Article: Parliamentary inquiry into cost of NSW rail projects

[ozbob]

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Parliamentary inquiry into cost of NSW rail projects

Parliamentary inquiry into cost of NSW rail projects
by Rail Express — last modified Aug 17, 2011 09:52 AM
— filed under: Weekly Top Stories, Rail

The Legislative Council has passed a motion put forward by the Greens for a parliamentary inquiry that will examine whether the cost of rail projects in New South Wales are inflated.

Greens MP and transport spokesperson Cate Faehrmann has sought the parliamentary inquiry into rail costings in NSW since the federal election campaign.

Faehrmann says the inquiry will "force an examination" of the tendering process in the state so that investment in effective public transport can be fast-tracked.

"This inquiry has been confirmed a few days after Former Deputy Prime Minister Tim Fischer revealed he shares the concerns of the Greens that rail projects are being sabotaged by inflated costings," Faehrmann said.

"There are many examples, but the Mandurah line in Western Australia was built for $17 million a kilometre. The south-west rail link in Sydney is costed at $106 million a kilometre."

The upper house committee inquiry will examine project costings in NSW, in particular, methodologies used by the NSW Government's Transport Construction Authority which is responsible for developing and delivering the state's major transport infrastructure projects.

The inquiry will also examine the government's "concept estimates" for rail project costs and compare these with those applied by other states and jurisdictions, Australian Rail track Corporation, as by other countries overseas.

It will also investigate the differences between rail and road project costs methodologies.

"It's about time NSW got to the bottom of why rail costs so much more here than elsewhere. I look forward to the inquiry and its findings," Faehrmann said.

[O_128]

Queensland needs an inquiry into why 1pm of busway cost 400 million!

[Golliwog]

Queensland needs an inquiry into why 1pm of busway cost 400 million!

Well its not helped by the fact that that 1km of busway is almost entirely either tunnels or bridge/viaduct.

[O_128]

Queensland needs an inquiry into why 1pm of busway cost 400 million!

Well its not helped by the fact that that 1km of busway is almost entirely either tunnels or bridge/viaduct.

Richlands was 400 and involves viaducts and is 4 times as long

[SurfRail]

People need to get away from the assumption that all project costs are proportional based on kilometrage.  They are definitely not.  Site specific issues will always come into play.  For instance, Varsity Lakes cost an enormous amount of money because of the extreme measures needed to remediate the station site from its former use as, I believe, a landfill. 

Somebody commented to me some time ago that Stones Corner is probably the most expensive part of the Eastern Busway by far because of the hydrology issues involved.  The property resumptions are probably also well in excess of what would be required for further extensions to the east where tunnels will preclude the need to flatten half a suburb again.

[Golliwog]

People need to get away from the assumption that all project costs are proportional based on kilometrage.  They are definitely not.  Site specific issues will always come into play.  For instance, Varsity Lakes cost an enormous amount of money because of the extreme measures needed to remediate the station site from its former use as, I believe, a landfill. 

Somebody commented to me some time ago that Stones Corner is probably the most expensive part of the Eastern Busway by far because of the hydrology issues involved.  The property resumptions are probably also well in excess of what would be required for further extensions to the east where tunnels will preclude the need to flatten half a suburb again.

Not to mention various non busway things they also did. They put a new bridge across the creek there, re-did the library carpark thats under Stones Corner Station, completely changed the layout of Panitya St, had to resume a number of houses, then also had restrictions on their work hours and how noisy they could be due to the locality. Also due to the location there were site access issues. You couldn't access parts of the site by truck for a few weeks at a time due to various concrete pours or fit outs taking place.

Richlands, once you were out of Darra, you have much more room to play with in the corridor.

[somebody]

Richlands might have involved a viaduct, but tunnels are far more expensive.  And as SurfRail points out, there was no creek involved.  I can certainly see that this was no easy project.  As to whether it should have been attempted, well, it's a bit late for that one.

A bus lane on Logan Rd/Deshon St would have been what was done in Sydney IMO.  Although usually those projects require some sort of road upgrade to allow them being done.

[ozbob]

Terms of reference for the inquiry --> here

[Gazza]

had to resume a number of houses,

Don't underestimate the impact of this one...There were a lot of resumptions for the busway.