Comment 118630

By kevlahan (registered) | Posted May 16, 2016 at 16:34:04 in reply to Comment 118629

The BCA in 2010 did do rough cost/benefit analysis of different shorter and longer options for the route.

The estimated costs are actually very conservative (i.e. very high) compared to other systems (e.g. in France the cost per km has only been around $37 million per km) so I think the chances of over-spending the $1 billion estimate are fairly low.

I would expect the easiest option to deal with a major cost over-run would be to cancel the James St spur (since the detailed design hasn't been done yet), but you should ask Metrolinx's Hamilton office about this during the consultation. I expect it will depend on the precise details and situation of the project as well as the staging of the construction.

It would have been great if they used other revenue tools to pay for infrastructure spending (e.g. road tolls, congestion pricing, parking levies, sales tax, development charges) but they were seen as politically unpopular. The Province asked municipalities which revenue tools they would support and the answer was unfortunately "none of them". That didn't leave them much option on raising revenue to build some of the 30 year backlog in deferred transportation infrastructure in the GTHA. The money has to come from somewhere.

By the way, it would be very easy to automate LRT vehicles as they run on tracks, have defined stops and their movement is integrated in into the traffic control systems. We'll probably see that very soon as well.

Comment edited by kevlahan on 2016-05-16 16:36:24

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