MetroRail’s ballooning costs are no surprise

The news last week that Capital Metro will be spending almost $66 million to install federally mandated safety controls on its MetroRail line brought to mind a similar figure from the commuter service’s 2004 birth.

And it reminds us, once again, that the original cost estimates for transit projects often turn out to be spectacularly optimistic. How optimistic? Keep reading.

Back in 2004 when the proposed 32-mile rail line from downtown Austin to Leander was on the ballot, the agency and the people pushing for MetroRail’s passage emphasized that the project would cost $60 million to build. And this modest investment — in passenger rail terms — would produce, we were assured, 2,000 boardings a day initially, 6,900 a day by 2017 and 16,700 a day by 2025.

The agency in 2004 also said it would pay a manufacturer an estimated $30 million, under a lease-purchase agreement, to obtain the six rail cars it would need for the initial service. So, taken together, $90 million for the whole thing. But the $60 million number was the prominent figure in all the campaign brochures and commercials.

The figure was so cheap, we voters were told, because Capital Metro already owned the rail line and was running freight on it. The agency, in fact, had already spent $35 million to upgrade its overall 162mile freight rail line from Llano to Giddings, including $8 million within the potential commuter rail corridor. Agency officials at the time considered it churlish of me to point out that earlier investment and to ponder in print whether it was preemptive commuter rail spending.

Anyway, voters said yes to MetroRail (62 percent of them) and by March 2010 — more than two years late — we had ourselves a passenger line in Austin. Initial ridership was less than half of projections, and the agency soon scrambled to add Friday night and Saturday service, and more midday runs. That quickly got ridership up to that initial projection of 2,000 a day, then, with further tweaks, to the level of 2,500 to 3,000 a day.

That is basically where rid-