GoodSmackUp wrote:rubberman wrote:Waewick wrote:would a train line to magill/norwood be better than a tram?
that unless Australian Governments stop the rail construction cartels, there's not much hope.
want to elaborate on that part?
First, Australian urban rail projects are fiendishly more expensive than comparable projects elsewhere. For example, Ulm in Germany is putting in a new tramway 10 km for $400m, ie $40m per km including trams. Sydney, $1.6Bn for 12 km, ie $130m per km. This is echoed in Canberra, roughly $75m per km. Germany is hardly a low age country, so why?
The obvious answer is that if you look at major tram projects, there is almost no purchaser (government ) expertise, only a small number of suppliers able to undertake the scope of the work, and those suppliers also have the technical knowledge. So, economics 101 tells us that ignorant customers going against powerful knowlegeable suppliers will be done over, and badly. The figures above support this.
Compare this to roads, where there are many many road builders who do jobs for councils, state and federal governments, and where some expertise remains in the customers' hands. Much more reasonable prices.
So, while Tony Abbott got stick for not funding urban rail, it was either that or have taxpayers done over by a small number of suppliers. Now maybe he should have been more proactive, but there was method in his madness.