Quote:
Originally Posted by Truenorth00
I'd agree with this if the starting point wasn't, "It's going to double!".
Also there are so many more knowns with this project than most. The corridor exists. The price for the rolling stock is known (because of the options VIA holds). A lot of this stuff would be variables in any other similar effort.
Lastly, they are spending $70M on an EA and business case, mostly done with outside consultants, that is supposed to at least enable them to pitch to institutional investors. The idea that this is just some loose government project and will therefore double in price is extremely ignorant.
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Extremely ignorant is a bit strong. When someone says it will double in price it can be shorthand for "increase in price significantly" and I don't think it's fair to call someone ignorant just because the exact cost increase wasn't 100%. If the final price of HFR ends up being $8B instead of $5B (or whatever the estimate is), then I don't think the spirit of what swimmer is saying would be incorrect. And to be honest, I'm with swimmer on this one, the cost probably will double, it always does. If it doesn't, I'll be pleasantly surprised and happy to be wrong.
I agree that this project is a relatively low risk one. I would predict the biggest chance of cost escalation would not be in the mainline portion or the trains but in its connections to the cities.