Specious Cost Estimates Could Scuttle L.A. Streetcar

"When downtown voters agreed last winter to bring back the Los Angeles streetcar, the campaign pitch sounded simple: a $125-million trolley through the heart of the central city, with funding split between federal grants and a new property tax," writes Laura J. Nelson. "Inside City Hall, however, staff members had been quietly warning that the project's price tag was not a detailed estimate and could rise, a Times review of city memos, emails and meeting notes has found."

A "back-of-the-envelope" estimate based on the cost-per-mile construction of Portland's streetcar and a utility relocation estimate that was off of the worst case scenario by $190 million helped contribute to the erroneous estimates. But concerns raised by city staff over potential additional costs before detailed estimates were produced were kept under wraps.