Though the cost is getting outrageous, it is part of what Sacramento needs as part of its light rail profile, but, if there is any reasonable weighting to what gets funded with local transportation funding, the bulk should go to improving the conditions for the form of transportation heavily favored by an overwhelming majority of people, cars: so lets upgrade and maintain our roadways and bridges.
When you consider the cost of building urban freeways averages about $10 million per mile, compared to the $46 million it just cost Regional Transit to build 6/10ths of a mile light rail extension, it is a downright bargain.
Editorial: Does light rail to airport make financial sense?
With costs rising, even longtime backers have to question whether it's still practical
Published 12:00 am PST Saturday, November 10, 2007
For several years now, this page has been an enthusiastic supporter of the notion of extending light rail to the Sacramento International Airport. All things being equal, we're still enthusiastic about it. But some recent numbers suggest that all things are far from equal.
The numbers in question stem from Regional Transit's light-rail extension from 8th and K street downtown to the Amtrak Station at 5th and H. That extension, a mere six-tenths of a mile, was supposed to take 15 months to construct and cost $35 million. It took 30 months and cost $46 million. That's twice as much time and 30 percent more money than originally estimated.
RT cites many reasons for this, as The Bee's Tony Bizjak noted in a recent article. Builders ran into unmapped underground utility lines and Indian artifacts. Federal judges complained that the tracks, as originally routed, ran too close to the downtown courthouse, posing a potential security risk. When federal judges complain, government listens, so the tracks had to be rerouted. And there was lots of rain last year, too. If it's not one thing, it's another.
As a result of such factors, the per-mile cost of the downtown extension turned out to be an eye-popping $77 million.
