My Local Federal Member just announced a 1 billion dollar upgrade to Part of the M1 Motorway here on the Gold Coast.
The section in reference is no longer than 20km length and its a 4 lane each way upgrade , so 8 lanes.
Each lane is about 5m wide at most, so 8 lanes times 5m wide = 40m wide, plus edges,
So say 50m wide total for the new road, times 20ks long or 50m x 20,000m = 1 million sqm of road upgrade.
The Funds allocated is 1 Billion, or 1,000 Million. So it means they have Budgeted $1000 per sqm of road upgrade.
To get a bitumen Driveway laid for you, you would get nasty quotes of $18 per sqm, for 25mm thick of Bitumen over a skim of road base.
A decent Job of general car park grade quality Bitumen, would be quotes of $30 per sqm. That would be including laying 5 inches thick of roadbase and then 30mm or so of Bitumen.
So for a Highway, I would expect to see about 3 times the base work and 3 times the top layer, but still over a Quantity of 1 million sqm , I would think allowing $100 per sqm for this road work would be fair.
Considering a large amount of the existing lanes , 2 lanes each way existing, most of that wouldnt need much base work, mabe just a scabble and a top coat to male the entire new 8 lanes to all look fresh.
So we have a maths Problem here, the cost would be about $100 per sqm times 1 million sqm, = 100 million bucks.
But the Budgeted amount is 1 Billion bucks, some 10 times as much as I would think should be enough to get it done.
In actual fact the allocated section isnt 20km long, but closer to only 16km length, so Ive allowed ample for any on ramp, off-ramp re=laying etc.
Ive even googled and found many others online have noted excessive costs for roadworks. I think the Y7 in Melbourne had it budgeted at 1 Billion dollars per Kilometer. That works out at $20,000 per sqm.
So the Big question is, who is making the Massive Profit Margin on this works, who is pocketing the surplus funds.
It seems its a big fudge, we are talking about the Government spending 10 times more on a road than it should actually cost. So where is 900 Million dollars going ?? Into whos Pocket, and who approved it.
Who is fudging 900 Million dollars on the Gold Coast M1 Upgrade ??? Why arnt we getting bang for buck.
Why cant we see the open book estimates and quotes as freedom of information, because it seems like we are being Had a lend of.
