California's bullet train hurtling toward a multibillion-dollar overrun, federal report warns

Los Angeles Times ^ | 01/14/2017 | Ralph Vartabedian

[SeekAndFind]

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, just north of Bakersfield, 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 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.

The report, the most critical official assessment of the project to surface so far, is labeled a “confidential-draft deliberative document for internal use only” and was presented by senior Federal Railroad Administration executives to California rail authority board Chairman Dan Richard and Chief Executive Jeff Morales on Dec. 1 in Washington.

This analysis puts the state on notice that it could face bigger cost overruns than anticipated and much longer delays than have been made public, a troubling critique by an agency that has been a stalwart supporter and longtime financier of the nation’s largest infrastructure project.

[unixfox]

Just think how much all of this money could have benefitted all of those poor “immigrants”

[JohnBrowdie]

deeply shocking.

[MileHi]

This is just the first segment and they’re already 50% over. By the time it became a reality, it would be 200, 300, or more percent over budget, and then they’d want to expand it.

Add in the annual operation and maintenance costs that will never be covered by fares

[DoughtyOne]

I heartily agree.

[Elsie]

Its the White Elephant of Golden State liberalism run amok.

The State of Indiana will soon have something similar in a couple of core counties around Indianapolis.

It won't be as grand; just local bus service; but WILL require non-riders (taxpayers) to subsidize it.

I guess they didn't learn the lesson from the WhiteWater Canal so many years ago.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whitewater_Canal

[Elsie]

A lot less government interference, to, I'll bet. free food, free housing, free medical, free day-care, free schooling...