‘The cheap option’?: why the Gold Coast may be on track to build the most expensive light rail in the world

Submitted ⁨⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago⁩ by ⁨hanrahan@slrpnk.net⁩ to ⁨australia@aussie.zone⁩

https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/article/2024/may/11/the-cheap-option-why-the-gold-coast-may-be-on-track-to-build-the-most-expensive-light-rail-in-the-world

Alon Levy, co-lead of the transportation and land use program at New York University’s Marron Institute, has spent years studying why some countries are able to build transport infrastructure cheaply and others aren’t.

Though the preliminary business case of the expansion of Gold Coast light rail includes few details, Levy estimates that the project may ultimately cost as much as 10 times more than comparable European infrastructure.

Those include, Levy says, a lack of contracting transparency, over-engineering, politicisation, poor allocation of cost risk – and above all, contracting out to the private sector.

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makingStuffForFun@lemmy.ml ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
This is exactly how corruption occurs in Australia, and the man spelled it out in bullet points.

10 x the cost due to corruption.

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Tregetour@lemdro.id ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
Putting aside Big 4 concerns and fiscal irresponsibility, what annoys me is the continued prejudice involved in the mode of transport chosen.

Bus beats the pants off light rail in just about every respect you can think of. It’s quickly scalable up and down, it can be rerouted on a whim, it doesn’t require additional road or electrical infrastructure to operate, spare parts are plentiful and the parts economy is competitive, maintenance overheads are lower, the fleet is amenable to reuse in non-PT contexts, etc.

But none of this counts for much when you realize you’ll sometimes sit near poor people on the bus! The bus does not boost real estate values.

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- Zagorath@aussie.zone ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Light rail is higher capacity. Being separated from the road is an advantage because it makes it more consistent. It costs less to run once it’s built. It’s far more environmentally friendly—even if the buses were electric. It creates a nicer environment for the people living, working, and visiting the area near it (less noise, less inhospitable asphalt, etc.) There are very, very few advantages to buses over light rail.
  
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- vividspecter@lemm.ee ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  Dedicated bus lanes are needed if we want everyone to use it, and not just the poor (since people will typically use the fastest, most convenient option). Buses are also typically worse from an emissions perspective (especially fossil fuel buses) although it depends on the specifics. I’m not sure how that last point is any different with light rail, since all public transport will involve sharing space with poor people.
  
  Nevertheless, I agree that buses can be a good option and might be a better fit in less dense locations in particular. On demand buses are starting to become a good option in rural areas, for example.
  
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  - Zagorath@aussie.zone ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
    
    Australia seems to be arguably overenthusiastic about light rail in general
    
    I have no idea where you get that sense. The Gold Coast light rail has so far been a massive success, proving that it was the right decision. It seems to have been very successful in Newcastle despite the route it takes being utterly ludicrous (incredibly short, only in areas that you’d probably have to drive to to begin with, parallel to a fantastic easy walking path), at least for now until the extensions are built. Sydney’s light rail has been an absolute blowout success.
    
    And yet despite every time it’s been done it being enormously successful, we are still hesitant to do more. The Sunshine Coast has just made the myopic decision to not build light rail. Despite the enormous success of stages 1 and 2, stage 3 won’t be finished until nearly a decade after the completion of the previous stage. Brisbane decided it would go for short team ease rather than the long term superior option. And Newcastle doesn’t seem to have any serious plans for its stage 2 over 5 years since it first opened.
    
    We have some good light rail systems in this country, but we are nowhere near “overenthusiastic”. Quite the opposite.
    
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- Jumuta@sh.itjust.works ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  The ability of buses to be rerouted on a whim isn’t necessarily good though
  
  like I’d much rather plan my life around a tram line than a bus line because of its permanence
  
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- unionagainstdhmo@aussie.zone ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  The light rail makes sense on the Gold Coast as there are fairly well defined routes that need to be serviced by the majority of people going to the Gold Coast, i.e. tourists.
  
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- biscuitswalrus@aussie.zone ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
  I don’t know man, I’d prefer light rail than a banananana bus, you know Brisbane style 3 segment bus…
  
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autotldr@lemmings.world [bot] ⁨6⁩ ⁨months⁩ ago
This is the best summary I could come up with:

Though the preliminary business case of the expansion of Gold Coast light rail includes few details, Levy estimates that the project may ultimately cost as much as 10 times more than comparable European infrastructure.

The state government had a steady supply of work planned years or decades in advance, with economies of scale, zero profit margin, and extremely low borrowing and insurance costs to manage risk.

“This desire to have just simple competition on lowest fixed lump sum price was based on the delusion that the private sector is better at managing risk than government,” Elaurant says.

Many transport engineers, planners and economists spoken to for this story said the public sector bureaucracy no longer has the skills to complete infrastructure projects in-house.

That means governments have little choice but to hire a private expert firm to act as “lead contractor” – responsible for the entire job, not just a small part of it.

The federal Labor government has ordered the commonwealth bureaucracy to set targets for banishing their use in core business, bringing skills and knowledge back in house.

The original article contains 1,675 words, the summary contains 180 words. Saved 89%. I’m a bot and I’m open source!

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