Posted on 01/13/2017 1:38:01 PM PST by BenLurkin
California’s bullet train could cost taxpayers 50% more than estimated — as much as $3.6 billion more. And that’s just for the first 118 miles through the Central Valley, which was supposed to be the easiest part of the route between Los Angeles and San Francisco.
A confidential Federal Railroad Administration risk analysis, obtained by The Times, projects that building bridges, viaducts, trenches and track from Merced to Shafter could cost $9.5 billion to $10 billion, compared with the original budget of $6.4 billion.
The federal document outlines far-reaching management problems: significant delays in environmental planning, lags in processing invoices for federal grants and continuing failures to acquire needed property.
The California High-Speed Rail Authority had originally anticipated completing the Central Valley track by this year, but the federal risk analysis estimates that that won’t happen until 2024, placing the project seven years behind schedule.
...
Proponents of the project, including many veteran transportation experts, have said that California’s massive economy can handle higher costs for the project — even more than $100 billion — by increasing sales taxes or making firm commitments for additional future funding from the state’s general fund.
But the Legislature has already balked at giving the rail authority the ability to borrow against future state revenues, saying it would have to make do with existing allocations. And that was before Gov. Jerry Brown warned on Tuesday that California’s projected 2017-18 budget shows a $1.6 billion deficit.
Proponents say short-term financial concerns are more than offset by the future value of a transportation system connecting the state.
Brown, meanwhile, has sought to shield the project from interference. He vetoed a bill with bipartisan support in September that would have increased oversight of the project and clarified estimates of how much the project will cost.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
As if they didn’t plan this all along.
EASY FIX:
Moonbeam and the Legislature just need to Pass a Law Mandating ALL PUBLIC EMPLOYEES Statewide exclusively use Public Transportation to and from their respective workplaces, the Massive EXTRA Revenue Generated can be used to Fund the Train to Nowhere.
A 50% overrun would be a bargain. This train will cost at least 3 times the estimates. The whole states economics are to be hijacked for the sake of union pensions and that is the whole story in one sentence.
California...please...please...seceede.....please!
And they plan to secede in the middle of all this?
They would have been better off creating very large cigarette boats and built docks along the coastline. People can board in San Diego and ride up to San Francisco in a couple of hours. Being that it is not off shore people wouldn’t have to worry about big waves.
pull the plug
investigate Sacramento
this is a boondogle
Well, based on not being concerned about pension liabilities in the 100s of billions, preparing both turn away federal funds, financing fighting the feds in doomed efforts, launching their own satellites, paying massive self-inflicted AGW taxes and stampeding capital to other states, California must have NO financial problems whatsoever.
Public transport in Paris is now used to constrain people, to make them dependent on gov transport.
This is California, a one-party state.
They would never pull the plug, and for it to happen there would have to be a split in the Democrat ranks with a contingent that went against it.
Unlikely to happen.
What this is for is to carry illegal aliens up and down the Central Valley and from Southern California. They should call it the illegal express.
Ultimately it will link stations throughout Mexico.
Most alliterative name EVER!
“They would have been better off creating very large cigarette boats and built docks along the coastline. People can board in San Diego and ride up to San Francisco in a couple of hours. Being that it is not off shore people wouldn’t have to worry about big waves.”
The driving distance is 500 miles. It would take 10 hours or longer by sea.
The purpose of ANY public works project is to put money in motion so that it can be stolen. If money sits in a stack, and tomorrow the stack is thinner than it is today, then it is easy to determine that some of it has been pilfered.
Put that money in motion, start passing it from account to account, person to person, agency to company, and there are unlimited opportunities for it to be stolen through bribes, bill padding, extortion, campaign contributions, community groups, etc.
If at the end of the process something useful accidentally gets built and the public benefits, just know that that that was completely incidental.
No need to secede. We’re on the fast track to oblivion via self-immolation. The only question is, what will rise from the ashes?
And who didn’t see this coming from the inception?
And who didn’t see this coming from the inception?
Seriously. Of course, what they should have used the billions for is to either repair the current reservoirs or build new ones including desalinization plants. Expensive but worth the investment in this state.
Secede. If you use too many ‘e’s you will run out.
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