ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit

[tomh009]

Not the newer (LRT) ones; his older paintings had prices.

I do believe they are also for sale -- you might need to contact him for the prices!

[Bob_McBob]

Outhit is officially pegging the cost of ION at over $1 billion through some leap of logic. I assume he's adding the cost of land acquisition, intersecting public projects, and whatever else he can think of to arrive at that figure.

https://www.therecord.com/news-story/833...y-to-roll/

[timc]

It looks like he is including construction and financing costs to come up with that number.

[danbrotherston]

Another word for it would be intentionally misleading people.

[Bob_McBob]

But what he is he actually including? The intersecting public works projects? The cost of servicing the debt for 30 years? I thought the land acquisition budget was separate from the ION budget based on some council agendas about expropriation, but even that is included in the original $818m figure (now revised to $868m, minus $25m from the province).

[timc]

I don't have exact numbers, but:

http://rapidtransit.regionofwaterloo.ca/...ions.asp#f

The capital cost is $818 million (now $868 million, I guess), and if you add annual financing costs of $11 million over 30 years, you get a number over $1 billion. Why he didn't go all the way and say it was costing $1.9 billion, I don't know.

My wording probably wasn't the best when I said that was the cost for construction and financing, because the capital cost is more than just construction.

[panamaniac]

It looks like he is including construction and financing costs to come up with that number.

I don't have exact numbers, but:

http://rapidtransit.regionofwaterloo.ca/...ions.asp#f

The capital cost is $818 million (now $868 million, I guess), and if you add annual financing costs of $11 million over 30 years, you get a number over $1 billion. Why he didn't go all the way and say it was costing $1.9 billion, I don't know.

My wording probably wasn't the best when I said that was the cost for construction and financing, because the capital cost is more than just construction.

How can you get to $1.9B?

[Canard]

Nice little microaggression in there calling the LRV’s “streetcars”.

He really is a uselsss human being.

[ijmorlan]

The capital cost is $818 million (now $868 million, I guess), and if you add annual financing costs of $11 million over 30 years, you get a number over $1 billion. Why he didn't go all the way and say it was costing $1.9 billion, I don't know.

My wording probably wasn't the best when I said that was the cost for construction and financing, because the capital cost is more than just construction.

How can you get to $1.9B?

By adding in all the financing (mostly interest) charges. It would be like adding up all your mortgage payments plus your downpayment and arguing that was the cost of your house.

If you wanted to really blow up the price you could take the total payments to GrandLinq, including all the operating expenses, and add them up too. But why stop at 30 years? There is nothing magic about Year 31. Might as well add operating expenses ad infinitum and claim the project is infinitely expensive.

[creative]

Mortgage payments plus down payment does add up to the ultimate cost of a house.

[taylortbb]

Mortgage payments plus down payment does add up to the ultimate cost of a house.

They do, but unless you inflation adjust the numbers they're pretty misleading. While financing cost might take ION capital over $1B in long term total dollars, I seriously doubt it does in 2018 dollars. The region only had Grandlinq finance about $100M of the project, so even over 30 years I doubt the interest tripled that expense, especially at the low rates they would have received.

[timio]

He really is a uselsss human being.

That is a terrible statement to make about a person. He may be a not so great reporter with very obvious biases against rail transit, but to call someone useless as a human is not very constructive to the conversation.

[Bob_McBob]

Confirmed on Twitter, he's adding $200m in interest to the upfront cost to push it over a billion.

https://twitter.com/OuthitRecord/status/...9171111937

[trainspotter139]

Confirmed on Twitter, he's adding $200m in interest to the upfront cost to push it over a billion.

https://twitter.com/OuthitRecord/status/...9171111937

No one will know the true value of the interest on the $253 million until the end of the amortization or until the amortized amount is paid off, whichever comes first. To assume the future value of a project's capital cost, well, you might as well be making up numbers

[MidTowner]

What is the Region planning as far as the interest cost on the $253,000,000 goes?

Even if it is $200,000,000, that is not in 2018 dollars. The real impact is far more nuanced than 100 characters (or whatever). Not worth replying to him on this, he's probably being disingenuous.