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Originally Posted by s.p.hansen
I understand what you are saying. I understand topographical challenges. I understand different priorities. But Cirrus, you are like the biggest transit nerd around in the Mountain West, you understand the differences between heavy rail, commuter rail, light rail, streetcar, BRT, etc, better than all of us.
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I didn't know you were familiar with
Cirrus. Handsome nerd, certainly.
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It's literally like they hired the people who did BART and then last minute decided, "well shit, we still want busses underground and we want street level engagement in one of our poorest neighborhoods, let's just keep the BART design, edit a few things, and switch the mode to light rail."
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I wouldn't doubt that your guess is that far off. Still, while your questions are valid and totally fair, we're making blind assumptions w/o a Seattle rep to shed some light.
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They spent 2.4 billion on 16 miles of light rail (bearing in mind the tunnel under downtown was already built in the 80's and cost very little to outfit with rail as part of those 16 miles). We spent about the same to get 44.8 miles of light rail and 60 plus miles of commuter rail with more overall riders (over twice as many riders not counting commuter rail).
The amount of money Denver and Salt Lake City have expended on light rail (we'll say pre FasTracks) opened up transit options to a greater amount of the population. Denver and Salt Lake City = Less money with more people out of cars
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I couldn't recall specifically but it seemed you spent about $40-ish million per mile for light rail. Denver is spending roughly 50% more per mile. Seattle spent a cool $150 million per mile. Wowser!
But such simplistic comparisons don't explain differences in ROW acquisition costs, bridge and unique infrastructure costs, utility relocation costs, maintenance facility needs, storm/drainage costs, labor costs etc.