I like the look of the Cor-ten steel.
For the west LRT, (and McKnight Westwinds LRT station as well), the copper doesn't look much more than brown painted metal, but it is maintenance free as well.
These materials were used more becasue they were maintenance free, and not because they were supposed to look shiny forever.
Maintenance free steel = Stainless, Galvanized, or Cor-ten.
Cheap, great looking, maintenance free materials don't really exist. When you are building a billion dollar WLRT, and you can only pick 2 of those 3, the one you have to pick are pretty obvious. Although using the copper probably leaned away from cheap, and towards good looking. The copper may not look great, but it will look the same 5 or 10 years from now, we're many other materials would start looking terrible.
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