OC Register: Anaheim’s propsed (sic) streetcar system would consist of 10 vehicles that would travel a 3.2-mile route in about 18 minutes. The streetcars would look similar to this European streetcar, according to city officials. Photo: City of Anaheim
By the OC Politics Blog
From the Detroit Business News two days ago: Subcontractors begin vying for work on Detroit’s $140 million M1 Rail project. In part,
At an open house for subcontractors and others needed to help build a 3.3-mile streetcar down Woodward Avenue in Detroit, Lawrence Stevenson said he considered being involved in the project as something that would be “historic.” But he will only be a part of that history if his company, Detroit-based Stevenson Construction, can successfully land a contract for a portion of the work the M1 Rail line…needed for the $140 million task.
That’s $42.4 million/mile, 58% less the estimated cost for Kris Murray’s Anaheim trolley — and that’s all IF Anaheim succeeds in absconding with OCTA Measure M funds to build a $319 million streetcar between the Convention Center, Disneyland and the new $174 million ARTIC train station that’s never going to see a High-Speed Rail Bullet Train once a Sacramento Judge gets through with Gov. Brown and his rape of Proposition 1A. The streetcar’s cost topped a cost comparison involving 11 other streetcar systems across the country.
The Anaheim Streetcar isn’t even a bad copy of the multiple routes redundantly run to dozens of resort area hotels and tourist sites via the city’s part-ownership of Anaheim Resort Transit as we analyzed earlier this year.
Part of the extraordinary cost of the Pringle (now working for Parsons Engineering)/Murray/Kring/Brandman/Eastman 18-minute (11mph) Express is the
Via Wikipedia: Overhead lines in Denmark.
apparent need to clean the thing up and make it less visually intrusive for Disney. As we’ve pointed out last March, in order to avoid sullying the Resort District with overhead “cantenary” power cabling along the short route, the streetcar will draw power from below the pavement in some areas and from above via the exposed power cables that are hung from their own poles and towers (the most common way to transfer high-voltage to the trolley motors). This dual mode requires a very sophisticated motor design and dual power pickups that are seldom used around the world. It will also increase ongoing maintenance costs as there are two electrical systems to build, design and service.
San Francisco’s MUNI streetcars exclusively use overhead power cantenaries.
But when it other people’s money, what do costs matter?