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Bullet train contractor warns of further two-year delay as state struggles to secure land
The Los Angeles Times ^ | March 29, 2021 | Ralph Vartabedian

Posted on 04/11/2021 4:52:34 AM PDT by Tolerance Sucks Rocks

A major construction team on the California bullet train project notified the state rail authority this month that it will not complete a 65-mile section of the future route in Kings County until at least April 14, 2025 — nearly two years after the date that the state included in a business plan adopted Thursday.

The additional delay could again boost costs and jeopardize the state’s funding plan to complete a partial operating system between Bakersfield and Merced by 2030. The project’s rising price tag has forced the state to repeatedly scale it back and delay indefinitely a goal to have the train running from Los Angeles to San Francisco — at speeds up to 220 miles per hour — by 2020.

The notification of the new delay came in a letter dated March 9 to the California High-Speed Rail Authority. A construction team led by the Spanish firm Dragados described a chaotic system for projecting future construction progress because of state delays in securing land for construction.

The Times obtained a copy of the letter, which complained that the rail authority’s failure to accurately predict land acquisition has tangled construction schedules and caused fitful conditions along the route.

Dragados said it has had to hire workers as land becomes available and then lay them off as it awaits new parcels. It said that “trepidation” among subcontractors and suppliers is resulting in higher risk that must be priced into bids for work. “Therefore, the impact of providing a schedule which includes incorrect right of way dates will only exacerbate these impacts,” the letter said.

(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Crime/Corruption; Government; News/Current Events; US: California
KEYWORDS: bakersfield; bullettrain; california; centralvalley; changeorders; construction; delays; dragados; fresno; highspeedrail; infrastructure; kingscounty; madera; merced; overruns; railhenge; transportation; tularecounty; tutorperini
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

Imagine if the Democrats approve Slow Joe’s cross-country high-speed train boondoggle. Such a project would take at least 100 years to build.


41 posted on 04/11/2021 8:16:55 AM PDT by VeniVidiVici (Biden's favorite word: What?)
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To: srmanuel

Brightline in Florida is private high speed rail being built with government assistance mostly in the form of permitting the route to be built on government owned right of way. There’s great videos on You Tube detailing the speedy and efficient construction. Florida will have HSR long before California does.


42 posted on 04/11/2021 8:18:14 AM PDT by MercyFlush (Senator Joseph McCarthy was right. )
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

ready, start,fund,plan. oops


43 posted on 04/11/2021 8:37:35 AM PDT by sasquatch
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To: srmanuel

If you want to travel between LA and SFO, I would imagine a plane leaves every 20-30 minutes in both directions and takes a little over an hour to arrive.
= = =

I suspect that for the cost of that RR, one could fly everyone from LA - SF - LA every day for, say, 50 years, maybe longer.

Meanwhile, RR probably won’t be finished for 50 years.


44 posted on 04/11/2021 8:39:04 AM PDT by Scrambler Bob (This is not /s. It is just as viable as any MSM 'information', maybe more so!)
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To: moovova

California tax dollars at work par.


45 posted on 04/11/2021 8:58:51 AM PDT by Vaduz (women and children to be impacIQ of chimpsted the most.)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

More like a 10 year delay, if ever.


46 posted on 04/11/2021 9:01:45 AM PDT by Captain Peter Blood (https://www.freerepublic.com/focus/bloggers/3804407/posts?q=1&;page)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

This is simply another of those mega-city-building operations that are the real goal of mass transit crap wherever it is built or planned...

The only way the communists can gain control of those outlying areas is to provide the means for crime, taxes, and corrupt politicians to inundate the remaining red states & counties...

A strategy that has worked for a long, long time...
A strategy that now includes, in addition, the targeted dispersal of millions of illegal-migrant vermin throughout the red areas as well...


47 posted on 04/11/2021 12:15:34 PM PDT by SuperLuminal (Where is another Samuel Adams now that we desperately need him?)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

Where the hell is choochoo Willie Green when you need him?


48 posted on 04/11/2021 12:22:28 PM PDT by dearolddad
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To: ctdonath2
Under discussed: self driving EVs.

Most long drives are mostly on freeways or otherwise easy roads. When people get over the initial horror of driving 1000 miles by napping, browsing, gaming, and enjoying the passing view while enduring just two 20-minute breaks, and arriving at destination already having a vehicle and whatever they want to bring and on their own schedule, trains can’t compete and planes only by sheer speed.

Completely agree.

If I can travel while I sleep, a lot of trips suddenly become road trips.

Even though SF to LA is only a little over an hour by air, there is the time of travel to airport, airport overhead time: parking, security, waiting, car rental at the other end, etc. While it is possible to accomplish a business trip, including return, in one day, most people travel the night before, do business and fly back the same day as business.

A self-driving car means I leave at bedtime the night before, sleep all the way, conduct business and get back in the evening. Air provides very little time saving and a huge cost disadvantage.

All I need is a shower in the morning I arrive and a nice dinner/car charge on the way back.

49 posted on 04/11/2021 12:24:38 PM PDT by CurlyDave
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To: PLMerite

The politically well-connected contractors are making a ton of money ... and there is no liability because little has actually been constructed.


50 posted on 04/11/2021 12:27:26 PM PDT by glennaro ("Until it's safe" means "never" (Dennis Prager))
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks


Wait a minute... there might be legal precedent. Of course! Land-snatching! Land, land... "Land: see Snatch." Ah, Haley vs. United States. Haley: 7, United States: nothing. You see, it can be done!
51 posted on 04/11/2021 12:29:37 PM PDT by dfwgator (Endut! Hoch Hech!)
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To: cgbg

Even Obama “shovel ready” projects turned into “lawyer ready” ones. All Obama’s large projects turned into nightmares. This Railroad is actually Obama shovel ready job project. All that almost trillion dollars got wasted. And not just because Obama wanted to reward his cronies.
Because they could not clear any large projects, they pretty much wasted the money on little fixes, here and there.
They spend $100,000 each on “improving” sidewalk corners around here. No benefit whatsoever for anybody! They bought dilapidated houses in bad neighborhoods and renovated them. Without fixing the neighborhood, that was a total waste of money!
But they burned the money on such projects, because that did not need too much permits. Shovel ready jobs.


52 posted on 04/11/2021 12:36:12 PM PDT by AZJeep (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0AHQkryIIs)
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To: Tolerance Sucks Rocks

California has always been at war with the bullet train. The bullet train has always been at war with California.


53 posted on 04/11/2021 1:07:19 PM PDT by Organic Panic (Democrats. Memories as short as Joe Biden's eyes.)
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To: AZJeep
Without fixing the neighborhood, that was a total waste of money!

I remember that.

In Hartford, CT they made one block look great.

But--looks are deceiving--it was still a high crime death trap (think gang war cross-fire) since bad neighborhoods surrounded it on all four sides.

Red Chinese military occupation would be the only way you could fix the area.
54 posted on 04/11/2021 5:04:15 PM PDT by cgbg (A kleptocracy--if they can keep it. Think of it as the Cantillon Effect in action.)
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