Posted on 01/14/2017 6:33:36 AM PST by Olog-hai
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. …
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Water is being use to punish the citizens of California.
The environmentalist have a lot of influence in Sacramento. They actually want to destroy existing damns.
They do not like farmers and so they found a way to restrict water to the central valley in the name of some small fish in the Delta.
I don’t pretend to understand them as it is impossible to understand the insane. Yet, Sacramento listens to them.
And send Pelosi some smoked Delta smelts for dinner. Since they are about 2½ inches long, it’ll take a large quantity.
If they start starving due to a famine they themselves cause by their policies, they’ll start loving farmers again very quickly. And they do seem to be going down the path of Stalin and Mao in that respect.
True, in the definition of bankruptcy. However, we all know that when the goezoutas continue to exceed the comzintas and the citizens are taxed more and more, the productive ones move out and then CA is left with only liberals.
Oh, that was unexpected.
No reservoirs. People do not belong in dry desert areas.
Actually pushing $100 million. And this is the EASIEST LAND in the country to build a train line (or widen a freeway, for that matter), as it is sparsely populated and TOTALLY FLAT. As you head towards SF and LA, things become completely opposite.
But as it, nothing to fret, if California REALLY wants it bad enough, they’ll have it, and they’ll be paying for it. It’s really their business at this point.
That’s because he wants to spend money on infrastructure that works and that’s not the infrastructure CA wants to blow money on.
My out is raged too
“How many desalination plants and water storage facilities could have been built for the cost of California’s bullet train?”
...or how many new lanes can be added to I-5, which parallels the route?
I’ll answer: For the total cost of the route, two lanes could be added to I-5 (presently only 2 lanes each way now, for the entire Central Valley run), along with adding extra lanes at each end on I-5 in LA, and I-580 near SF (where it then meets up with other freeways), for about $5 Billion dollars...roughly 5 or 6 percent of the cost of the train.
From there, maybe make one of the new lanes a bus-only lane, and let Megabus and others do their thing for next to NO COST for passengers.
Light rail overruns tend to be six times the original cost estimate. I suspect this fiasco will be similar. 50 percent over budget is a lie and they know it. It’ll be much higher if it actually gets built.
Well, some of us just don’t get it. This cost-overrun has a purpose — the purpose of enriching a lot of people at tax-payer expense.
I suspect that a crisis of governance in Sacramento will occur before the first rails are laid.
If a project doesn’t come in at or under budget, people should go to jail.
couple of points
1) CALexit 2018 is a good thing
2) The bullet train should be fully privatized.
3) Even with the cost overruns, graft, and fraud the bullet train is still cheaper than building a superhighway
I’d like to know what was originally budgeted for that the costs were at $6.4 billion for such a short segment.
If federal funds dry up, expect California to IMMEDIATELY drop the train like a rock. There is simply no way that they’ll let the billions that they could hand out to millions of welfare types be gobbled up by a few well-connected construction firms.
...as to widening the freeway, its been needed for decades, I don’t hold out much hope - but I also wouldn’t complain if the feds offered to help finance that, because it’s needed (I know, don’t yell at me, not very popular to say that here).
Didn’t Obama derail the bullet train?
Lame-Duck Obama Admin Rejects CA High-Speed Rail $15 Billion Loan
The California High-Speed Rail Authority came up empty when it asked the outgoing administration of President Barack Obama for a $15 billion loan, the Los Angeles Times reports.
State officials feared that with Republican Donald J. Trump taking office — somewhat unexpectedly — in January, and perhaps cutting off funding to the struggling project, which has never had a clear idea of how it would be financed, they would appeal to the Obama administration for a financial break.
Read
Right BOBL. There are many other ways to invest in CALIFORNIA than the bullet train boondoggle.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.