nfitz
Superstar
Not often, because while P3s might be more predictable, they are both slower and on average more expensive.How often do you see P3 style setups (replace the "public" with a purchasing company) in private business?
You have to advance the design a lot further, and do a lot more investigation before you can get a consortium to take over all the risks. Even for something like Eglinton, they did the tunnelling on a traditional contract basis. To have the consortium take on the tunnelling would have had a huge risk for the consortium, and would have required a much larger cost - can you imagine the costs if something had gone wrong in the tunnelling like it did for the current Seattle highway tunnel, where the TBM broke down half-way, and they had to build an unplanned shaft to retrieve it in the middle of downtown?
If you want the consortium (whose prime motive is to make profit) to take all the risk, it comes with a cost - a higher price. And it takes longer to get set up as well. If the subway is indeed $400 million over budget on the $2.63 billion estimate (hardly shocking given much of the money is being spent 2 to 3 years later than originally planned), that represents about 15%.
You don't think the costs to have done it as a PPP wouldn't have been more than 15% to cover the extra investigation, design, risk, insurance policies, and of course the profit?
Yes, you get better cost control. Cost control of a much higher cost.