Taxpayers Beware – Seattle’s Newest Subway Is Costing $400 Million A Kilometre
This story should be sounding alarm bells everywhere, Seattle's newest subway, a mere 4.8 km long, is set to cost a massive USD $2 billion or about USD $400 million per km to build, making this insane project one of the worlds more expensive subway projects!
'Zwei' never supported Seattle's so-called LRT line because it is really a very expensive hybrid light rail/metro line with many kilometres of route on elevated viaduct or in deep tunnels. It is not classic light rail and only small portions of the line can be considered true light rail. It's paltry daily ridership supports 'Zwei's' contention that the entire line has been over built and built in the wrong location.
What is being built is not light rail at all, rather a super expensive subway operating light rail vehicles instead of heavy rail subway cars. It is LRT in name only.
This new Seattle subway poses several questions; including; "Is the costs for the completed Canada line accurate?"
More importantly: "Is TransLink's estimates for subway construction under Broadway accurate?"
Seattle's hybrid light metro/rail system makes a mockery out of fiscally sound transit planning and this multi billion dollar 5 km. subway looks more like civic penis envy on steroids than sound transit planning.
Boring to begin Monday on light-rail link to UW
This week, Sound Transit will start drilling a $2 billion, three-mile light-rail tunnel to connect the University of Washington, Capitol Hill and Westlake Center.
This week, Sound Transit will start drilling a $2 billion, three-mile light-rail tunnel to connect the University of Washington, Capitol Hill and Westlake Center.
Boring machines will work around the clock for more than a year. Trucks will carry away dirt, while others will deliver arc-shaped segments to build the tunnel walls. Then rails will be installed, and stations constructed.
The fruit of all that labor and noise is a direct line joining three of the premier transit hubs in Washington state.
The first machine will be christened Monday in a ceremony outside Husky Stadium by Sen. Patty Murray, D-Wash., Federal Transit Administrator Peter Rogoff and other dignitaries.
That machine will bore the southbound tunnel south toward Capitol Hill.
A second machine will start the parallel northbound tube in June. Also in June, a third machine will start at Capitol Hill and go one mile toward Westlake Center, be retracted from a pit next to the Paramount Theatre, then return and dig the parallel tube.
The route is scheduled to open by September 2016. The new First Hill Streetcar, due in 2013, will link Capitol Hill Station to the existing International District/Chinatown Station.
Voters approved a UW line in a 1996 regional plan, but cost estimates were off by more than $1 billion, forcing delays and alignment changes.
The long-awaited route is estimated to attract 70,000 daily passengers by 2030 — even more if the agency completes three suburban lines to Lynnwood, Overlake and Highline Community College.
"As the system is completed, this is going to be a big deal," said Josh Kavanagh, UW transportation director.
Ridership estimates can go awry, as illustrated by the existing downtown-to-airport line, currently drawing 21,000 boardings a day instead of the targeted 26,000.
On the other hand, the UW campus, Seattle University and Seattle Central Community College are proven transit markets with a combined enrollment of 56,000. Two of every five UW students and employees take transit already, another two-fifths carpool, bike or walk, and only a fifth drive alone.
