Josh Dowlut's  Instablog

The Chunnel cost approximately $499 million per mile in 2011 U.S. dollars. (The cost was 4.65 billion 1985 British pounds. Converting to 2011 U.S. dollars gives us 15.65 billion; the Chunnel is 31 miles long.)

The underground portion of the Baltimore Red Line will cost $481 million per mile.

Overall Baltimore Red Line cost is $152 million per mile, that’s $28,735 per running foot.

*Math walk through is below. Skip it if you trust me.*

The Baltimore Red Line has a proposed cost of $2.2 billion to run a total of 14.5 miles, an overall average cost of $152 million per mile, which places it among the most expensive ever built. Seattle’s new system opened in 2009 at a per mile cost of $179 million. Plans are for the Red Line to run underground for downtown Baltimore and Fells Point, plus a small stretch in western Baltimore that will dip under a busy intersection. This maps out to 3.9 miles. 10.6 miles will be above ground. Multiplying the average per mile construction cost of above-ground light rail transit (converted from 2002 dollars to 2011 dollars) by the number of miles above ground gives us 30.65 times 10.6 = 325 million. Subtract that from the 2.2 billion total cost gives us a $1.875 billion cost for the remaining 3.9 miles to be tunneled. 1.875B divided by the 3.9 miles gives us a cost per mile of $481 million.

*End of the math walk through*

Note: The Chunnel’s figures are after the fact, actual costs. The Baltimore Red Line’s figures are government estimates. I’d lay good money that the final cost will be more than a rounding error north of its estimate.

Without the tunneling, the cost of the project falls by 80%, from $2.2 billion, to $444 million based on prior above-ground cost-per-mile estimate. Another way to look at it is that putting just one-quarter of the project underground raises the cost of the entire project by a factor of 5.

You could almost afford to put all 14.5 miles of the entire project on a raised monorail, with such a system costing $2.88 billion based on the $166 million per mile that it cost to build that Las Vegas monorail, adjusted to 2011 dollars.

Better yet, you could cut the entire cost of the project in half (and still avoid downtown traffic) by using a raised platform instead of a tunnel. Using Las Vegas’ $166 million per mile figure, you’d be at 166 times 3.9 miles for $647 million, plus 10.6 times 30.65 for $325 million. Total project cost would be $972 million. Is it really worth a billion extra dollars to dig a hole?

Here's another and far cheaper alternative that accomplishes almost the same goal: There is an existing 4000 foot stretch of existing subway tunnel that runs exactly parallel to the proposed Red Line tunnel, exactly 2 blocks north, that would avoid the worst of the downtown traffic. TheRed Line website estimates the cost of cutting into and converting this tunnel for sharing to be approximately $200 million, significantly less than the $1.8 billion that digging a new mile-long tunnel will cost.

Questions and points to ponder:

• Why is the federal government considering paying 50% of the cost of a project that is barely even a state level project? Only Baltimore City and Baltimore County will benefit from this. Getting residents of Maryland’s Eastern Shore and the DC suburbs to pay for this is a stretch. Asking Californians and New Yorkers to pay for this is in the realm of "You’ve gotta be kidding me."
• Public infrastructure should be paid for by the lowest level of government that matches its coverage. If it's not crossing state lines, other states shouldn’t pay anything for it.
• Maryland’s prevailing wage laws and the federal Davis Bacon Actdrive up the cost of these projects. It is a case of concentrated benefits of those who enjoy above-market wages, against the diffuse costs passed onto tax payers who pay for it. The purpose of government is not to provide an oasis of above-market jobs. It is to provide its customers (taxpayers) as much value as possible. That means getting workers to work for as little as possible, not the other way around.
• Many of these projects have become grab bags for favored contractors, rather than quests to provide value for the taxpayer. Maryland’s State Highway Administration has awarded big contracts to many who used to work in the office.
• Consider all the man hours and brain power that are going towards figuring out how to spend the tax dollars of California residents on a Maryland project, rather than designing and engineering this project.
• Preliminary planning will cost $65 million. That’s $4.5 million per mile, $849 per running foot, to PLAN, not to build. Whose campaign do I have to fund get a piece of that contract?