Posted on 02/12/2019 2:03:15 PM PST by Signalman
California Gov. Gavin Newsom announced on Tuesday he is pulling the plug on the state's massive high-speed rail project from Los Angeles to San Francisco that was more than a decade behind schedule and billions in the red.
"Let's be real," Newsom said in his first State of the State address. "The current project, as planned, would cost too much and respectfully take too long. There's been too little oversight and not enough transparency."
CALIFORNIA BULLET TRAIN PROJECT ON TRACK TO BLOW THROUGH BILLIONS OF MORE DOLLARS
Newsom added that while California has "the capacity to complete a high-speed rail link between Merced and Bakersfield," "there simply isn't a path to get from Sacramento to San Diego, let alone from San Francisco to L.A."
The embattled $77-billion bullet train has been an embarrassment for the Golden State and has been plagued by problems almost from the start.
(Excerpt) Read more at foxnews.com ...
“What happens if the wind is blowing the wrong way?”
“Well, we throw down a rope to a guy on the ground who takes off running the right way.”
“Must be rough on the guy down there.”
“So what? It’s green.”
Where is the money budgeted, though not yet spent?
Technically not “cancelled”...Newsom is planning on building out a Merced to Bakersfield section (more like Madera to Bako)...otherwise he has to return $3.5 billion to the Feds...Gavin can’t stomach that...Pres. Trump might build a wall or something with the $$!
thanks for the clarification
They should have just expanded a highway that allowed Autobahn speeds, a roadway that has a minimum speed limit of 120mph.
Now they have all these never to be finished columns that will just be good for bird nesting and hanging gardens.
A win-win for everyone except the serfs who will still be paying for this fiasco/socialist experiment many decades from now.
Texas’s virtue is that it’s government is smaller than California’s, not necessarily that it is cleaner or better-run.
The good news is that the Houston-Dallas line is, as of right now, planned to be entirely privately-funded. The question is whether we believe that will always be the case. My fear is that it is halfway built before they start seeking a government bailout. Passenger railroads are usually government-run in the US because they are generally obsolete and not economically viable.
But maybe it’s possible to build a profitable private railroad in Texas. If there’s a route in the country that is potentially viable for a high-speed express railroad, it’s Houston to Dallas. And Texas law allows private “common carriers” to condemn land through eminent domain—that procedure is utilized by pipelines all the time.
But is there enough Houston to Dallas business traffic to make it profitable while competing with airlines or cars? I’d probably prefer a 90 minute train ride to a 45 minute flight or 3.5 hour drive, but it’s close, and some of it will depend on whether they can keep the security theater to a minimum.
Who knows: maybe private high speed trains can break the airlines’ oligopoly and introduce some competition the way cable companies and cellular providers did to the telecom companies. That I’d like to see. What I don’t want to see is ostensibly private trains becoming another public bailout target.
It was supposed to be a $10 billion dollar project taking 10 years to complete. After 10 years and $77 billion down the drain, estimated completion year was 2033.
So......what do you have to say about that, Dumb@ss Occasional Cortex? !? This is proof positive that your stupid “Green New Deal” is beyond laughable. You need to resign, Occasional Cortex. Your stupidity and gross incompetence are inexcusable.
It’s not a high speed train in NC but it is a train that is supposed to connect Raleigh to Charlotte and the cities in between.....I believe. It too is a boondoggle!!!! A leftist fantasy. But it continues as of now! sick.
If that section of rail roadbed ever does get build Amtrak will probably use it to bypass freight trains. (Or it could be the most expensive/best bike path ever!)
Don’t balloons use fossil fuel (propane) to stay in the air?
Good Lord, they’re back at that again? I remember about 15 years ago when I lived in Raleigh when there was all the talk about a light rail between Raleigh and Durham.
The N&O ran a series of weekend inserts promoting it. They profiled all these people who thought it would be a great idea. But then would be the question, “When would you ride it?” It was invariably something like “I’d ride it to go to the museum a couple times a year.”
This is because no one actually commutes between Raleigh and Durham. They commute from the Raleigh suburbs to Raleigh and the Durham suburbs to Durham, or they commute from those suburbs to RTP. There was going to be a stop at the airport, but not in RTP or in any of the larger suburbs. Without commuters or business travelers, no form of mass transportation is economically viable. Going to the museum or the soup kitchen or to see grandma doesn’t cut it.
It was so wasteful even Congress wouldn’t fund it—I think the price tag was going to be about a billion dollars a mile.
“Now my kids will be paying for it forever.”
I think your kids can avoid it by moving a couple of counties away. Some of those Puget Sound area light rail lines do make economic sense though, unlike the late Bullet Train.
No we should NOT build the stupid bullet train in California, You cannot even get on the train in LA and go to SF without getting on a bus to Bakersfield and then getting back on another. Also it requires them to chew up a lot of agriculture land for a train nobody wants
My post was sarcastic.
And even the lefties are pulling the plug on the bullet train.
I imagine he has his own useless black hole project to throw that money at.
I guess Nancy Pelosi’s husband made enough money off this deal.
And almost all of them went broke at least once. I think the Georgia Railroad was one of the few that avoided bankruptcy because the banking subsidiary was highly profitable and they got favorable tax treatment from the state.
sorry it was not-so-finestien ‘s husband
They could have used the money to make highway 99 three lanes all the way from Merced to Bakersfield. In some places it is still two lanes.
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