Comment 91981

By brendan (registered) | Posted September 10, 2013 at 14:43:26

I agree with Sean that a proper analysis should have been made for both of the examples. The traffic no longer warrants four lanes on King St E, nor a grade-separated interchange at King and Kenilworth. Such an analysis may have shown an opportunity to save money in the long run.

However I also agree with Moore and commenter "engineer", in that you can't discount the design cost in such a change. If you look at any construction project, the design (and consultation) stage can cost at least as much as the actual building of the thing. Engineers and planners are expensive! Removing the Kenilworth underpass may make sense in the long run, but the saved costs would have to overcome the significant labour that would be involved in re (re) designing it as a level crossing.

Still, there should probably be some institutional process that at least makes an estimate of the relative costs, and records it publicly. I'm thinking about something like the [forms staff uses to present reports to council] (http://www.hamilton.ca/NR/rdonlyres/7F7F45BB-7C5D-48F0-BFA7-00C2ED3D26C8/0/Aug13EDRMS_n340438_v1_7_2__PW11064a.pdf) (pdf link) which has a section for "alternatives to consider".

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