Assembly calls on government to reveal estimated cost of light rail Stage 2B, but there's a catch

I think there are more costs involved such as the purchase of more LR vehicles (ones that are battery powered to through the Parliamentary Triangle) and also I think the Mitchell depot may have been/planning to be renovated/expanded to accommodate more LR vehicles.
There would be other ongoing costs such as staff (drivers and whatever the staff at tram stops meeting and greeting people are called), mechanics to maintain the LR vehicles, cleaners for the LR vehicles, gardening staff/contractors to maintain the flora near the tram lines, power and heating for the LR maintenance depot and lighting for the tram stops and of course the cost of MyWay ticketing system (though this cost can be proportioned across buses as well)

Mark,
That comment shows a complete lack of engineering knowledge.

It is perfectly possible to provide estimates for early stage projects and provide ranges based on identified risks. They aren’t putting together a spaceship.

This is done for almost all major projects.

Funny that even the government knows this when they conveniently released early cost estimates for a city stadium prior to the election last year.

But even if we say your comment is correct, what you are actually saying is that the government has committed to a project without understanding how much it will cost, what other options are available and what type of benefits each could provide.

Not really a flattering position to put forward.

Hilarious how asking how much it costs draws so much ire. There should never be this much resistance to telling taxpayers how much of their money is being spent on an infrastructure project.

I don’t think the ACT government has committed to the project. IIRC, the Transport Minister Chris Steel has conceded this, saying a costed business case will be developed this term, which the government expects to take to take to an election.

I suspect there are considerable cost/benefit differences between the two routes through the Parliamentary Triangle and Barton. But more critical is the expected federal funding contribution, which assumes even greater importance given the rapidly expanding federal workforce in Barton over the next 5-6 years, with another 8-10k staff, including 5k in the national security precinct who will never work from home.

But my main point is about the timing of the Liberals move, which appears to confirm their irrelevance. Yesterday’s stunt will be forgotten when the EIS is released in the next 2 weeks. What the Liberals, you, I think is irrelevant. The ACT and federal government have allocated $90 million (and contracted AECOM) to design and get planning approvals for stage 2B between now and the next ACT election. The only way I can see that process being aborted is with the election of a Dutton government, and it’s by no means certain that the federal Liberals will rip up the design contract.

The people of Canberra are slow learners in sticking with a government delivering an expensive project that will provide slower public transport for everyone south of the lake, while at the same time failing in the delivery of first class healthcare and education and sending the ACT broke.

As for costs, estimates for the next stage of Gold Coast light rail were made available a couple of years ago. Taking the mid range estimates for its per km construction cost and adding on the cost of a bridge over a lake suggest our stage 2B could easily cost $4b.

Something else to consider is the huge housing shortage the country is not catching up on. Workers on major government projects could instead be building housing for people. There are numerous commentators citing the amount of government infrastructure under construction as a reason why we’re unable to build enough homes for people to live in.

Mark,
“I don’t think the ACT government has committed to the project”

Cmon now, seriously? Are you suggesting their election policy and ongoing statements are a lie or at best misleading?

They have not provided caveats to those policy statements and I’m not aware of any statements by the minister like you’re suggesting. Can you link them?

“I suspect there are considerable cost/benefit differences between the two routes through the Parliamentary Triangle and Barton”

I agree. Not sure how you think this changes the discussion are estimates.

“But more critical is the expected federal funding contribution”

Once again, doesn’t change cost estimates nor cost-benefit ratios. It only changes funding source.

The rest of your comment is just partisan political guff, which is irrelevant. I’m interested in the merits of the project, the politics far less so.

A transparent government would be far more forthcoming with the public about the supporting information for the work involved in assessing the best option and how it will benefit the city.

‘chewy14’ I don’t have a link to Minister Steel’s statement saying before the election that a costed business case would be developed this term, which the government would then take to take to an election. But I’m sure I heard it correctly, and have since confirmed it with another public transport advocate. I was disappointed and surprised (perhaps not entirely given his apparent willingness to string out the project for political purposes). Misleading perhaps though at the lesser end of the scale in an election campaign. He could argue that you’re not committed until you sign a contract.

I take your point about the source of funding not having a direct impact on the cost, though in Steel’s position I’d be certainly linking the project cost and how it’s funded to the considerable costs being imposed by the federal authorities including the NCA on spurious heritage and environmental grounds.

I don’t understand your claim that the rest of my comment was ‘partisan political guff’. The expanding Barton employment is real, with office projects for 9k workers already under construction (ATO, 2.5k, DFAT 1.5k, national security precinct 5 k). Before the last election I managed to get Mark Parton, the Liberal spokesperson, to concede that a busway on Commonwealth Ave was not viable. I also managed to convince Thomas Emerson to support continuation of the design and approval process on the grounds that a contract for most of this work has been let with the Commonwealth paying half. When I put it respectfully to Parton at a public meeting that the Liberals should take a similar approach unless they want to go back to promising to rip up contracts, he didn’t have a response.

A final point. Don’t bother coming back at me with implicit claims about your superior engineering knowledge or my partisan position without using your real name. I have a reputation in my work and public life for being straight, and I’m happy to attach my real name. You might be more convincing if you did the same.

Small correction to Garfield, the tram means slower public transport for everyone who doesn’t live AND work on the tram line, because everyone else has to wait at an interchange.

Mark,
Your last comment:
“But my main point is about the timing of the Liberals move, which appears to confirm their irrelevance”.

This is just partisan politics unrelated to the merits of the project, nor what the role of an opposition is.

The Liberals actually went to the 2020 election with a policy of support for Light rail contingent on the completion of a robust business case and they had a swing against them.

The Liberals electoral problems go far deeper than Light Rail.

Holding the government to account and pushing for transparency is one of their main roles.

“He could argue that you’re not committed until you sign a contract.”

Once again, this is attempting to play semantics when not one of their public statements has suggested that any new information would change their mind on delivering the project.

Funnily, as above it’s similar to what the Liberals took to the 2020 election and were criticised by the ALP for not being committed enough.

Their stated committment has even used this as part of the rationale behind splitting stage 2 into 2 parts, even though the business case for Stage 2A clearly doesn’t make sense from an infrastructure perspective. With a cost benefit ratio that will see a return of mere cents in the dollar.

But once again, none of this is relevant to the point around cost estimation which is something done very early for all major projects because it’s key to being able to assess the scale of the problem and potential solutions.

The idea that the government don’t have or can’t prepare a cost estimate for a project at this stage of development is simply false and is easily countered by numerous other projects for which this government have prepared and released draft cost estimates early in project development.

There are defined industry standards as to how it is done, hell Infrastructure Australia even release estimation guidelines on this exact topic.

As for your last point, you are on a website which does not require individual identification allowing freer discussion.

Your points should be able to stand on their merits.

Hello Mark,
Yes have had four consecutive ALP or ALP-Greens governments, and in my opinion, it’s quite likely that we will have more, simply based on the nature of this city.

The thing about elections, however, is that we vote for a party. We don’t vote for individual policies. It’s a job lot. It’s because we’d prefer this lot, in preference to the other lot.

To suggest that voters voted for LR, is equivalent to saying voters voted for a blowout in the ACT health budget.

A business case to be realistic, has to outline what other options have been considered and how they were assessed.

But we all know that won’t be happening.

Even those Canberrans who don’t drive are entirely dependent on the road system for the delivery of food and other goods to shops or our doors; for tradies to turn up and carry out repairs and maintenance on homes; and indeed for public transport itself, which even if the vision of light rail across Canberra ever gets realised will still see the majority of public transport users needing to get on a bus for part if not all of their journey. The idea that people who don’t drive, many of whom are children or elderly and are not taxpayers, are subsidising road infrastructure is fanciful to the extreme.

Currently about 1.5% of the populace use LR on any given day. It’s also consuming about 1.5% of the budget once the extra costs borne by the taxpayer plus the interest are added to the annual availability payments. Therefore one way to look at it is that every last dollar of LR user’s share of the budget is spent on LR and everyone else is covering the entire cost of their healthcare, education, policing and the roads which bring their food and services to them. It’s great for those for whom LR has provided a slightly faster public transport journey, which excludes those who used to have direct buses from their Gungahlin suburbs to the city centre, but its the rawest of deals for everyone else.