In hopes to deliver 250 mph rail service by midcentury, the Democrats in Washington’s congressional delegation are asking the federal government for $198 million to help plan a route between Vancouver, B.C.; Seattle; and Portland.
In hopes to deliver 250 mph rail service by midcentury, the Democrats in Washington’s congressional delegation are asking the federal government for $198 million to help plan a route between Vancouver, B.C.; Seattle; and Portland.
I was an operations director in a prior role and oversaw the design and construction of several buildings. The last building was about $70 million, and we spent around $6 million on the design and programming.
What most folks don’t understand is the scale of minutiae. I’ve spent an entire day of meetings hashing out floor box standards between all parties (IT, facilities, design, construction). The amount of preliminary site studies, permit planning, etc, that goes into hundreds of miles of rail, plus stations, interesting into existing infrastructure etc… It’s significant.
I’ve also overwhelmed fiber builds, and have seen costs range upwards of $500k-$1m per mile of new fiber depending on if poles exist, or of trenching, right of way, permits, etc.
And all of this is just the tip of the iceberg for what goes into these plans.
Right, essentially every single foot of this rail line needs analysis and design. Geotechnical, transportation, civil, electrical, environmental, mechanical, computer, engineers will all have their hands on it, then there’s coordination between municipal groups, which covers the whole spectrum because it’s international.
A bigger project might seem simpler to the public, but effort and complexity often increases disproportionally to the scale of the project for engineers.
But what about the bike sheds?