Denver’s FasTracks program, which is supposed to build about 119 miles of rail transit over eight years for $6.2 billion. That’s more than $2 million a day, seven days a week, 52 weeks a year.
So its not surprising that Denver’s transit agency, RTD, would casually spend $15 million on land it doesn’t need. That’s $50,000 an acre for land that is pretty similar to other land in the area that normally sells for $10,000 to $15,000 an acre.
RTD agreed to buy the land from the Union Pacific Railroad as a part of a deal in which the UP would relocate some of its facilities to get them out of the way of RTD’s new rail lines. The rest of the deal fell through — UP is not going to relocate — but RTD is still somehow stuck buying the land.
Easy come, easy go.
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Meanwhile, Portland’s transit agency, Tri Met, condemned someone’s land and spent $3 million buying it and planning for a park-and-ride station on the proposed light-rail line to Milwaukie. Now it says there won’t be enough ridership on the line to justify the park-and-ride station, so it is scrapping its plans for the station.
Your first question should be, “If there won’t be enough ridership to justify a $5 million park-and-ride station, how can there be enough ridership to justify a seven-mile light-rail line costing $1.25 to $1.40 billion?” At upwards of $200 million per mile, it’s easy to see why someone wouldn’t worry about a mere $3 million.
The actual cost is likely to be even higher. The original cost estimate was based on a direct crossing of the Willamette River. Since it was made, Oregon Health Sciences University (OHSU) — the hospital that built the aerial tram — began lobbying for a much-more costly skewed crossing that would serve its business park a little better. Now an advisory committee has recommended this route even though there isn’t enough money available to build it.
As former Portland mayor Vera Katz says, “it’s about time we stepped up to help the city’s largest employer,” meaning OHSU. I suppose she doesn’t consider the $289 million the city is spending to subsidize OHSU’s South Waterfront campus (see “North Macadam,” p. 4) to be “help.” When you are spending one-and-a-quarter billion dollars on a light-rail line that won’t get enough ridership to justify a park-and-ride station, what’s a few more hundred million for a bridge to carry the line past a heavily subsidized high-rise business park?
I’m not here to defend rail, but “119 miles of rail transit over eight years for $6.2 billion” sounds almost incredibly cheap. IIRC, one mile of highway costs roughly $1 billion.
So, $6.2 billion for 119 miles of rail sounds a lot cheaper than $119 billion for 119 miles of highway.
If your point is that the highway is still a relatively good deal (because of usage, etc.), then you should probably say so, rather than giving the impression that rail is expensive (compared to highway) in an absolute sense.
Denver – It works out at $52m/km. So expensive, but not more than I’d expect.
Portland – It works out, as stated, at $200m/km. That’s much more scary.
Light rail can be cheaper than buses. Light rail has a higher capital cost, but needs fewer vehicles, and hence fewer staff. If the passenger flows are high enough, and given that the capital is paid back at 5% and the employees are paid at 100%, it is possible for light rail to be cheaper.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear to be happening in this case in Portland.
I don’t get the point of the cost per day part of things. Doesn’t seem to be a measurement that really shows anything.
As for Fastracks, it looks to be well on track to being over 50% over budget long before it even starts laying track.
http://www.rockymountainnews.com/news/2008/apr/29/more-fastracks-cost-hikes-likely/
DRCOG hired a consultant to go over RTD’s estimates for construction costs. The consultant examined a number of commodities RTD needs to build the various projects and researched the costs independently of RTD’s estimates.
It found that for 31 percent of the items, RTD had used lower figures than the range of costs the consultant found in the market, while 53 percent of RTD’s estimates fell within the range and RTD had overestimated 16 percent of the items.
Another consultant examined the FasTracks finance plan and concluded the transit agency was too optimistic in its forecasts for sales tax revenues, assumed federal grants and cost savings obtainable through partial privatization of some projects, for which agreements with private companies have yet to be negotiated.
That led the DRCOG to conclude that RTD was being too optimistic and that its cost estimate may still be on the low side overall.
“So, $6.2 billion for 119 miles of rail sounds a lot cheaper than $119 billion for 119 miles of highway.”
Yes, that sounds a lot cheaper than $119 billoin for 119 miles of highway. Was there some project(s) you had in mind that would cost that much? Even in highly developed urban areas, a lane-mile of freeway typically costs 30% than one mile track mile of LRT.
“a lane-mile of freeway typically costs 30% than one mile track mile of LRT.”
More than or less than?
Even in highly developed urban areas, a lane-mile of freeway typically costs 30% than one mile track mile of LRT.
JK: Wouldn’t it be better to compare the cost of one lane-mile of freeway with one lane-mile of track WITHOUT land price, bridges or tunnels to get a better comparison of the actual costs of rail & road? After all, they are about the same width.
Of course one needs to triple the cost of rail for the fact that it only carries a number of people equal to about about 1/3 of one lane of traffic AT RUSH HOUR compared to a lane of freeway. (data from Trimet, discounted for people per car and previous bus ridership. See: PortlandFacts.com\Transit\RailAttractsDrivers2.htm)
Thanks
JK
D4P said, “IIRC, one mile of highway costs roughly $1 billion.”
You don’t recall correctly. A lane mile of freeway costs about $5 million. Add in buying urban right of way and it might be $10 million. Add in lots of on and off ramps and street overpasses, and you might reach $15 to $20 million. T-REX in Denver came in at $17 million per lane mile.
On top of that, the average land mile of urban freeway moves 4 to 5 times as many people as the average mile of light rail.
A $1 billion for a mile of highway, more like $1 billion a kilometre. Rail is much cheaper & friendlier, but governments & big business don’t want people to have choices.
I just found your blog and I’ve been reading it for a while, but I detect a strong pro-planning bias: while you spend much time deriding plans for mass transit, I have yet to see an article condemning the planning of roads and highways in America. Surely, given that the vast majority of trips that Americans take (90%, I once say) are by automobile, road plans should be first on your list of plans to ruin?
rationalitate,
Thank you for commenting. Not all planning is evil. The Antiplanner is against specific types of planning, namely government planning that attempts to be long-range, comprehensive, and/or plans other people’s lands and resources.
This leaves private planning and government planning that is short in range, focuses on an agency’s narrow mission, and — if possible — is responsive to user fees. Most highway planning before 1990 fit this definition. The Antiplanner would rather see toll highways provided by private entrepreneurs, but the system in place from 1930 through 1990 was a reasonable approximation. Nearly all highway costs were covered by gas taxes and other user fees and highway engineers focused on a narrow mission of providing safe, efficient transportation.
Since 1990 transportation planning has tried (and failed) to cover a much wider range of issues, which has led to enormous waste. Rather than return to the pre-1990 situation, we would be best off creating a system that relies even more on user fees.
Rationalitate brought up the very good point which I have brought up in that the Mr.O’Toole pushes double standards and is anti-market.
If I could turn back the clock, the massive highway welfare system wouldn’t be what it is a today.
All expressways/motorways should have been 100% privately financed and paying property taxes.
Nearly all highway costs were covered by gas taxes and other user fees…
Maybe all highway costs, but there’s more to roads than just the well-travelled highways. A more honest comparison would compare the costs of all roads in America, not just highways.
…highway engineers focused on a narrow mission of providing safe, efficient transportation.
Says you. Of course, we cannot know if it was truly “efficient,” given that the system was designed by government planners and not by the market.
Highwayman,
Explain what you mean by double standard. And anti-market. And welfare.
Rationalitate,
We have no way of knowing just how efficient our current road network is. That is because there is no effective competition for the public sector here. Politics surrounding transportation suffer from an extreme anti-market bias and politicians have strong incentives to protect the spoils system they have built for themselves.
Maybe all highway costs, but there’s more to roads than just the well-travelled highways. A more honest comparison would compare the costs of all roads in America, not just highways.
Indeed.
As I keep saying here, most local access roads – and many collectors and arterials – are repaved out of the general fund (as is their signage, lighting, striping, etc); often they are widened and intially built that way too.
So they are subsidized as well. Everyone here, while decrying subsidies, drives on subsidized roads. Every day. Roads that kids and little old ladies who no longer drive pay for.
DS