Aren't interest rates higher than you're assuming?
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How many bus routes could we upgrade to 12-minute frequency?quincunx wrote: ↑Mar 25, 2023You could rebuild and widen 52 miles of I70 for that much.
No idea. I just cut 30% off the top because it appeared typical based on my very brief look at the existing GO bonds listed here…quincunx wrote:Aren't interest rates higher than you're assuming?
https://www.stlouis-mo.gov/government/d ... 1-2021.pdf
I believe Metro’s bus operations cost about $150 per hour per bus. So $340 million (StLs share) would cover 2.3 million operating hours. They’ve reported providing between 1.0 to 1.2 million annually since COVID. They could stretch that 2.3 out over 10yrs but eventually the money will be gone and bus service will stink again.MarkHaversham wrote:How many bus routes could we upgrade to 12-minute frequency?quincunx wrote: ↑Mar 25, 2023You could rebuild and widen 52 miles of I70 for that much.
It sure would make sense to bring the light rail down Chippewa and then north down Kingshighway to Natural Bridge.
If I'm not mistaken it will go to Chippewa. Unfortunately, it will not make it to Natural Bridge and Kingshighway, which I think is a missed opportunity.STLAPTS wrote: ↑Mar 25, 2023It sure would make sense to bring the light rail down Chippewa and then north down Kingshighway to Natural Bridge.
If it ran west down Chippewa it would intersect with Kingshighway. North down Kingshighway to Natural Bridge would create a nice North - South Loop that would allow for easy future expansion.goat314 wrote: ↑Mar 25, 2023If I'm not mistaken it will go to Chippewa. Unfortunately, it will not make it to Natural Bridge and Kingshighway, which I think is a missed opportunitySTLAPTS wrote: ↑Mar 25, 2023It sure would make sense to bring the light rail down Chippewa and then north down Kingshighway to Natural Bridge.
Oh I see what you're saying. I don't think that's the long term plan. In the long term they wanted to go south down I-55 to I-270.STLAPTS wrote: ↑Mar 25, 2023If it ran west down Chippewa it would intersect with Kingshighway. North down Kingshighway to Natural Bridge would create a nice North - South Loop that would allow for easy future expansion.goat314 wrote: ↑Mar 25, 2023If I'm not mistaken it will go to Chippewa. Unfortunately, it will not make it to Natural Bridge and Kingshighway, which I think is a missed opportunitySTLAPTS wrote: ↑Mar 25, 2023It sure would make sense to bring the light rail down Chippewa and then north down Kingshighway to Natural Bridge.
The proposed county extension currently under study does exactly that. This initial alignment is being designed with the city's ability to fund it first and foremost. If you add extensions down Chippewa and elsewhere, you'll just kill the project. The city's transit sales tax doesn't raise enough to build all that at one time. That's why previous plans in 2008 and 2018 never went anywhere...we never had the money for those larger, more expansive routes.goat314 wrote: ↑Mar 25, 2023If I'm not mistaken it will go to Chippewa. Unfortunately, it will not make it to Natural Bridge and Kingshighway, which I think is a missed opportunity.STLAPTS wrote: ↑Mar 25, 2023It sure would make sense to bring the light rail down Chippewa and then north down Kingshighway to Natural Bridge.
Hence the second phase involving North County...with Page and Jones on the same page, there's slightly more of a chance that the county could help pay for extending the line further up Natural Bridge and into North County.
Yeah, I agree it would be great if we could just SimCity this and build what we want when we want it. But it doesn't work like that.
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You could not have a MetroLink with dedicated ROW on Chippewa just west of Jefferson.
I don't see how it could be done.
I don't see how it could be done.
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goat314 wrote: ↑Mar 25, 2023They are now estimating that the 5.6 Mile North-South Metrolink will now cost $850M. That's crazy how much costs have inflated in the last decade or so. I remember it being about that much when it was first proposed for a project that would go to Natural Bridge and Kingshighway. At this cost it would be about $146M/mile. Why is street running light rail so damn expensive? Also, I noticed that the FTA would cover 60% now, has the rule changed recently? I always thought it was reduced to 50%. I long for the days when 80% of the costs were covered by the Feds, but we know that will never happen again. Either way the local match for the N-S Metrolink would be around $340M, which is doable and Roach claims that FTA officials were impressed with the plans. So, I guess at this point it's really up to local officials if this project fails. Fortunately, Mayor Jones and Crongresswoman Bush are in big support of the project. Page also seems to be moving forward in the County, but who knows how that will go forward. What is really pathetic is how Slay and Stenger really held this project back, this thing would probably be opening this year if not for them.
I believe 6% is now used as a annual inflation factor on federally funded projects until construction year, so 7 years * 6% is a lot of fluff that hopefully won’t be there after next year if inflation falls
Infrastructure costs in the US are completely out of control. Even Europe, where everything tends to be less efficient, is much better at building rail (approximately 4 to 5 times cheaper to build in London or Rome vs NYC). Many "buy American" or "buy Union" regulations contribute to this by creating effective contracting monopolies.
For those that actually want to see the website…here’s the link lol.
https://growingmetrolink.com/
Same site they’ve had for previous plans…just a small update with the new alignment.
https://growingmetrolink.com/
Same site they’ve had for previous plans…just a small update with the new alignment.
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Maybe we should just have government-owned public works firms instead of contracting everything out?kipfilet wrote: ↑Mar 27, 2023Infrastructure costs in the US are completely out of control. Even Europe, where everything tends to be less efficient, is much better at building rail (approximately 4 to 5 times cheaper to build in London or Rome vs NYC). Many "buy American" or "buy Union" regulations contribute to this by creating effective contracting monopolies.
Yeah, there was an article floating around Twitter recently about how the lack of planning, engineering and design capacity at transit agencies is a big reason why American projects cost so much money.MarkHaversham wrote: ↑Mar 28, 2023Maybe we should just have government-owned public works firms instead of contracting everything out?kipfilet wrote: ↑Mar 27, 2023Infrastructure costs in the US are completely out of control. Even Europe, where everything tends to be less efficient, is much better at building rail (approximately 4 to 5 times cheaper to build in London or Rome vs NYC). Many "buy American" or "buy Union" regulations contribute to this by creating effective contracting monopolies.
I think a combination would work well. Have the capacity to do most of the planning, engineering, and project managing but bid out the work to a bunch of smaller companies.PeterXCV wrote: ↑Mar 28, 2023Yeah, there was an article floating around Twitter recently about how the lack of planning, engineering and design capacity at transit agencies is a big reason why American projects cost so much money.MarkHaversham wrote: ↑Mar 28, 2023Maybe we should just have government-owned public works firms instead of contracting everything out?kipfilet wrote: ↑Mar 27, 2023Infrastructure costs in the US are completely out of control. Even Europe, where everything tends to be less efficient, is much better at building rail (approximately 4 to 5 times cheaper to build in London or Rome vs NYC). Many "buy American" or "buy Union" regulations contribute to this by creating effective contracting monopolies.
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Do you mean at the federal level...? Could fold it into the corp of engineers i guess... would be fine i guess but not sure how regional priorities are set. Even Highways are run by state DOTs. Does MoDOT take the responsibility...? Do they have enough transit work to maintain the technical capability.
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It would be tough to pull off, it has to be done locally and you aren't always building new lines, what are the extra 50-70 engineers needed for a line extension like this going to do rest of the time?
Modot does very little design work itself, most of its engineers are reviewing consultants designs to ensure it meets specs. its very rare that modot design dept takes a big project from start to finish, i cant even recall any during my 7 years with the agency
Modot does very little design work itself, most of its engineers are reviewing consultants designs to ensure it meets specs. its very rare that modot design dept takes a big project from start to finish, i cant even recall any during my 7 years with the agency
I guess in Europe it seems like a city is building new and renovating something at all times. When infra isn’t crazy expensive, you build a lot more of itdbInSouthCity wrote:It would be tough to pull off, it has to be done locally and you aren't always building new lines, what are the extra 50-70 engineers needed for a line extension like this going to do rest of the time?
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Well my suggestion was originally in response to the statement that the costs are due to "buy union" regulations; I don't think engineers are unionized. What's causing the increase in cost compared to Europe, is it design or labor firms?dbInSouthCity wrote: ↑Mar 28, 2023It would be tough to pull off, it has to be done locally and you aren't always building new lines, what are the extra 50-70 engineers needed for a line extension like this going to do rest of the time?
Modot does very little design work itself, most of its engineers are reviewing consultants designs to ensure it meets specs. its very rare that modot design dept takes a big project from start to finish, i cant even recall any during my 7 years with the agency
^I'll summarize:
Because Americans are litigious, myopic a**holes;
Because most American institutions are sclerotic at best and irredeemably corrupt and incompetent at worst;
Because the US ruling classes at all levels of society (capitalists and their government toadies) are primarily engaged with preserving their status within and then looting said institutions, rather than reforming or replacing them in pursuit of some collective good.
There are of course exceptions to all of the above.
Because Americans are litigious, myopic a**holes;
Because most American institutions are sclerotic at best and irredeemably corrupt and incompetent at worst;
Because the US ruling classes at all levels of society (capitalists and their government toadies) are primarily engaged with preserving their status within and then looting said institutions, rather than reforming or replacing them in pursuit of some collective good.
There are of course exceptions to all of the above.
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interesting article even if not really a conclusive explanation. good summary of factors I guess
major factors for cost as i gathered
-bureaucracy (EIS was an example)
-NIMBYs, contrarians and costs related to litigation
-property rites
-restrictions related impacts to existing infrastructure
-lack of experience because we don't build enough transit to be good at building transit
it rejects labor and material costs since those are high in other places where the dollar for dollar return is significantly higher
its amazing because all of these things seem addressable through smart laws that support transit and consistent committed funding at the federal and state level. of course you can't get good legislation because the citizenry aren't all that interested in transit and thus don't demand its support at those levels of government.
I would significantly lower the bar for EIS and eminent domain when in direct support of transit development in urban areas.
I would consider a pooled resource approach with other metros that would maintain a consistent engineering and project management core competencies I don't think its possible to get states or feds to sign on, but a coalition of urban areas might be achievable since they have aligned interests.
major factors for cost as i gathered
-bureaucracy (EIS was an example)
-NIMBYs, contrarians and costs related to litigation
-property rites
-restrictions related impacts to existing infrastructure
-lack of experience because we don't build enough transit to be good at building transit
it rejects labor and material costs since those are high in other places where the dollar for dollar return is significantly higher
its amazing because all of these things seem addressable through smart laws that support transit and consistent committed funding at the federal and state level. of course you can't get good legislation because the citizenry aren't all that interested in transit and thus don't demand its support at those levels of government.
I would significantly lower the bar for EIS and eminent domain when in direct support of transit development in urban areas.
I would consider a pooled resource approach with other metros that would maintain a consistent engineering and project management core competencies I don't think its possible to get states or feds to sign on, but a coalition of urban areas might be achievable since they have aligned interests.
The “deep dive” into NYC subway costs always point out its the amount of labor that’s is off not just high pay.STLEnginerd wrote:interesting article even if not really a conclusive explanation. good summary of factors I guess
major factors for cost as i gathered
-bureaucracy (EIS was an example)
-NIMBYs, contrarians and costs related to litigation
-property rites
-restrictions related impacts to existing infrastructure
-lack of experience because we don't build enough transit to be good at building transit
it rejects labor and material costs since those are high in other places where the dollar for dollar return is significantly higher
its amazing because all of these things seem addressable through smart laws that support transit and consistent committed funding at the federal and state level. of course you can't get good legislation because the citizenry aren't all that interested in transit and thus don't demand its support at those levels of government.
I would significantly lower the bar for EIS and eminent domain when in direct support of transit development in urban areas.
I would consider a pooled resource approach with other metros that would maintain a consistent engineering and project management core competencies I don't think its possible to get states or feds to sign on, but a coalition of urban areas might be achievable since they have aligned interests.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/28/nyre ... costs.html