Quote:
Originally Posted by priller
Doesn't that price tag seem a bit optimistic??
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No, that price tag is almost certainly ballpark. This is a very simple project for which a successful execution has nowhere near the engineering complexity of projects such as the Big Dig or similar projects whose scales were much larger.
This is a 25 block project - 15 blocks between Cesar Chavez and 15th, the couple of blocks between the river and Cesar Chavez, and the reconfigurations of the entrances and exits to the new tunnel - at most, whereas other projects such as the Big Dig are of significantly larger scale.
Additionally, there would be no worry about water leaks (not even the river would pose this problem as there it doesn't exert the same pressure as an entire ocean) or degradation from salt erosion such as there were in Boston, removing significant problems of complexity. Our soil and ground composition actually works in our favor here, as the limestone bedding helps maintain structural integrity over the long-term.
There's also the fact that the project is almost entirely straight - and a single tunnel - whereas the Big Dig was a complex system of ramps, exits, entrances, multiple major tunnels, that were all intertwined and (pardon the usage here) curvaceous.
What we should be looking at, I think, are projects like the Woodall Rogers deck park (Klyde Warren Park) in Dallas and expanding that cost to include design, excavation, and the resulting deck park in block multiple of Klyde Warren (which is only 3ish blocks - much larger blocks than downtown Austin, though - at just over 80 million). Using that benchmark, I'd estimate a very similar cost, but probably slightly more expensive at around 650 million.