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Originally Posted by Cirrus
This smells fishy.
Too bad too, because that's a legit project. Dedicated lanes, great route, really the necessary piece to making Seattle's entire streetcar network work at all.
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The track compatibility did seem a bit far-fetched unless it goes to engineering stuff I don't understand like load bearing or turning radius... dunno. Not using the same stock seemed odd though.
The other issue is that everything done so far is running well over budget, sometimes waaay over budget. There's generally valid reasons but this never looks very good to taxpayer/voters.
I updated myself on what Sound Transit is doing and I was reminded why I contend that Seattle is NOT a good (transit) peer comparison for Denver. Their light rail projects are running/projected from $275-$350 million per mile (not firm figures). At those rates RTD/Fastracks could have built the A Line - train to the plane and the Flatiron Flyer.
And I'm not doubting the value of Sound Transit projects; I'm sure they will be worth every penny spent. It's just that Denver doesn't have a $54 billion pot to play with and they were able to build 6 LRT lines (~95 miles) instead of just one 23-mile line and the admittedly wildly successful Flatiron Flyer.