Filed under: Tampa Choo-Choo, Transportation | Tags: County Commission, Downtown Tampa, HART, Hillsborough Area Regional Transit Authority, Hillsborough County Florida, Ken Hagan, Sales tax, Tampa Choo-Choo, Tampa light-rail
TECO street car soon out of money
In today’s SP Times, Bill Varian talks about higher cost projections for Hagan’s light-rail boondoggle. The MPO had estimated the cost to be “only” $70 MILLION per mile to construct. This is the figure that the BOCC used to push this sales tax increase onto the ballot so that big-money Tampa land owners, lawyers and consultants could throw a million dollars at trying to convince voters this was a good idea.
The MPO and HART bragged about how conservative this number was. They had seen other cities face serious cost over-runs for rail construction. Now that non-partisan, nonprofit think tank Rand Corp. says that the rail will likely cost between $85 and $120 MILLION dollars per mile, both the MPO and HART are still patting themselves on the back for being so conservative with earlier cost estimates.
Huh?
Conservative cost estimates ADD money to the budget in case the project winds up costing more than projected, as it did in other cities studied. MPO seemed to have confused “conservative estimate” by putting out a LOWER number. Now that HART’s best guess of $70 million per mile is off by almost 100%, they claim that their “best estimate” is still 50% LESS than what they guessed it would cost to build.
HART claims that the Rand figures are nothing more than “back of the envelope” numbers. What then does that make the HART figures: “back of the napkin” numbers? Folks, they STILL haven’t picked a route or determined the most cost-effective mode of transit.
It is becoming more clear that whatever we are being told, this whole thing is going to cost more; much more. Perhaps we could get more accurate figures by 2012 when we could vote on this again?
Let the voters decide.
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"Let the voters decide" 
It is very clear to me that HAGAN’S THEORY IS:
Throw up enough hype and some of it will stick.
HARTLINE led by ARMIJO, still makes light all other VALID STUDIES. Just like he is ignoring the 100 buses sitting daily at the bus barn. He maintains with more buses he can serve the people better…he used the buses the FEDERAL GOV. ALREADY GAVE HART.
So what we are hearing is the same story about OH IT SHOULD ONLY BE THIS MUCH and it turns out THEY HAVE NO IDEA OF THE TRUE COST FOR EVEN THE VERY FIRST LEG. THEY DO KNOW HOW MANY CONSULTANTS HART HAS PAID AND ALL THE WHITE COLLAR WORKERS HIRED INTO HART TO CONVINCE ALL THOSE FOLKS WHO THINK THEY WILL BE GETTING A JOB WHEN THE CHOO CHOO COMES TO TOWN.
THERE IS A YELLOW STREETCAR RUNNING EVERYDAY AND TAKING A SINGLE PERSON TO OR FRO TO VIABLE EMPLOYMENT…TECO NEEDS TO UNDERWRITE THIS FOLLY TOTALLY…IT CARRIES THE TECO NAME AND THE ELECTRICITY…..SO PAY FOR IT TECO….
Comment by Marilyn Smith October 29, 2010 @ 9:48 am