[dgorges]

Gotthard Tunnel

The Gotthard Base Tunnel (GBT) is a railway tunnel through the Alps in Switzerland expected to open on 2 June 2016.

- Length: 35.4 mi

- Cost: $10.3 billion

- Construction: 1996 - 2016 (est)

Bay Bridge

The San Francisco–Oakland Bay Bridge (known locally as the Bay Bridge) is a complex of bridges spanning San Francisco Bay in California.

- Length: 4.46 miles

- Cost: $6.5 billion

- Construction: 2002 - 2013 (est)

[jtzhou]

The GBT is 94 miles, right? I think the Swiss achieve these costs through economies of scale. There are tunnels throughout the country so they can achieve greater efficiencies at 5-10x of those in specific metro areas in the US. I remember when they were debating a tunnel under Tysons Corner in Virginia, the largest office park in the Washington-Baltimore area, the estimate came in at $800 miles for 4 miles and was considered cost-prohibitive. It'd be great to bundle a number of these projects together to achieve the efficiencies of scale.

[hn9780470248775]

"Economies of scale" when tunneling through solid rock?

[maxerickson]

I would naively expect running a tunnel boring machine 1 mile to cost a lot more per mile than running it 2 miles.

[gsnedders]

FWIW, a surprising amount of the base tunnel was blasted by dynamite, as the geology didn't allow use of TBMs everywhere. (And they hit more cases where they had to blast it than they expected.)

[brudgers]

Construction is expensive. Even the bargain priced tunnel is about $65.000 a foot or $200.000 per meter. And unlike the bridges it just handles one vehicle width in each direction.

[Swizec]

How does average construction worker pay in Bay Area compare to Germany/Switzerland?

[legulere]

Why Germany? The Gotthard Basis Tunnel is in Switzerland and worker pay in Switzerland is considerably higher in Switzerland than in Germany and also probably the US

[trhway]

while i'm sure the issue with the costs here and there isn't labor/salary, googled out of curiosity - for welder in US it is $30-50K/year avg, in Germany - the government mandated minimum in non-East Germany is something like 14euro/hour, in the East - 11 euro/hour.

I also would be very surprised if the Germany/Switzerland were "outsourcing" the job to Chinese companies like the US does with big infrastructure projects. I mean everybody who ever dealt with outsourcing up close knows what in reality it is completely opposite to "cost savings", instead it is a way to "digest" even more money than it would be otherwise.

[iagooar]

Why are 2 comments putting Germany/Switzerland? This tunnel is entirely Swiss and has nothing to do with Germany.

Also, comparing salaries of those countries is just ridiculous, as Swiss salaries can be 2-3x higher on average than the German ones.

[abduhl]

The minimum wage that can be paid for a tunnel hand in San Francisco is around $34/hr plus overtime and benefits. See http://www.dir.ca.gov/oprl/pwd/Determinations/Northern/NC-02...

You have to remember that tunnel jobs are almost always run by a municipality which means that they're almost always union. I would imagine it is similar in Switzerland.

Tunneling is a niche industry and commands a high price.

[masterleep]

We don't know that, because the government is controlling the price.

[TrevorJ]

And the bay bridge has some serious defects already.