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Originally Posted by Slava
So what is the cost of the tunnel going to be? Everything seems to point to the $300M being far lower than the actual costs....
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Up to $295 million for phase 1 - currently under construction. I would say that this will likely be under budget, could easily be 10% or more under budget.
Phase two - in 5-8 years (my guess) $64 million (city portion) in today's dollars. (airport is putting in $20 million)
Phase 3 - in 20-30 years, city and airport to split cost 50/50 for flyover ramps. I think the total is something like $120 million, so $60 million each. Of course, this is so far in the future that the design and cost are certain to change.
I think it was added up to $414 million in today's dollars. But that number is mostly meaningless. It includes a bunch of work that would be required if the tunnel was never built, for one. Second of all, lots of it is future dollars. Thirdly, the type of construction contracts, plus the 30% contingency (normal is 10%), and a lot of money could be saved in phase one. The weather will be a factor in the final cost, but it would take a lot of things to go "wrong" to go over budget.
Frankly, Nenshi was exactly right, council had all the numbers already. Plus, for the reasons I mentioned, trying to figure out the total final cost is useless.
Also, certain alderman still seem to think that the alternative to building the tunnel costs nothing.