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.
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.