US metro light rail project faces additional cost increase of $35B

4 SilverElfin 4 8/30/2025, 5:12:53 PM transittalent.com ↗

Comments (4)

JumpCrisscross · 10h ago
Does anyone have the bid eligibility conditions for these projects?

Maybe I’m projecting my biases from New York on Seattle, but I’m curious how many requirements are unrelated to construction per se.

ungreased0675 · 10h ago
A billion dollars is a nearly incomprehensible amount of money. How are they spending so much? This is very old, mature technology. Why can’t governments figure it out?

Maybe it’d be worth it to swallow our pride and bring in some Romanian, French or Czech train companies to construct and operate light rail in the US.

SilverElfin · 10h ago
I feel that’s what California should’ve done with their high speed rail project. From what I can remember, there were bids from other countries like France and Japan, but they were rejected for being too high. Of course with the cost increases the amount they’re spending now is much higher than what they would’ve paid them.
SilverElfin · 10h ago
Changed the title a bit to make it more understandable to readers. Saw this transit news about a small rail project in the US city of Seattle, that will now cost over $185B in total. I was shocked it can cost that much for less than 100 km of light rail.