Posted on 11/14/2018 3:35:58 AM PST by george76
The cost of constructing the Southern California section of the state bullet train could jump by as much as $11 billion over estimates released earlier this year, though rail authority officials caution that their new numbers assume a more expansive design than is likely to be built.
The new estimates are contained in environmental reports prepared for Thursday’s meeting of the authority board, which will review planned routes throughout the Southland.
The reports acknowledge that the new cost estimates could affect the $77-billion price tag of the Los Angeles-to-San Francisco system, though they also use a different methodology than previous figures and are therefore not directly comparable.
The new numbers cover the cost of building three segments from Palmdale to Anaheim, which include the difficult passages through the San Gabriel Mountains, urban Los Angeles and the crowded rail corridor to Anaheim.
The Palmdale-to-Burbank section could hit $20.33 billion, up from $14.87 billion in the estimates prepared for the 2018 business plan. The construction of rail from Burbank to Los Angeles could rise to $3.55 billion from $1.25 billion. And the Los Angeles-to-Anaheim section might go as high as $4.8 billion, up from $3 billion.
Those costs do not include inflation, which would further boost them by 15% to 20% by the time the construction is completed, based on the rail authority’s past assumptions about rates of inflation.
Over the three sections, the potential costs amount to a 50% surge from the business plan estimates released in February.
...
The project has undergone a series of cost increases over the last decade from an original estimate of $33 billion to the current $77 billion.
Civil engineering experts said they were astounded by the differences in the estimates, which they said they had never seen in other projects.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
As it speeds through the fires.
That’s an expensive bullet.
And nothing means anything to these morons.
For that price it should be a mag-lev train.
With the amount they have spent, plus the annual subsidies California could have treated hundreds of thousands of the mentally ill homeless.
“Civil engineering experts said they were astounded by the differences in the estimates, which they said they had never seen in other projects.”
Hey, the crooked politicians and their cronies have to be paid off, you know.
Not bad for something that in the original proposition that was supported to cost around three billion and have private funding
More payoffs to corrupt pols, and localities also want a piece of that Taxpayers’ money pie.
It is so heartwarming to know that the state with the highest poverty rate in the nation has so much extra money to use on boondoggles like this.
What is the actual need for this train? Who are the anticipated users?
The Amtrak Acela runs close to us. I’ve looked into buying tickets on the Acela, since I think it would be fun to ride on a fast train. (According to Wikipedia, it goes an average of 82.2 mph, and can reach 150 mph on one short section of the track.) It costs roughly twice as much as the non-high speed train, and only shaves an hour off the trip from Baltimore to Boston.
I can only assume that the CA train will be equally overpriced, assuming that it is ever completed.
It is not worth it.
California’s pension system is only 60% to 70% funded.
Taxes would need to double to cover this gap.
But if huge, expensive infrastructure projects are undertaken using unions and government workers (Bullet Train, Delta Water Fix, etc), money will flow to fill the pension gap.
Large infrastructure projects are often not needed except to backfill some government deficit. So the more wasteful the project, the better to bail out the pension system. Capish?
We just had a local news series of programs in the Phoenix Valley about the light rail. Seems that many people get on and don’t pay the modest fare.
When they are checked, it is amazing how many have warrants out for them. A great number have felony warrants and have to go directly to jail without passing go. A large number are intoxicated, stoned, violent and/or seriously infectious or otherwise ill. We certain have a large number of illegal aliens that use this expensive transportation system as well.
All funded by the taxes of those working hard to make a living and increasing the cost of everyday goods for our families.
Willie Green would approve.
I think the project should be expanded to six tracks (Three trains simultaneously in each direction), and should run South to Honduras.
The good thing about a transit authority is
I have worked on some really freakin big construction jobs in my career, several in the 5-20 billion dollar range, but how the HELL do you justify a 77 billion dollar train that can be easily beaten by air travel in both cost and speed?
Absolutely. Where is Willie? He finally pop a head gasket?
Absolutely. Where is Willie? He finally pop a head gasket?
Yes but everybody else has one of these trains.
We are far behind and suffer from a bullet train prestige deficit. This is California! How can we tolerate such emarassment.
People want to waste money on a wall! That money should be wasted on a bullet train. /S
Some pretty smart people - who already had the infrastructure in place - figured that out shortly after WWII and cut their losses.
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