Thursday, September 1, 2016

The Fed.Gov is saving money, for a change

Credit where credit is due:
The Federal Transit Administration has informed Honolulu Area Rapid Transit (HART) that it will not help cover cost overruns associated with the agency’s 20-mile rail line. The project was originally supposed to cost about $5.1 billion, which was already ridiculously expensive, but now is projected to cost at least $8 billion and possibly as much as $11 billion.
The FTA has a long-standing policy that it won’t help cover cost overruns (a policy that is sometimes overturned by Congress). But in this case, the FTA has added a new twist. In light of the cost overruns, HART has proposed to build just part of the project, leaving uncompleted the five miles of the line that would have attracted the most riders. But the FTA says that, in that case, it won’t be giving HART $1.55 billion that the agency is counting on. That means HART won’t even be able to complete the part of the project that it planned.
The whole plan is nuts (RTWT for the gory details), but kudos to the FTA for saying no bueno to the request for more dosh.

3 comments:

Old NFO said...

Inouye dies and they lose all his clout...LOL

talnik said...

11 billion for 20 miles, gee, if my math is right..."that would be what is $104,000 per linear foot, Alex?"

McChuck said...

That's nothing. The airport extension of the Washington metro costs over a billion dollars per mile. The replacement for the freeway bridge over the Potomac was three billion over budget BEFORE they started construction.