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Old Posted Jun 21, 2018, 12:15 AM
Will O' Wisp Will O' Wisp is offline
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Join Date: May 2018
Location: San Diego
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Quote:
Originally Posted by saybanana View Post
Here is an article I found that shows costs or current/recent large transit projects.
https://www.citylab.com/transportati...the-us/551408/

Most places are doing subway so that is easy to see what different projects cost.
LA's purple line and Regional connector subway costs about $900M/mile.
Honolulu's HART Elevated Rail is $500M/mile (though it went through suburbs/ROWs, so I dont know what will it cost when it goes through Downtown and more urban parts of the city) but let's say it is $500M.

The ESFV is $1.3B for over 9miles = $125M/mile for surface LRT.
The finished Pasadena to Azusa Gold Line was $741 for 11.5 miles = $65M/mile
The Crenshaw line U/C is $1.77B for 8.5 miles but it is a mix of aerial, street at grade, and subway so hard to calculate it. But a 1.6mile at-grade from Expo Crenshaw station to Leimert Park was changed to subway (with Federal Loan) which changed the $1.3 to $1.77B. I think those figures are right.

For Rail.
So running light rail at grade is the cheapest option which I think is better for suburban to suburban areas where it isn't as dense and maybe car driving is more preferable to public transit. $100-$125/mile.
Subways are the most expensive in American cities at $600-900+ per mile.
Elevated Rail (only example is Honolulu) at $500M/mile.

Quote:
Originally Posted by jmecklenborg View Post
I remember a long time ago someone offering the simple rule of thumb that elevated is 2x what surface costs, and subway is 3x the cost of surface.

The structure that supports heavy rail obviously needs to be more robust than one that supports light rail, but I don't know why HRT subway is more expensive than LRT subway, other than the use of a somewhat wider bore.
It's this math that inevitably leads to building at-grade LRT. The Expo line spent $2.5 billion to build 13.9 miles of track, while the Purple line is going to spend $7.8 billion to build just 9.1 miles of track (~4.7x more per mile). And yet the Expo line has currently has a crush capacity of 6,540 riders per hour (218 riders per car with 3 car trains and 6 minute headways), and the Red line 10,836 (301 riders per car with 6 car trains and 10 minute headways). HRT has 5x the cost for only 1.6x the capacity (or LRT has 20% the cost for 60% of the capacity if you prefer). Even if you ran trains with 5 minute headways, as Metro does where the Purple and Red lines intersect, HRT still isn't as cost effective as at-grade LRT.

While HRT undoubtedly provides a nicer rider experience, is more reliable, and encourages more people to utilize it Metro is required by law and its own regulations to make choices based upon this math, the system that does the most and costs the least.
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