Dumb ol’ California wouldn’t listen to me. And now look at the mess they’re in.
What’s a few hundred billion among friends?
And in a year $200B will be needed for the next mile of track to the last mile of track that court $100B.
Why would people want to go to San Francisco leave it yes but not go to it
So California, go to your voters and raise the money.
They should be talking to Elon Musk about his Hyperloop. That’s an even more effective way of burning money.
Pure insanity...but it’s Kalifornia...
Dumb ol’ California wouldn’t listen to me. And now look at the mess they’re in.
Polls in recent years have shown even the idiot voters here have soured on this boondoggle. But still our rulers keep chugging along. We’ll, not really, but you know what I mean
They need another $100 billion? Well, people in hell need ice water.
From https://www.whatitcosts.com/golden-gate-bridge-cost-build/
The Golden Gate Bridge in San Francisco was constructed over a four-and-a-half-year period spanning from 1933 to 1937.
The bridge’s initial cost amounted to $37 million, but additional expenses included $39 million in interest accrued on municipal bonds. Toll revenues covered the entire expense of the bridge before the final bonds were retired in 1971. By today’s standards, the approximate $76 million total cost (inclusive of interest) in 1933 equates to over $1.8 billion in 2024 dollars.
Measuring 1.7 miles in length, the Golden Gate Bridge incurred an approximate cost of $1.1 billion per mile.
California high speed rail cost ( from https://www.cnbc.com/2023/05/17/why-californias-high-speed-rail-is-taking-so-long-to-complete.html )
Turning to the California high-speed rail project, in 2008, Californians voted affirmatively on a $9 billion bond authorization to initiate construction of the nation’s inaugural high-speed railway.
However, after 15 years have elapsed, not a single mile of track has been laid, and project executives assert insufficient funding to see it to fruition. Current estimates project completion costs ranging from $88 billion to $128 billion to cover the entirety of the proposed system from Los Angeles to San Francisco.
My comment
In summation, projections suggest a hundredfold increase over the original $9 billion allocation voted upon in 2008, making the total cost range between $970 billion and $1.4 trillion by completion in 2024 dollars. When considering accrued interest, this estimate escalates to $2-4 trillion.
Given this vast scope, think about the ongoing maintenance costs of maintaining 500 miles of high-speed rail, particularly when juxtaposed with the $400 million 2024 budget allocated for the maintenance of the 1.7-mile Golden Gate Bridge!
The distance between Bakersfield in around 400 miles-—on the shorter side, at that.
I live in the Boston suburbs.
When local government tells that their latest mega-project will only cost a few billion and two years one must, as a local citizen multiply those numbers and years by at least x10.
I mean how many times does it take for this to sink in?
Most people don’t even know.
I mentioned todays Space-X Starship launch to around 7 people today.
not only did they not know about the launch, they did not even know about Space-X.
unbelievable...
not really, my whole life i realized that nobody i knew or talked to had any idea what was going on outside of their personal lives.
It’s obvious that the money is going to illegal aliens, not to build rails.
They have suckered the feds to contribute to the gravy train. At this rate, they may actually finish the project in 100 years. /spit
Not another Fed dollar for this boondoggle to nowhere. Let the insolvent state borrow the money from their underfunded pension plan to build their fantasy choo choo.
Even $500 Billion is not too much to thumb their nose at Nazi Trump who hates this idea.
All rail projects are a waste of money. As the Wall Street Journal editorial used to say fixed rail is the 19th century’s answer to 20th/21st century transportation needs.
A proposition was passed in 2002 that to have all gas tax revenue devoted to the roads since less than half of it at that time was spent on road maintenance and improvements.
Despite this proposition passing there was this:
https://landline.media/california-governor-orders-fuel-tax-revenue-diversion-from-roads/
California is as lawless as it’s hopeless. I don’t recall any conservative or Republican group immediately taking this illegal executive order to court.
California is merrily on its way to being a 3rd/4th world waste land.
There is no intention of building it, only of milking the alleged project.
$100,000,000,000 MORE???
The USA went from zero to nuclear power dominant for only two billion (1945 dollars - 34 billion, 2022) with the Manhattan Project.
And from Einstein’s letter to Hiroshima drop it took only about 6 years.