Monday, November 24, 2008

How Long Does It Take to Build a Road?

Apparently more than 7 years. Give me a break. What is wrong with this picture? It's not just BRT, it's all transit. I guaranty that if this were a road without a bus on it, it would be done next year. Why is it so hard? It's not like they haven't been working on it for years already.
Meanwhile, AC Transit officials have released a proposed timeline that has completion of the Environmental Impact Report process by the 3rd quarter of 2010, final design for BRT by the 1st quarter of 2011, beginning of construction by the 2nd quarter of 2012, with completion of the project tentatively scheduled for the spring of 2015. But the project still has to complete a complicated approval process involving winning federal funding grants, approval by city councils in Berkeley, San Leandro, and Oakland as and final project approval by the AC Transit board.

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

damn skippy!

Winston said...

7 years from start of EIR to completion of project isn't unusual for infrastructure projects of this size of any kind in California, especially where there's opposition. This is a $160 million project and it is common for projects of this size to take this long. The EIR alone for the 4th bore of the Caldecott tunnel (a project just over twice as expensive) took 5 years and the overall project timeline is set to be 12 years from start of project to completion. It is amazing how burdensome the EIR process really is for any major infrastructure project. The only way you can get a project done quickly is to declare that it has no significant impact, which is difficult to do when projects get into the $100 million plus range.

Justin said...

Couldn't agree with you more. It's insane. Even in Canada, it takes forever to build a bus line that run in MIXED traffic!

Anonymous said...

Burdensome regulations + union work rules + lack of enthusiasm + periodic funding shortages.