Light rail stage 2A gets to business end: what we'll soon know

Do you have a source for that? The last such study I’ve seen was over a decade ago for a much smaller Canberra and showed that while BRT was cheaper it had a worse ride quality, cost more to run and didn’t drive public transport or urban renewal.

Areaman,
The report you seem to have read would be the 2012 URS concept design report, which considered a number of growth and development scenarios. It can be found online.

https://studylib.net/doc/18849219/concept-design-report–april-2012

It didn’t find what you claim around the differences and its assessment was more qualitative.

Whilst ride quality is always going to be worse for bus options, operation and maintenance cost differences were negligible and public transport benefits were similar.

You are right that light rail is more beneficial for land development but I fail to see why that would be a great selling point for public expenditure, particularly when so much of the land is held by private interests.

The considered options were also always that light rail or higher capacity modes would be implemented eventually when needed, which partially negates that issue.

Interesting that these analyses showed that the cost benefit for Bus Rapid Transit was double that of Light Rail, 4.78 to 2.34.

Which is slightly amusing that by the time the government had prepared its full LRT business case

https://www.aph.gov.au/DocumentStore.ashx?id=6f6a556f-b26d-4dac-abe5-af068f91cfd9&subId=410360

that cost benefit ratio had dropped to 1.2 even if we accept it uncritically (which no one should). Benefits largely made up of land development and wider benefits not related to transport. Almost like the project had little to do with public transport and was more around government posturing and political factors.

And that’s before we even move onto the potential future stages that have far higher costs and far lower benefits.

https://www.act.gov.au/__data/assets/pdf_file/0010/1758178/Stage-2A-Light-Rail-Business-Case-redacted.pdf

A document that should give anyone interested in good governance and good planning massive cause for concern.

“LRT generates the best overall outcome for Canberra.”

That’s the conclusion of the document, and that’s without taking into account that study claimed that light rail would cost 700-860 million in 2012 dollars, when it only cost 675 in 2019 dollars, a difference of between a difference of between 125 and 300 million dollars when you take inflation into account.

It also massively underestimated territory population growth (as everyone did at the time), modelling a population of 500k by 2031, where as the current growth rate has 60,000+ more people by then.

Then you can get into the problematic details like assuming that route would be run on existing buses in existing depots, so that’s 10s of million of dollars they just paper over doubly so as buses don’t last as long as LRVs.

Of course the biggest problem is that while you claim that study showed “operation and maintenance cost differences were negligible ” the actual costs tables only included the build cost, not the operational cost. Light rail is significantly cheaper to run, both from a people perspective (needing less than half as many drivers to move the same number of people), energy (metal on metal, all electric uses way less power), and maintenance (embedded rails last much longer than roads carrying heavy vehicles and the LRVs are more reliable).

Plenty of the land along route was then owned by the government and even private land is covered by Lease Variation Charges, unlike the rest of the country.

Areaman,

So you’re going to ignore the majority of what I linked because it doesn’t suit your argument? It’s the government’s own evidence that shows it isn’t viable.

“LRT generates the best overall outcome for Canberra.”

Yes, if you ignore the actual facts and focus on the political aspects that were already decided. As above, the first study was a qualitative assessment that despite the evidence showing the opposite, made their political masters happy by claiming “social” benefits were higher.

Cost benefit 4.74 to 2.34. You can’t pretend this doesn’t exist.

And as for the total cost, BRT would have been far cheaper as the analysis shows.

“It also massively underestimated territory population growth (as everyone did at the time), modelling a population of 500k by 2031, where as the current growth rate has 60,000+ more people by then.”

Well no, as I already said, it considered a range of growth scenarios. And if you look at actual patronage rates compared to what they assumed for the final business case, they are well below expectations because Covid has fundamentally changed the way that people work. The transport benefits are not being met. And as I already commented, the assumption was always that light rail or higher capacity modes would be installed when needed. The population growth potential is already factored in.

“Then you can get into the problematic details like assuming that route would be run on existing buses in existing depots, so that’s 10s of million of dollars they just paper over doubly so as buses don’t last as long as LRVs.”

Completely false but expected spin from those who want to ignore the true costs of light rail. The real papering over is the expenditure on light rail that has been shifted to other areas of government.

“Of course the biggest problem is that while you claim that study showed “operation and maintenance cost differences were negligible ” the actual costs tables only included the build cost, not the operational cost.”

The report literally assessed the operation and maintenance costs and said there was no difference.

But if you want to take evidence from elsewhere, it also shows that light rail is more expensive to run. You realise all that additional infrastructure required for light rail doesn’t magically look after itself right? Catenary wires, tracks, electrical infrastructure. All things that BRT doesn’t require.

https://www.liveabout.com/bus-and-light-rail-costs-2798852

“Plenty of the land along route was then owned by the government and even private land is covered by Lease Variation Charges, unlike the rest of the country.

On the first stage, the government did own a significant amount of land, future stages not so much. And the lease variation charge only applies after a change. The property prices along the route increased hundreds of thousands of dollars per block without any landuse change, straight windfall gain to landholders. Paid for by every ACT resident.

And as the clear economic evidence shows, light rail doesn’t nearly deliver enough benefits to justify the cost now.

You can attempt to spin it any way you want, but the reason why Infrastructure Australia didn’t add the project to its priority list for funding is because it costs far too much and isn’t needed yet. 1.2 cost benefit ratio, where the majority of benefits have nothing to do with transport is not remotely investment grade.

Which is why Barr is out cap in hand pleading for Federal Funding outside of the normal processes because it’s a political decision, not a transport or infrastructure one.