04-23-2023, 08:27 PM
(04-23-2023, 12:41 AM)danbrotherston Wrote:(04-22-2023, 11:11 PM)bravado Wrote: I don't think anyone in this process has any incentive to keep costs down, so there's no option that is cheaper. Even if they somehow came up with bus lanes, it would still somehow cost $1B.
If we can't build this for a normal amount of money, then that means we can't build anything - and it seems like nobody in power gives a fuck. If a contractor says they need $x, then there's no questioning. Why do we even have local engineers if they just read their manual and turn their brains off?
If a 19km light rail comes out to $4.5B, then that means the next lane widening of the 401 is going to also be a 10 digit sum, and the next new school build, and the next hospital after that, and sooner or later a new suburban road is a $20M project.
Light rail existed 100 years ago and we can't do it anymore now! That's real and physical decline and nobody cares!
I was quite serious when I said that I don't think we should build Phase 2 for 4.5 billion. It sets a society ending precedent.
Something deep is going on if it's going to cost that much. And this seems to be just for the initial build and trains, and not managing it for x# of years.
Someone is getting rich off of this. Likely to the tune of $3B+....I won't speculate on where all this additional money goes though. But something isn't right here.