Quote:
Originally Posted by Innsertnamehere
shifting traffic lanes around is all pretty basic stuff. it adds costs no doubt but not huge ones.
The cost increase I imagine came from slow cost creep from construction inflation tied with full realization of the complexity building on old urban streets. Increased property requirements, the need for a replacement of the Longwood Road bridge, the Frid Street Extension, etc. all probably fed into the high costs of the line. The City is smartly sticking as many projects as humanely possible onto the line because Metrolinx is generally a willing payer... the line is an incredible deal for the city.. Metrolinx is basically handing them $3 billion in construction work. While much of that is LRT related, probably at least $500 million or so is stuff the city would have had to or wanted to do at some point without it.
I remember hearing at some point that the rail underpass in the Delta neighbourhood is going to cost some absurd amount and was a big driver of cost increases as well.
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I meant the reference to "reconstruction and resurfacing of many other streets downtown", not just King and not just shifting lanes around (e.g., widening York back to 6 lanes would not be difficult, and it can probably use a re-pave but isn't in that bad a shape overall so a reconstruction can probably wait). If that stuff was in the original plan and still is, it could be a significant driver of construction cost increases and maybe the original estimates for such work were too low.
Annual escalation of construction costs usually exceeds regular inflation rates by a lot, so that's a key one too.
The Longwood bridge and the rail underpass are definitely big projects in their own right. The bridge alone will save the city major bucks.