No Light Rail in Vancouver!

My, My, Light-Rail Corruption!

Apr 12

2007

The Maricopa County Sheriff is investigating possible corruption in the construction of the $1.4 billion, 20-mile Phoenix light-rail project.

The investigation may relate to the project’s former construction chief. Last October, it was discovered that she offered to pay a consultant team extra money if it hired a friend of hers. When the firm refused, she revoked a $150,000 work order for the company. When this was made public, she was fired, but the agency decided what she did was only unethical, not illegal.

But the real question is: how can they manage to spend $70 million a mile building a light-rail line in Phoenix? The city is flat and they don’t need any tunnels or fancy bridges.

Indeed, the only serious structure of any kind on the line is the quarter-mile bridge across Tempe Town Lake. The bridge will be illuminated at night with computer-controlled LEDs that will either glow when a train is on the bridge or do various light shows. The bridge cost less than $22 million, or not a whole lot more than $70 million per mile. But why is the rest of the line so expensive?

Back in 1998, planners projected the light-rail line would cost $30 million a mile, and that was supposed to account for inflation. Do you think anyone would have gone along with the idea then if they knew the cost would more than double?

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Reprinted from The Antiplanner