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The cost of 14 miles of tunnels (and crossing the Thames and some smaller rivers, crossrail is under $2.5b. The entire project including half a dozen new statio
by isostatic 9y ago
The cost of 14 miles of tunnels (and crossing the Thames and some smaller rivers, crossrail is under $2.5b. The entire project including half a dozen new stations entirely underground and a ton of electrification is $20b. That includes threading the line through a very congested underground area - tunnels within 12 inch of existing tunnels etc. The cost of the 2 mile branch of the pair of tunnels under the Thames was about $350m, cheaper per mile than the main tunnels.
The jubilee line extension crossed the Thames 3 times and cost $5b for the entire project including new underground stations and 6 miles of new tunnels.
- nshelly 9y agoWhile I think the US has massive cost overruns compared to other developed nations, and this fact makes a huge selling point to the public on a need for political reform, I think we should compare smaller projects to explain why. Let's compare one cost and time to fix a street light, or a train carriage in London, Paris, Seattle and NYC. Or even building a public playground. This would probably explain in detail how the cost of labor, planning parts, etc is so much more in parts of the US than overseas. Until US cities can do projects that are small than unfortunately it can't expect the public to really want to fund these larger, much more expensive projects.