There’s nothing surer than major projects blowing their budgets, so now is not the time to embark on one so enormous.
under the harbour this week, Victorians were forced to reckon with a string of revelations about possible delays, increased project costs and compensation claims on Melbourne’s $14 billion Metro Tunnel.It is staggering that, as of Friday, the government admits the impact of trains on equipment is yet to pass acceptable levels.
The issues revealed this week were firmly within the government’s power to resolve, yet it failed to do so. It should be remembered, too, that it was the government’s decision to locate the hospital on top of the already-mooted underground station.The impact on the travelling public is contested. The travel time between the two freshly built stations at Parkville and Arden was touted as two minutes for a long time, then the government’s script talked of four to five minutes.
This is not to imply that building ambitious projects is never worthwhile. The Metro Tunnel, which will link Kensington to South Yarra via a new nine-kilometre subway, brings enormous gains to the city’s transport network. Overall, this is a project that Victorians can genuinely feel proud about building. It will create a low-cost and more environmentally friendly option for future generations, rather than fuelling a greater dependence on cars by building more roads.
Since benefit-cost ratios were carried out on Victoria’s mega-projects, the Metro Tunnel has blown out by $5 billion, the West Gate Tunnel by $4 billion and the North East Link by $10 billion. You can be sure that we, the taxpayers, are now running at a loss on each of these builds.
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