Quote:
Originally Posted by Calgarian
Someone was telling me they heard on the radio that some critic of the Green Line was saying this would be one of, if not the most expensive $/km transit project on the planet, anyone hear anything to this effect? Seems like political posturing to me as there are a ton of ways to measure things like this, and Calgary is small time compared to most of the rest of the world.
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It's incorrect on the face of it. For example, the Spadina line extension in Toronto is costing
US$ 462 million per mile (using numbers from
https://www.thetransportpolitic.com/transitexplorer/). Meanwhile, phase 1 of Green Line is
C$ 368 million per mile, assuming C$4.6 billion for 20 km. (Sorry for the mixed currencies and units, just working with the data I've got.)
Or how about New York's 2nd Ave subway line, at US$2,400 million per mile?
I don't mean to say that we
ought to directly compare Green Line to the Spadina extension or 2nd Ave subway. But anyone claiming/whining that Green Line is "too expensive" needs to find a similar mixed-tunneled/surface/elevated project in North America or western Europe to make any kind of comparison.
If the complainer wishes to say "it's too fancy because of the tunneling, we shouldn't do that, shouldn't spend money on it", ok, go for it. Then explain how it will impact surface traffic
even more than current plans.