Quote:
Originally Posted by Suiram
Thats not right. Underground could be as little as $200 million a mile if you include reasonable non-US examples. Above ground could be as low as $50-80 million a mile. Thats all excluding right of ways.
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For one I was using the Paris and Berlin expansions which were recent as benchmarks and I adjusted the cost, which was $250 Million per
kilometer , into cost per mile which you might have missed. You're low end cost is probably using cost figures from Spain to form the low end (MetroSur being a prominent example) which presents manifold problems:
1) Metrosur was paid for and completed 15 years ago so those figures are stale;
2) Madrid's metro utilizes small trains which allow for construction of just a single tunnel which simplifies construction;
3) The soil in that region is basically compacted sand making tunneling fairly simple;
4) Madrid has been running numerous construction programs consecutively meaning there were economies of scale that greatly reduced costs per additional mile;
5) The stations are also smaller and thus easier to build;
6) Fire safety standards are more relaxed than would be permitted in North America; and
7) No environmental impact assessments are carried out and community involvement/engagement is limited.
So yes we could construct a subway for $100 million per mile if we had a decade or two of continuous subway construction, used smaller trains, built smaller stations, relaxed our fire codes, held no public meetings, performed none of the requisite impact studies, and transported Chicago to a place where the underground geology is basically uncontaminated sand.
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