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- Path: sparky!uunet!elroy.jpl.nasa.gov!sun-barr!olivea!sgigate!sgi!classic.asd.sgi.com!jeremy
- From: jeremy@classic.asd.sgi.com (Jeremy Higdon)
- Newsgroups: ba.transportation
- Subject: Re: Alliance for a Paving Moratorium (Alert)
- Message-ID: <u03e9no@sgi.sgi.com>
- Date: 24 Dec 92 06:13:38 GMT
- References: <1992Dec23.005006.2291@pbhye.PacBell.COM> <tumbucs@sgi.sgi.com> <1992Dec23.150919.7450@pbhye.PacBell.COM>
- Sender: jeremy@classic.asd.sgi.com
- Organization: Silicon Graphics, Inc. Mountain View, CA
- Lines: 25
-
- In article <1992Dec23.150919.7450@pbhye.PacBell.COM>, mjvande@pbhye.PacBell.COM (Mike Vandeman) writes:
- > -- --- Light rail is more cost-effective than freeway construction.
- > -- Estimates for urban freeway construction range as high as $1
- > -- billion per mile, while new light rail costs only $10 to $16
- > -- million per mile.
- > -
- > -Where do they get this stuff? The light rail built in Santa Clara
- > -county was far more expensive than this, while the freeways were far
- > -less expensive. Don't they think they can make their point without
- > -gross exaggeration?
- >
- > It's not much of an exaggeration. The Cypress Freeway will cost over
- > a $billion for 1.5 miles. You must be talking about construction of
- > additional lanes in existing ROW. What about highway 85??
-
- I don't know the exact cost of 85, but I've read it before. I think
- it's under one billion for the whole thing. The SCCTD lrt was 25
- million per mile, and I believe it got the ROW for free. I can
- believe that one mile of 8 lane elevated freeway where they have to
- buy all the property from scratch might be one billion dollars, but
- that is not the typical case. Similarly, building a light rail line
- in such a situation will cost substantially more than 10 to 16
- million per mile, even though its ROW is cheaper.
-
- jeremy
-