Posted on 08/14/2011 5:08:26 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
Do I hate to say, “I told you so“? Er … not really:
Building tracks for the first section of California’s proposed high-speed rail line will cost $2.9 billion to $6.8 billion more than originally estimated, raising questions about the affordability of the nation’s most ambitious rail project at a time when its planning and finances are under fire.
A 2009 business plan developed for the California High-Speed Authority, the entity overseeing the project, estimated costs at about $7.1 billion for the equivalent stretch of tracks. Officials say those estimates were made before detailed engineering work and feedback from communities along the proposed route.
The latest estimates are contained in two environmental impact studies that were shared with The Associated Press before their public release on Tuesday.
In May, I explained in my column at The Week that the first section in question connects two population centers that don’t have much population at all:
Thanks to rules attached to federal subsidies in President Obama’s stimulus package, California has to break ground on the project by next year. That has forced the state to focus much of its $3.5 billion on an effort to connect the bustling metropolises of… Borden and Corcoran. The latter is a town of fewer than 25,000 people located 174 miles north of Los Angeles, while Borden, 167 miles south of San Francisco, is an unincorporated area that doesn’t even have a population listing. Its county, Madera, boasts a population of 148,000, making it 33rd out of 58 counties in California in population.
Taxpayers throughout the country therefore paid more than $3 billion to connect fewer than 175,000 people by rail. That may not be a “train to nowhere,” as the Times‘ editors put it, but it’s pretty darned close. Moreover, thanks to California’s own budget meltdowns, the state won’t allow any bond issues for rail projects that don’t generate enough revenue to pay for themselves — and with the fabulous destinations of Borden and Corcoran as end points, the state won’t sell enough tickets to have the engines pulling out of the station.
The AP confirms that this is the section where costs appear to have almost doubled in the past three months:
Construction of the first stretch of tracks – as much as 140 miles from south of Merced to just north of Bakersfield – is scheduled to begin by September 2012 using $3.5 billion in federal money and an estimated $2.8 billion from the sale of state bonds approved by voters.
The higher cost estimates already have been factored into the federally funded construction, van Ark said.
As a native Californian and a long-time resident of the state (over 30 years), I can confirm that the populations around Merced and Bakersfield would dearly love to go somewhere else … but not switch places. Now it appears that the original, ridiculous estimated cost to connect two points in relative Nowhereland have either doubled or tripled since the Obama administration funded the project.
Let’s put this in perspective. The higher-end estimate of just the cost overruns is more than twice the cost of Cash for Clunkers. It’s also about one-sixth of the entire reduction to the FY2011 budget forced by Republicans in April after a long showdown with Democrats. The California high-speed rail is not a train to nowhere — it’s an express to bankruptcy, especially if the project continues past this sideline spur.
If you think the cost is mushrooming now, just wait until work actually starts!
Damn, that was unexpected.
High speed rail was insanity back in 2005 when things were relatively good. Now it’s gone way past insanity into the realm of liberal conventional wisdom, in a horrible economy with California taxpayers leaving for other states in droves. It’s way past time to hit the whole idea of high-speed rail over the head and put it out of it’s misery before it does the same for us.
The "BIG DIG" on steroids!
Why does California need a high-speed rail?
They are going nowhere fast, anyway.
Visualize Californians swirling the toilet bowl while their politicians reach out and up to the flush handle one more time.
Where’s Boxcar Willie? He promised this would never happen.
Mass transit is more about being a vehicle for union corporations than for people.
The construction costs will be a small portion of the union corporations cost to man and maintain mass transit.
If this surprises you, don’t raise your hand.
If you feel this cost overrun is just a drop in the bucket, raise your other hand.
That could buy a lot of air conditionerrs for the people in Bakersville.
Who’s paying for it? Hopefully CA.
Gee. Well, then, we all apologize. That completely explains it. I would completely accept that excuse. When I have to make estimates for budgets to submit for action, I usually get that estimate together without any kind of engineering plan or discussion with people it might impact, and end up missing a few billion dollars here and a few billion there.
You wonder why we are going broke. PS: the Big Dig accomplished nothing but fattening the wallets connected contractors for substandard work and employing a lot of union slugs.
Gee, I sure hope the Federal Government applies the same level of management expertise when it takes over some a simplier and easier to manage, like the hospitals, next year.
Fully implementing the High Speed Rail Association’s plan for the US would cost somewhere between $2.5 and $3 TRILLION dollars. All for a system that will - at their estimates - move 3 times as many people by train as travel today.
Basically $3 trillion for 4% fewer air flights.
$10,000 for every man, woman, and child in the US...
Don’t forget the epic fail of embryonic stem cell research taxpayer funding by the state—another boondoggle heist from Sacto.
All of them believe in the Keynesian myth of overcoming any recession (or depression) with public works projects.
Mention the Great Depression, and they all picture the Hoover Dam, and voila, depression over! (Never mind WWII or the easing of Smoot Hawley tariffs.)
This day and age, dams are taboo, and public transport is (ugh) somehow green and good.
All of the history that shows the folly of Keynesian wishful economics mean nothing to them.
The fact that nobody will ride the bullet train eludes their dreamy world view.
The train threatens to rob THEM of their state, and they just do not want to see it.
.
6.8??
Its already projected by the analysts to be 20 billion over according to the CC Times a few days ago.
On this same idea, remember NJ and Gov. Christie on that Hudson Train Tunnel (ARC) cancellation? The Feds are demanding return of monies already spent and the legal fight is costing NJ more than $1 million so far. Thus consider any federal project to be like the tar baby, easy to touch but very hard to pull away from.
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