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Old Posted Jun 3, 2020, 1:52 AM
MalcolmTucker MalcolmTucker is offline
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Join Date: May 2007
Posts: 11,429
Yes, it is. The tunnel, and the growth of it has pushed the project into the negative as the length of the project shrunk. Getting from McKenzie Towne to Beddington for the same price and the CBA is positive. If they had started the conceptualization of the project as it being ok to remove road capacity from Centre Street and not mitigate, and remove road capacity in the Beltline and not mitigate, the entire project might be positive and at a much lower price.

Since, of course, it is how you conceptualize much of the tunnel: is it for the benefit of cars travelling through the Beltline, commuting from much further away (not counted) or is it something that should be weighed against the costs of the transit project itself. Also, is having to build a massive station to handle event centre surge transit demand underground a cost that should be weighed against the benefits to the event centre and traffic (not counted), or against transit benefits.


CBAs like this are always limited. What they are good at is weighing different options. They are not good at saying whether something should go forward, unless you do a way more comprehensive job. And the only reason to do a way more comprehensive job is when a funding partner puts a requirement that CBAs find net positives.
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