Thursday, July 03, 2008

Phoenix Light-Rail will cost $100 million per mile

No...that's not a typo you see in the title. Coyote Blog has the details:
...Let's see -- $306 million divided by 3.2 miles is very close to $100 million a mile, and that is even before the inevitable cost overruns cut in (as a rule of thumb, I tend to double estimates of light rail construction costs to estimate the actual final total, and even then I am often low). It also does not include inevitable operating losses.

Nearly a third of a billion dollars to run a rail line a distance most people could walk in 45 minutes. For three freaking miles. As a comparison, three buses could provide service on this same route running at 5 minute intervals for perhaps 1% of this capital cost and a substantially lower operating cost. And better service, since the frequency would be 3 times higher. Absolutely absurd...
The link for the article Coyote Blog references is wrong. Here's the article.

Update: It looks like Tucson, in the same state, can do light-rail for $20-40 million per mile.

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