Transit Costs Project Releases The Sweden Case

The urban rail expansion program in Stockholm is an instructive case. The construction costs remain fairly low. Citybanan cost SEK 16.8 billion in 2007 terms, or about $2.4 billion in 2020 purchasing power parity (PPP) terms, averaging $320 million/kilometer; this is slightly more expensive than the global median, but Citybanan was an unusually complex project, built entirely underneath city center, with two large station caverns mined under older T-bana platforms. Nya Tunnelbanan is currently projected to cost SEK 32 billion, about $190 million/km, well under the global median. Alongside the other Nordic countries and perhaps Switzerland, Sweden is the only country among the world’s very wealthiest with construction costs this low: other low-cost countries such as those detailed in the reports about Italy and Turkey are on the economic periphery of the developed world....

And yet, there is danger that the low Nordic costs are rising.