High-speed rail gets a four-year delay

Politico ^ | May 18, 2016 | MICHAEL GRUNWALD

[reaganaut1]

How much money is being wasted on this boondoggle? Meanwhile, infrastructure that the private sector wants to build, such as the Keystone Pipeline, is being blocked.

[stubernx98]

Kinda like Bertha here in Seattle......

[DaxtonBrown]

This is a giant mafia boondoggle. Can you imagine the money a four year overrun costs?

[ColdOne]

according to a contract revision the Obama administration quietly approved this morning.......how did teamobama get involved in this?

[Buckeye McFrog]

I am not a fan of high-speed rail, BUT....

This used to be a country that could get big things done.

We built the Golden Gate Bridge in four years.
We put a man on the Moon in nine.

Now we can’t even get the permits lined up to build a flippin’ choo-choo train in less than a quarter-century.

[MeganC]

The project is simply being shelved so the LA water interests can steal the bond money and spend it on THEIR hundred-billion-dollar boondoggle, the Delta Tunnels Project.

[Rusty0604]

For my home state of CA, this is no surprise. Environmentalists and labor unions running the show.

[EagleUSA]

It is just ANOTHER DemocRat sham. A near useless train for the sole purpose of creating UNION, tax-funded jobs to feed the DemocRat voter base in Taxifornia. Another fine piece of work by Jerry Brown and his mob in Sacramento.

And as usual, they do NOT have the money. More tax, more spend, more debt...driving people and jobs out of Taxifornia.

[Paladin2]

Ship yourself as freight, it’d be cheaper...And faster...

[Paladin2]

Yeah, Hoover Dam, Empire State Building, Build stuff to win WW II in four years...

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

Who knew that they need to buy land for a train? Mistakes were made. They are conducting a thorough review. Insert a sentence with the word “accountable” in absolutely any sentence you wish to compose.

[Rumplemeyer]

This is a giant mafia boondoggle. Can you imagine the money a four year overrun costs?

---

This Mafia is the California Democrat Party: Pelosi, Boxer, Feinstein & Husband Blom, Ron Tudor, Moon Beam Brown, Willie Brown, Gavin Newsome and several players to be named in future RICO indictments...

[N. Theknow]

$64 Billion!!! Shirley U. Jest must be the project manager.

[Blue Jays]

"...This used to be a country that could get big things done..."

---

You are precisely correct, Buckeye McFrog.
A comprehensive network of "hub and spoke" railroads (with provisions for long-distance travel) should not take a quarter-century to modernize.

[roadcat]

We built the Golden Gate Bridge in four years.

Both the Golden Gate Bridge and SF/Oakland Bay Bridge were built from conception to completion in 3-1/2 years, simultaneously. The 1989 Loma Prieta Earthquake damaged a small section of the Bay Bridge and it took over 25 years to rebuild that small section (27 years and they're still working on demolishing the replaced section). Not only that, but Chinese built major components and shipped them to SF for installation. We used to have steel mills and industrial factories locally in the Bay Area, long gone now. This country can no longer get things done quickly.

[rainee]

Gov Moonbeams choo choo train to nowhere!

[Califreak]

Desal plants would be a far better use of the money.

Maybe dam things up to save the precious rainwater instead of letting it run off into the ocean.

[mainestategop]

800 billion dollars over a decade or more just to build some stupid rail from LA to Sacromento.

By the time it gets built America will be a turd world banana republic and no one will be able to afford to ride it.

[zek157]

How much is being wasted? $64B plus inflation factors.

[irishjuggler]

Yeah, Hoover Dam, Empire State Building, Build stuff to win WW II in four years...

Yep, not one but two functional atomic bomb designs in 3.5 years. The government that could accomplish that is ancient history.