Comment 107135

By kevlahan (registered) | Posted December 16, 2014 at 12:52:44

The cost does seem very high to me: in France (not known for cheap labour but, admittedly, very experienced in large engineering projects like the TGV, Airbus, Ariane, network of toll autoroutes etc.) the costs for recent projects vary between 16 and 39 million euros per km with an average cost of 26 million euros (about $22 to $54 million per km, with an average cost of $36.4 million).

http://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liste_des_t...

And French cities (at least in the historic centres) clearly have more engineering challenges than Hamilton's flat straight route through a pretty straightforward grid system. (Note, also, that most of the cities on the list are far smaller than Hamilton!)

At the 2010 estimate of $811 million, they're estimating Hamilton's project at about $62 million per km, over 70% higher than the French average. I assume that part of the excess cost is just risk: Canada has built almost no modern LRT lines (apart from Calgary and Edmonton which are older technology) while France has built 26 lines since the 1980s.

Comment edited by kevlahan on 2014-12-16 12:55:00

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