There’s very little discussion of LRT in Victoria these days. The biggest problem is sticker shock of the $950 million price tag thrown out. (We have to pay for sewage treatment too, right?)
Cost estimates for LRT in both Victoria and Surrey have hundreds of millions of dollars of road projects thrown in. It’s interesting to compare the differences in per-kilometre estimates of different rail transit lines, with and without the flab:
Skytrain Evergreen Line … $127 million/km
Surrey LRT … $63 million to 81.5 million/km
Victoria LRT … $62 million/km
Waterloo, Ont. LRT … $34.25 million/km
Waterloo costs are for everything, including trams, but with a fairly modest $61 million in road and other non-rail improvements factored out.
Louis Guilbault, Victoria
