San Francisco Chronicle: Building BART cars overseas adds insult to cost

BART is buying a sleek new fleet of 775 cars - with the first 200 costing about $5.1 million apiece when all is said and done.

The sky-high price for what amounts to a 70-foot-long railway car is sending some folks into sticker shock - especially because the cars are coming from outside the country.

"Taxpayers from the San Francisco Bay Area are paying for these railcars, and they should be built in the Bay Area," said Scott Haggerty, an Alameda County supervisor and member of the Metropolitan Transportation Commission.

The base price for each car is about $3.7 million - but that doesn't count the $850,000 apiece that BART will spend on a list of extras that includes sending inspectors to oversee the manufacturing and assembly of the cars. ..............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2012/01/29/BAVD1MVLMB.DTL