Quote:
Originally Posted by Lobotomizer
If a rail line is was bursting at the seams with passengers, and needing an expansion of service it would be considered a success.
How many miles of rail has DART up in Dallas built? Isn't it the most extensive light rail system in the US? How many billions of dollars have been spent? And how many people ride those trains?
Hundreds of thousands of cars cross the Colorado River on I-35 every single day. Spending $4.5 billion to upgrade it is reasonable.
Compare that to Project Connect's price tag of $7 billion. How many people do you think will cross the Colorado River on the train every day?
I-35 expansion is a much better use of taxpayer dollars if you look at it logically. That's not to say Project Connect is not a worthy endeavor, but it will never carry as many passengers as I-35. When considering that it will cost billions of more dollars to build, it is not the obvious choice if you had to choose.
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Total traffic counts on I35 are a bit south of 200k, so not hundreds of thousands of cars.
How many people will cross the Colorado on the light rail? Infinitely more than cross it on rail today.
But how many more will cross it on I35 after billons of dollars of upgrades? TxDot claims ~0 additional drivers (their environmental impact statement said ~0 additional VMT).
Your cost estimates are also apples to oranges. The light rail is 5B in today's dollars (including 40% contingency), the 7B figure was future YOE dollars. The I35 cost hasn't been updated in years. It's pre-inflation. It will certainly be 10B+ in YOE dollars by the time it's through.
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