Quote:
Originally Posted by emathias
Perhaps someone would be able to FOI a detailed budget from the Morgan station to see where exactly all the money goes per the budget?
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I guess you could. I'd be more interested in seeing the submitted bids (when they get to that stage).
There are various reasons that have been projected for the high cost of construction. One of the most logical explanations is that there are pretty high barriers to entry, with CTA or CDOT demanding firms with a past record of transit work, union labor, etc... That means the bids only come from a select few contractors who meet the criteria. Over time, this high cost of construction affects the initial budgeting for a project, so a transit station will be allocated $50 million at the outset instead of $30 million to avoid a last-minute scramble for funds. None of the small cartel of qualifying contractors will come in drastically under the allocated amount, since that amount is public knowledge that is known to all ahead of time.
Mr. D's comparison of a suburban Wal-Mart is off-base, though. Wal-Mart puts up hundreds of stores annually, so they gain the benefits of economies of scale. Wal-Mart clears and levels each site to a blank slate condition and then erects a cookie-cutter store there. Plus, it is usually not beholden to the strings that come with any kind of public funding. Cities that provide incentives for Wal-Mart to open up almost never make demands, and cities that make demands almost always have some sort of hugely profitable population of potential customers (or else Wal-Mart goes to the next town over).