New Estimate Says Proposed Dodger Stadium Gondola Will Cost More Than $500 Million, Or The Same As Shohei Ohtani

Cost estimates for a gondola to Dodger Stadium have absolutely skyrocketed since its initial proposal, in a surprise to absolutely no one.

In 2018, the Dodgers released plans to construct a gondola from Union Station in downtown Los Angeles directly to Dodger Stadium. In theory, the goal would be to take a significant number of cars off the road as fans crowd the area before and after games.

A trip that often can take 25-30 minutes by car, or substantially longer during busy postseason games, would be cut to just seven minutes by gondola. And the cost, estimated at a reasonable sounding $125 million for a complicated, 1.2-mile-long construction project, seemed potentially doable.

Sounds great, right?

Yeah, well, just five years later, the cost estimates have exploded. An environmental impact report released Monday showed that the gondola would now run around $500 million. Or more. Yeah. That's the cost of signing Shohei Ohtani, or you know, what building an entire stadium cost just a few years ago.

Petco Park, a beautiful stadium in downtown San Diego, was built for $450 million in 2004. Now a gondola, similar to Disney's Skyliner in Florida, costs more than that. Incredible.

Dodger Stadium Gondola Has As Much Chance Of On Time Completion As California's High Speed Rail

The construction process echoes that of the endlessly under development high speed rail in California. Initially, estimates for that project were that it would cost around $33 billion. The latest estimate puts it at around $130 billion. And counting. Oh, and instead of connecting Los Angeles and San Francisco, two important major cities in the state, the first segment will connect the two major hubs of...Merced and Bakersfield.

Very useful!

For now, the gondola will proceed to facing a "series of votes and regulatory hurdles," according to the LA Times. First, the LA Metro system will have a say, then the city of Los Angeles itself, the California Department of Transportation and California State Parks.

They want to get all this done and constructed in time for the Olympics in 2028. Good luck with that.

Supposedly the cost of building and operating the gondola would be covered by naming and sponsorship agreements, not fares. Seems likely.

Adding more transportation options to one of the most heavily trafficked areas of the country isn't a bad idea. But the cost and return on investment for this project feels insurmountable. Especially considering the difficulties for fans to get to Union Station in the first place. That said, few states excel at coming up with wildly overexpensive, underutilized projects like California. This one just fits right in.

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Ian Miller is a former award watching high school actor, author, and long suffering Dodgers fan. He spends most of his time golfing, traveling, reading about World War I history, and trying to get the remote back from his dog.