Why is Victoria’s proposed light rail so expensive?

Our friendsAi??at Bring Back Our Trams in Victoria, like the Rail for the Valley folks on this side of the pond, are beginning to wonder aloud, why the proposed Victoria LRT isAi??very close to beingAi??the most expensive LRT in the world, on a per kilometre basis.

What is even more appalling, local politicians are not asking very important questions of the consultants, SNC Lavalin, why the proposed LRTAi??is so expensive. Fiscally prudent, Victoria’s politicos are not!

I guess the SNC boys and girls think all BC politicos are simple rubes,Ai??who have just fallenAi??off the back of a turnip truck and well they might be, but Zwei thinks there is a more sinister theme to the huge cost of Victoria’s LRT; deliberate over-engineering of the tram project to secure an overly large amountAi??of the taxpayer’s money by deliberately over building, all with the tacit approval of the provincial Liberal government!

Deliberate over-engineering of government projects has been the hallmark of the Liberal administration, which seems to be done mainly to legally give corporate friends huge amounts of the taxpayer’s money without fear of criminal investigation.

This can go a long wayAi??to explainAi??the provincial governments preference building with the SkyTrain light-metro, which in the 21st century has proven inferior in operation with light rail, yet can cost up to ten times more to install than LRT or its variants.Ai??As well,Ai??it can explain the SkyTrain Lobby’s vehement, almost maniacalAi??defense of the light-metro, especially when no one around the world is building with SkyTrain or light metro, for that matter. Building expensive SkyTrain certainly improves the bottom line with cement manufacturers, consultants, engineers, architects, unions, and of course Bombardier Inc., the sole supplier of the SkyTrain proprietary railway.

Today, if one wants light-metro, they just operate light rail on a grade separated rights-of-way, which still enables the LRT/light-metro to retain its inherent flexibility to operate on lesser R-o-W’s if need be. Driverless operation, which was the ‘flavour of the month’ in the 1980 and 90’s, is now seen to be overly expensive to operate and maintain and only used on the most heavily used metro lines.

Yet, in Vancouver TransLink still adheres to the dated SkyTrain philosophy, which more and more is making Vancouver’s regional transit system a very dated anachronism; a historic curiosity.

So why is Victoria’s LRT so expensive?

The most logical answer is that corporate friends and cronies of the provincial government in the Greater Victoria area want their fair share of the taxpayer’s lolly, like their friends in metro Vancouver.

The following is from BBOT Ai??http://www.b-bot.ca/