North East Link’s Cost Inflates to $26 Billion as Massive Blowouts Sting

Victorian taxpayers will need to foot an extra $10 billion (US$6.7 billion) in construction bills for the North East Link highway as the project suffers massive cost blowouts. On Dec. 15, the Victorian Labor government announced that the cost of the North East Link project, a 10-kilometre-long connection between the Western Ring Road and the Eastern Freeway, would rise to $26 billion. The new figure is $10 billion higher than the 2019 estimation of $16 billion and more than double the original cost of $10 billion when the project was introduced in 2016. During a press conference, Victorian Premier Jacinta Allan said the cost blowouts were the result of changes to the project and rising construction costs due to supply chain issues and inflation caused by the pandemic and the war in Ukraine....