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.
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
Also trams have less ongoing costs because less drivers are needed to move the same amount of people