Re: New plan to reopen the Dumbarton line
Author: BOB2
Date: 08-17-2017 - 14:49
See what a real political advocate, and a million of so from Facebook can do for a project.....
IT's too bad that Facebook's CEO won't be able to sit on the Presidential Infrastructure Council to help develop the new national infrastructure plan, which will be needed to pay for it, since that was "preemptively" disbanded by the President, just today, before it was even started.....
Where they will find the additional $1.5 to $2 billion they would need for the bridge and Altamont improvements necessary, or pay UP for the easements, and the like is still a mystery, even if MTC were to "repay" the monies originally identified 14 years ago for PE.
And, my other concern is that the current bridge is of a design and in such shape, that it might even be cheaper, to scrap it, and build a new DT bridge to replace it, which would allow for much higher frequencies of service than the current structure.
I was involved in planning and funding a major bridge rehabilitation of a "historic" highway bridge back in the 90's. And, our estimate to blow it up for a movie shoot, and build and entirely new replica, was about $6 million cheaper than the 24 million we ended up spending to seismically upgrade and repair the existing "historic" structure.
This is the reason the new massive LA Sixth Street bridge over the LA River was not "saved" and "upgraded". It turned out to be way cheaper to tear down old one and build the new one.