The comment section from the last post is about to overflow, so here is an open thread to keep the discussions going. Some noteworthy developments fished out of the previous comments:
- Caltrain's corridor-wide grade separation strategy continues to evolve towards its final form, with a prioritized list of grade separations due for adoption this summer. Of note, grade separations are now allowed 2% grades without a design exception, which removes the need to design an entire 1% project before seeking the exception. Steeper grades are a good start for shorter grade separations, but we also need to reduce freight train speeds to 45 mph throughout the corridor to tighten up vertical curve radii. A freight train requires the same vertical curve radius at 45 mph as a passenger train at 110 mph, such that freight speed limits any higher than 45 mph result in freight-driven designs that are longer and more expensive to build. An important but neglected part of the grade separation strategy should be to reduce the freight train speed limit from 50 mph to 45 mph.
- Speaking of grade separations, costs continue to rise out of control, with the Broadway project in Burlingame (see agenda item 11 of the March 3rd city council meeting) flirting with $900 million. It's not just inflation. A grade separation cost model discussed a few years ago predicted that, after adjusting for inflation, the Broadway project should cost $120M all-up, including the "soft cost" category that today forms a metastasizing cancer on these projects. The city is now considering deleting the Broadway station (not a bad decision, due to proximity to Bvrlingame) to bring costs down to the still eye-watering sum of $600M. This is a prime example of the transportation industrial complex's capture of a project designated as safety-critical, where cost becomes no object because you just can't put a price on safety. In this abject fleecing, the city and Caltrain are just along for the ride.
- Development of the BEMU continues, in spite of the looming "fiscal cliff" where one of the most logical cost cutting moves will be to suspend Gilroy service and dispose of the diesel fleet and its attendant operating & maintenance expenses. The BEMU has fewer seats (280) and more batteries (2.3 megawatt-hours) than previously understood, making it even more of a turkey for the $80M pricetag.
- On the bright side: Caltrain's EMU service is holding up nicely! Well done to all involved. Ridership should continue to increase as the freeways rapidly return to pre-pandemic levels of congestion misery. The way this works: 101 overflows onto 280, which overflows onto Caltrain. 280 is starting to get congested again, which augurs well for Caltrain.
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Re: BEMU scam:
ReplyDelete$9.64 million "Project management and administration costs".
Ten million dollars of the purest fattiest lard for contractors and agency do-nothings heaped on top of the $60.98 + $7.47 (because "contingency" on a fraudulent porkfest always means "spend it all") $68.5 million dollars on one single 280-seat train designed to make one round trip a day carrying, optimistically, one hundred humans on one 60 mile round trip on five days per week.
Oh, and another cool million dollars of public cash for unspecifiable "wayside". Maybe they're constructing a marble viewing pavilion in Morgan Hill from which to observe the gold-plated once-daily regal procession as it glides by?
Meanwhile, a normal fully-functional, zero-million-dollar "Project management and administration costs" 200+ seat Stadler FLIRT (like the ones running in Dallas) costs about $15 million, all in, including "Buy American" ~40% overhead. (Not that Gilroy service can possibly justuify any new trains, ever. Or any trains at all.)
Meanwhile, a normal fully-functional zero-million-dollar "project management and administration costs" over the road bus costs under a million dollars. Go ahead, splurge a bit in case ridership shatters expectations ... buy two buses! So indulgent.
TEN MILLION DOLLARS of overhead. SEVEN MILLION DOLLARS of "contingency" (against what? Bank robbery? Inside job!)
You see why these things have a life of their own.
You see why the country and the planet are doomed.
It's one banana, Michael. What could it cost? Ten dollars?
Criminals. Fucking criminals.
Redwood City’s Jefferson Avenue grade separation (fully-depressed street underpass built using a shoofly) only cost around $10m in 1999/2000.
ReplyDeleteThe preferred Broadway grade separation design that fully elevates the tracks over the street and includes a new center-boarding station is clearly inherently more costly … but (admittedly unfairly ignoring inflation) $889m is like 89 Jefferson grade seps and well over one-third the $2.44b cost of the entire 7-year systemwide electrification and fleet replacement.
All planned grade seps and bike/ped underpasses (e.g. Menlo Park @ Middle, Sunnyvale @ Bernardo, and the deferred-due-to-insanely-5-story-high-over-catenary-design-and-hence-cost NFO overpass) are being hit & hobbled by similar cost increases.
Something is seriously wrong with this picture.
You're right, these things are insane. I suspect a lot of this has to do with nonstandard designs, and varying levels of competence among governments up and down the corridor. On top of that, there's an over reliance on consultants because there's no in-house competency which just increases costs 20%+ at each and every stage. See Alon Levy's project on construction costs for best practices that align with this.
DeleteI think there are two solutions, one short term and one long term that need to happen:
1. Short term: We need a project authority that is backed by counties, state gov, Caltrain, and transit agencies that is dedicated solely to grade separations. This authority should have a standardized design kit and stable of engineers that can do the design work, the environmental work, permitting, etc. They also can do oversight, meaning that the only things that would go out to contract would be the construction aspect of the grade separations. From there, this authority expertise and staffing can be folded into MTC or even the state level.
2. Long term: At the state level, we need a good rail department like the highway department that has standardized design kits, standardized contracts, a group of engineers and professionals that do the design, clearance, and management work in-house up and down the state. Ideally, a lot of CAHSR staff with their expertise can go to this department and serve not just CAHSR but the entire state in managing, designing, and delivering these rail projects like the highway department already does today, IMO.