Surprise! Central Subway cost still going up

In today's SF Examiner:

The San Francisco Municipal Transportation Agency will need to find as much as $130 million more to complete construction on the troubled Central Subway project, money it doesn’t have to spare amidst an ongoing budget crisis that threatens to cripple Muni’s workforce and service long-term.

An ambitious project that seeks to extend the underground Muni Metro T Third Line from the Fourth Street Caltrain Station to Chinatown and provide a direct link between downtown and some of The City’s most congested areas, the Central Subway has become a runaway train with a final tally estimated to be roughly 15 percent over its $1.6 billion budget...

Rob's comment:

Gee, I wonder what the city will do? I provided the answer earlier this month: Muni's budget deficit: Waiting for Biden. Nancy Pelosi and our two senators---whoever they they turn out to be---will get substantial help from the new administration.

The Examiner reports that the Feds have already promised to help:

The FTA[Federal Transit Administration] has pledged $984.4 million, the bulk of the project budget, along with financial support from a number of other state and local revenue sources. But the funding agreement with the FTA precludes SFMTA from going back to the federal agency for help crossing the finish line, which means it must fill the funding hole on its own.

I first posted about this project way back in 2008, when the cost was supposedly $1.29 billion. A few years later, I questioned the project: Central Subway: Too big to stop? The answer of course was yes. The two-mile project will end up costing a billion dollars a mile.

In the latter post, I quoted an important book on how big projects get started:

Cost underestimation and overrun cannot be explained by error and seem to be best explained by strategic misrepresentation, namely lying, with a view to getting projects started.

The Central Subway was never seen as an essential project, since the only "congested" neighborhood on its route is Chinatown. The project was the result of a political deal between Mayor Brown and Rose Pak to compensate Chinatown for the loss of the Embarcadero Freeway.

See also Scott Wiener: Subways and "pixie dust"