diminutive
Active Member
Vancouver will never build another line as cheaply as the Canada Line because they now know to write in #2. That is, the billion saved during construction wasn't worth the hit to the local economy. When you include externalized costs such as small business losses, salary losses, etc. the construction price of the Canada Line is much less appealing.
That's simply not true at all. The Evergreen line's projected costs work out to approximately 120m/km, which is ballpark similar to the Canada Line and way less than anything that gets built here.
Your analogy with closing Eglinton is flawed in a couple ways. At least with respect to a DRL's Pape-Eglinton leg, Pape is not a major arterial road. It doesn't have tons of small businesses. The City won't collapse if it is closed for four years.
Yes, using more disruptive techniques does involve externalizing costs to local residents. Then again, the rt lines themselves externalize a ton of benefits to local residents/businesses. Imagine if we had insisted that the Yonge line or Bloor line be tunneled, would the merchants be better off?