Welcome Guest!
In order to take advantage of all the great features that Waterloo Region Connected has to offer, including participating in the lively discussions below, you're going to have to register. The good news is that it'll take less than a minute and you can get started enjoying Waterloo Region's best online community right away.
or Create an Account




Thread Rating:
  • 15 Vote(s) - 3.93 Average
  • 1
  • 2
  • 3
  • 4
  • 5
ION - Waterloo Region's Light Rail Transit
(03-19-2018, 05:42 PM)taylortbb Wrote:
(03-19-2018, 05:36 PM)creative Wrote: 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.

Even with inflation adjustment one doesn’t get to count the interest costs as part of “the cost” of a project one doesn’t happen to like. If people are talking about buying houses and how much they paid, they talk about the number on the agreement of purchase and sale. How they got that money is a separate issue — from personal savings, using a mortgage, or whatever. The cost of a sweater is what the cash register receipt says, not the total of all the credit card interest payments. And so on.

If future payments are counted in the cost, then the value of the project after the time period needs to be subtracted off the cost. There is no justification to rule that an interest payment 29 years 11 months from now counts towards the cost but the salvage value of the system 30 years from now doesn’t count against the cost. By this standard the cost probably could be argued to be negative, although it would be dependent on how valuable one thought the system would be 30 years later so any discussion about this number would be inconclusive.

When people talk about “the cost” of something they mean how much it would cost to build it or pay for it in cash. Anybody discussing the cost in good faith will make it very clear if they are talking about something different.
Reply


(03-19-2018, 07:51 PM)MidTowner Wrote: 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.

I can’t remember the details, but I believe the monthly payment to GrandLinq includes an interest component which covers the financing costs of the portion financed by GrandLinq. I believe this amount is fixed for 30 years. For the part financed by the Region, they sold bonds, on which they will of course be paying interest until they are paid off.

I don’t know the maturity period on the bonds, but it’s quite common for governments to issue 30 year bonds so I wouldn’t be at all surprised to find the interest rate there is also fixed.

Which if true means that in fact the total of all interest payments is already known.

And in any case those future interest payments are expected to be paid by a larger, more prosperous Region so they actually will have a smaller impact than they would if we paid them now. I mean in theory we could have raised taxes 10% and paid for our entire share over a 5 year period. If I’m reading the Regional budget correctly we fund approximately $500M per year from Regional property taxes. So a 10% increase would give about $50M per year. Voila, 5 years later, $250M collected, entire Regional share paid off.

But you can tell I’m not a politician, because a politician would be smart enough never to even suggest that we “could” raise taxes by 10%, even as a counterfactual. And a 10% increase really would be quite noticeable to many people. But instead we have a much smaller increase and pay the money off gradually as we use the system rather than upfront; just like most homeowners do their house, actually.
Reply
I like Joe Reda’s reply to Outhit’s tweet. He just links to the Wikipedia page on Present Value:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Present_value

Will probably fly over the head of Outhit’s fans, but a very appropriate response.
Reply
Yep, I think that's a pretty good response.
Reply
(03-19-2018, 05:23 PM)panamaniac Wrote: How can you get to $1.9B?

$1.9 billion is the total projected DBFOM cost over the life of the contract with Grandlinq.
Reply
504 is at Kitchener Market heading SB. There is a car parked on the tracks on Borden in the usual spot, in front of that sketchy auto repair place. Wonder what’s gonna happen?
Reply
(03-20-2018, 12:52 PM)Canard Wrote: 504 is at Kitchener Market heading SB. There is a car parked on the tracks on Borden in the usual spot, in front of that sketchy auto repair place. Wonder what’s gonna happen?

I hope they are towing them ASAP. (but probably not).
They should have a tow truck following the LRT vehicle to haul off these offenders quickly. Only way people will learn.
Reply


(03-19-2018, 05:36 PM)creative Wrote: Mortgage payments plus down payment does add up to the ultimate cost of a house.

Technically true.  But we don't use stats that way in a normal setting.

One would say, we bought our house for $400,000, and not $1.7 million because I factored in interest on my mortgage, property taxes, a new roof, maintenance on the appliances, etc.

One would say, I bought my car for $12,000, not $236,000 because I included the interest on my loan, the licencing fees, insurance, car repairs, fuel, etc.

Coke

** OOPS - ijmorlan basically said this already.... maybe I should read all the replies before replying.... LOL **
Reply
(03-20-2018, 12:52 PM)Canard Wrote: 504 is at Kitchener Market heading SB. There is a car parked on the tracks on Borden in the usual spot, in front of that sketchy auto repair place. Wonder what’s gonna happen?

My vote is nothing.  Not even a $30 parking ticket.  We need at add a battering ram to the front of the trains.... Smile

Coke
Reply
(03-20-2018, 01:15 PM)Coke6pk Wrote:
(03-20-2018, 12:52 PM)Canard Wrote: 504 is at Kitchener Market heading SB. There is a car parked on the tracks on Borden in the usual spot, in front of that sketchy auto repair place. Wonder what’s gonna happen?

My vote is nothing.  Not even a $30 parking ticket.  We need at add a battering ram to the front of the trains.... Smile

Coke

[Image: 63a5ada7e4dcf7f7b79fee157cedb12a.jpg]
Reply
Never gets old!
Reply
FYI not sure if it was reported here, but the BING maps satellite shot shows the majority of the line complete. Looks like the pic was from last fall as you can see the embedded around king/vic but it was not paved.
Reply
(03-20-2018, 04:49 PM)bgb_ca Wrote: FYI not sure if it was reported here, but the BING maps satellite shot shows the majority of the line complete. Looks like the pic was from last fall as you can see the embedded around king/vic but it was not paved.

I recently noticed that ESRI has much higher resolution imagery from what I guess to be last spring.

See King & Victoria here:
http://www.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer...0&level=20
Reply


(03-21-2018, 09:19 AM)Ace Wrote: I recently noticed that ESRI has much higher resolution imagery from what I guess to be last spring.

See King & Victoria here:
http://www.arcgis.com/home/webmap/viewer...0&level=20

I just used that to move up to the Waterloo spur - I realized for the first time that the freight-shared track has more closely spaced sleepers! Makes perfect sense,but I hadn't caught on until now.
Reply
(03-21-2018, 10:33 AM)KevinL Wrote: I just used that to move up to the Waterloo spur - I realized for the first time that the freight-shared track has more closely spaced sleepers! Makes perfect sense,but I hadn't caught on until now.

I noticed that from the ground last year and even posted a pic of it someplace (here, Facebook, UrbanToronto?  I no longer recall) but it's far more dramatic when seen from above!

Love this view of the freight crossover:

[Image: IonTies.jpg]

Thanks for the tip about ESRI guys!
...K
Reply
« Next Oldest | Next Newest »



Forum Jump:


Users browsing this thread: 11 Guest(s)

About Waterloo Region Connected

Launched in August 2014, Waterloo Region Connected is an online community that brings together all the things that make Waterloo Region great. Waterloo Region Connected provides user-driven content fueled by a lively discussion forum covering topics like urban development, transportation projects, heritage issues, businesses and other issues of interest to those in Kitchener, Waterloo, Cambridge and the four Townships - North Dumfries, Wellesley, Wilmot, and Woolwich.

              User Links