Jeff Smith wrote: ↑Tue Oct 31, 2023 4:24 am
New website: https://www.tjpa.org/
Cost Swells: SFStandard.com
Cost of San Francisco Downtown Rail Extension Swells to $8.2B
A planned Downtown San Francisco rail extension called The Portal is about to get much more expensive, according to an estimate presented at a regional transit meeting Wednesday.
The proposed rail tunnel is intended to connect Caltrain—and future high-speed trains—at the Fourth and King streets station to the massive new Salesforce Transit Center. Project costs have ballooned from $6.5 billion to a staggering $8.25 billion since October 2022, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Commission.
The cost increase is attributed to a mix of factors, including inflation, expanding project timelines and a risk assessment from the Federal Transit Administration that determined that the prior cost estimate was unrealistic, according to John Goodwin, a spokesperson for the Metropolitan Transportation Commission.
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The authority is eyeing 2025 to begin heavy civil engineering and tunnel work for The Portal, she said.
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In 2022, the rail extension was rebranded as The Portal to “generate excitement” about the project, according to the Transbay Joint Powers Authority.
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Some math follows: 8.25 / 6.0 x 100 = 137.5%
Yet, advocates are not surprised how quickly budgets get blown.
For some unknown reasons, Californians never expect capital projects to be built on time and on budget.