One of the slides explains the mileage number, which was 650. That is all track miles, not route miles (388). So they are saying $30 billion to string 650 miles of wire, which is what would be required for a non-hybrid approach. But the main reason that the cost per mile looks off is because you aren't using the time value of money in your calculations. The NEC numbers are essentially worthless without inflating them to 2025 dollars, and then you need to continue inflating them over the project timeline. So even the CalTrain figures are too low when you consider an inflation factor over the next 15 years. The $30 billion seems like a reasonable estimate to me when you include the full economic model.
Even adjusted for inflation, Caltrain made much for electrification than Amtrak did for the NEC Shoreline. I can't how much electrification costs should scale with route miles vs track miles, but it's not hard to calculate both for these projects. Some quick numbers I scrounged up (feel free to correct any of them):
Non-residential construction costs have escalated faster than general inflation. The multiplier from 1995 to 2025 is more like 3X
So...about $6-7B to electrify the whole system. Still not seeing where the extra $23B comes from in their scare quote.
Given that the rest of the world is in-process of electrifying new route miles pretty much 24/7/365 every single year, foreign bidders should be able to make hay with much better prices because of their incumbent scale doing cookie-cutter electrifications with all the usual (non- in real practice) challenges like bridge clearances and far-ish away feeder lines. I doubt that's how it's going to go, however. Bids that are tilted towards the usual-suspects U.S. engineering consultant conglomerates will achieve pretty much the same results of runaway cost inflation. If we're using Caltrain's mismanaged contractors-upon-contractors-upon-contractors boondoggle as the standard-bearer for cost estimates, we're going to get what we've always gotten. It doesn't have to be that way.
Don't we need to include the Trump tariffs as part of the cost if we're taking anything foreign like from Canada or the EU? So that price advantage won't be so much of an advantage anymore.
Major electrification of the T is not going to be initiated or completed in a Trump Administration at the rate they're hemming-and-hawing, so...in all practicality no, it's not a factor. It's unlikely that whoever gets elected in 2028 is going to have the semi-automatic aimed as squarely at foot on repeat as this current Administration is on tariffs, even if the '28 winner is a Republican. And the "Trump tariffs" are evolving and de-evolving on an almost daily basis as they Fuck Around and Find Out, so there's no figure you can reliably project on them today for expenses not starting until several years from now.
One Billion Dollars gets you 21 miles of double catenary? Reasonable? On what world?
These old mosaics are really great, and definitely should be salvaged -- in a transit museum.
If the entrance has modern signage on the outside, I don't think it's a concern. This mosaic is above the Lagrange St entrance, which is definitely not the main entrance, so again I'm not super concerned about tourists being misled. I also think the mosaic style makes it reasonably clear that it's quite an old sign.
I'd also just like to call attention to this specifically. Transit should not just be functional, it should be interesting, even beautiful. There is a reason why, at least for me, using Forest Hills is a significantly better experience than Sullivan or Community College. The bare-concrete stations of the Haymarket North Extension, while certainly functional, are as soulless as they come. Leaving historic elements in places where they can be appreciated by everyone, not just nerds at a museum, goes a long way to making the station better. Yes there are wayfinding concerns that need to be managed, but it's not even unprecedented on the MBTA, the Scollay Under mosaics at Govy are also preserved, but we've added more modern signage. to avoid confusion.
www.boston25news.com
People are definitely confused by the Scollay Under signs at Government Center -- they typically exist apart from modern signage. I have had to help tourists on the Blue Line realize that the stop was in fact Government Center. This is typical Boston arrogance that if you are not from here, you don't deserve to know how to navigate here.
www.bostonglobe.com
The obvious solution for historical signs like this is a plaque that says something like "This is a historical sign"
Large enough to make it clear from the inside of a train arriving in a station. In some cases the historical signage is the only prominent thing you see out of the window of a given car. (Scollay Under, for example -- they are cool, big signs that used to be the primary wayfinding.)