Passenger rail is not only attractive for reasons of historical sentimentalism, but assumptions about the cost of developing it today seems also to be sentimentally rooted in an era before environmental impact studies, protracted court challenges, and inflationary land prices.
Government spends $1.7m on house for light rail project
Quote:
THE Bligh Government has spent $1.7 million buying an old house with a land value of just $285,000 for the Gold Coast light rail project.
The price paid for the small property in Southport's Scarborough St, which will be bulldozed to make way for the rapid transit system, has stunned observers.
With about 250 properties to be totally or partially resumed for the project, they are questioning how much of its $1 billion taxpayer-funded budget will be chewed up on acquiring the land for the 13km light rail corridor through some of the Gold Coast's most densely populated suburbs.
"It's an incredible price," Southport-based councillor Dawn Crichlow said. "In today's market, that price is just over the top."
A prominent Southport real estate agent agreed.
"That seems exorbitant, over the top," he said. "I wouldn't be able to sell it for that in a fit, especially in the current market.
"It's a lot of money and I don't know how they (the Government) would justify it with the valuer-general."
The article proceeds in a state of shock at the the costs of private land resumptions, as if the properties should be acquired at market value and not a penny more. But how realistic is this? Sure the Australian Constitution allows for the government to appropriate any property it sees fit, with fair compensation, but who is to decide what 'fair' is? And why should the current market value be the only metric of fairness? If someone is particularly attached to their property for emotional or other reasons, then the market value means little to them in their own definition of what is fair. In practice nearly everyone ultimately has their price, and unless the land is a site of an apparition of Mary, then eventually they'll come to determine what their emotional investment is priced at in dollars.
Consider the alternative; the owner decides that his rights are violated, and digs in, prepared for a war. With court challenges, publicity stunts, community activism with other property owners that also want to stay put, and finally lying down in front of the bulldozers. So paying $1.7 million, three, four, or five times its market value, is certainly the cheapest and fastest way out for the government.
Obviously any public infrastructure project faces this problem, even the much-maligned freeways, as that is the cost of doing business these days. And there is no way around this unless the legal and bureaucratic systems, and a vast panoply of legislation was somehow overturned, which short of a revolution isn't going to happen.
Another thing to consider that with a rapidly expanding population, where we are relentlessly informed that the additional population brings economic benefits merely through a warm-body effect of a larger market, how much of this benefit is consumed by an overwhelmed public infrastructure that can not scale to the increase in numbers without an exponential rise in costs.
erm.
Well there is the matter of its superior passenger transport capability and far more efficient use of resources compared to anything else.
Not to mention the cost of the regular use of a car:
But yes traveling around the old parts of Melbourne or on the City Circle in a vintage W-class tram is loads of fun.
A shame you cant ride around Brisbane in a fixed up Dreadnaught.
But look on the bright side: if the Gold Coast Light Rail project were being run by Victorias department of infrastructure or transport then the thing would probably cost twelve times that figure (observe the South Morang extension ballooning from $44.5 million to $562.3 million)
Although I'm not sure why they're buying properties and demolishing buildings in the first place - trams operate on a street, or the median strip. They must be building a dedicated lightrailway.