These ain’t cheap

Now that construction on the road has started, project managers admit that the middle segment of the ICC will cost at least $150 million more to build than initial estimates, and a solid $100 million more than the very highest predictions.

Cost overruns on infrastructure projects are fairly standard these days due to the rapidly rising cost of materials. The global market is saturated with demand from China, so cost goes up. Overruns happen for transit projects too.

At BeyondDC we have long maintained that the ICC is too expensive, that it’s bad policy for Maryland to spend such a large portion of its infrastructure budget on one project of questionable value. So while we won’t attack the ICC for being over budget, we will simply point out that given the staggering dollar amounts involved, when a project the size of the ICC does go over budget it’s worth taking a step back and recognizing just how huge an investment it is.

Never mind the total cost of the ICC. For just the cost of this single overrun on this single fraction of the road, we could build an entire streetcar line, start to finish. As in bam, done.

Just sayin.