“”According to the DOT, the inspector general’s audit will examine the Federal Railroad Administration’s oversight of nearly $3.5 billion in federal grant money awarded to the project.””
First I’ve ever heard of a Federal Railroad Administration. Maybe they should have stayed “hidden” as they may have a lot to answer for....
Why would it have to have gotten to this degree of boondoggle before someone blew the whistle?
The FRA has been around since 1966, created as part of the US Department of Transportation (under LBJ). The regulations they pile onto the railroads are listed online; just reading them is enough to make one’s head spin.
Subway trains and “light rail” are under a different bureaucratic arm of the DOT, the Federal Transit Administration (FTA). This was created two years earlier than the DOT as the Urban Mass Transportation Administration (UMTA), primarily to begin federal “assistance” for mass transit including city buses.