Free Republic

It sounded too good to be true, and it was. Travel from downtown San Francisco to downtown Los Angeles in two hours via high-speed rail. California voters in 2008 approved Proposition 1A, authorizing $9.95 billion in general obligation bonds to build this so-called “bullet train.” They were told not only that the total cost would only be $33 billion but also that the entire 500-mile system would be running by 2030. Fat chance. In March of this year, the California High-Speed Rail Authority released its latest progress report. The project is now projected to cost $127 billion, and there is...

Last February the California High-Speed Rail Authority announced that the price for the state’s planned bullet train had gone up from $100 billion to $105 billion. A few months later they clarified it was actually going to be $113 billion. Yesterday there were more reports about delays and price increases.High Speed Rail Authority officials on Thursday could not provide an estimated completion date for the original vision pitched to voters but said the price tag for the entire project is now up to $128 billion, a 13% increase from last year’s projections…Construction is currently focused on a segment in the...

If you ask someone to close their eyes and picture a train, they'll typically imagine one of two things: The sleek, fast European passenger trains that can zip through the countryside, or The industrial, coal-burning freight trains that powered the American westward expansion. So, how did these two vastly dissimilar pictures come to be? In this article, we'll take a closer look at the key differences between American and European rail systems. HOW DO EUROPEAN AND NORTH AMERICAN TRAINS DIFFER? When it comes to American trains vs. European trains, there are six main factors that help make each one stand...

SACRAMENTO (AP) — The Trump administration cancelled nearly $1 billion in federal money for California’s high-speed rail project Thursday, further throwing into question the future of the ambitious plan to connect Los Angeles and San Francisco. The Federal Railroad Administration’s announcement it would not give California the money came several months after sniping between President Donald Trump and Gov. Gavin Newsom over the project. The administration will still try to force California to return another $2.5 billion that has already been spent. Trump had seized on Newsom’s remarks in February that the project as planned would cost too much and...

Officials increased the cost estimate for the first phase of California’s high speed rail project by 35 percent on Tuesday, to $10.6 billion. That would put the entire cost of the train from San Francisco to Los Angeles at roughly $67 billion, although officials said they hope to recover the newly announced costs later. […] The $2.8 billion price jump is for a 119-mile (191-kilometer) segment in the Central Valley, which is partially under construction. The fresh costs are due to trouble acquiring rights of way for the track, the need to build more barriers along the tracks and other...

The incredible journey of California's high speed rail took another hit this past week when authorities inked a contract revision pushing back the opening of the first segment of the line from 2018 to 2022. Project costs for this one, 119 mile stretch of track through the relatively empty Central Valley have topped $69 billion, with only a fraction of those funds appropriated. The high speed rail authority has only purchased half the land necessary to complete the first leg of the project and not a single foot of track has been laid. The feds are blaming opponents of the...

Infrastructure: California's high-speed rail project will never make its current 2022 arrival time, according to the Los Angeles Times. Doesn't this strike anyone in charge of this costly boondoggle as ironic?...Officials still haven't settled on a route, they're behind schedule in acquiring land, getting permits and financing, and the project faces several lawsuits. Boring on the 36 miles of planned tunnels isn't likely to get started until 2019, the Times notes, and by any reasonable estimate it will take another 7 to 14 years to complete. Even that's probably optimistic, since several parts will traverse known fault lines, vastly increasing...

FRESNO, Calif. (AP) -- Federal authorities say California's $68 billion higher-speed rail could harm the protected kit fox.

Advocates for the projected bullet train running from San Francisco to Los Angeles argued at the Public Policy Institute’s all-day State of Change conference last week that simply getting the project started would catalyze the federal government to pour more money into the $67.6 billion boondoggle. The California High-Speed Rail Authority offered the $67.6 million figure in February 2014 ... As Reason Magazine recently reported, “The CHSRA April 2012 Business Plan is so deficient that it is inconceivable that policymakers would continue to rely on its assertions to evaluate the program.”

California is broke and broken. Its freeways and roads are crumbling. Many cities—like Stockton, which declared bankruptcy two weeks ago—are straining under hundreds of millions in bond debt and unfunded pensions for retired public workers. In the face of a slow-motion fiscal train wreck, why would state lawmakers commit to spending $5.8 billion in state and federal funds on the first phase of a high-speed rail line that practically nobody wants in part of the state where practically nobody lives? The state Senate on Friday narrowly approved legislation to start work on a 130-mile stretch of rail between Madera and...

If California starts building a 130-mile segment of high-speed rail late this year as planned, it will enter into a risky race against a deadline set up under federal law. The bullet train track through the Central Valley would cost $6 billion and have to be completed by September 2017, or else potentially lose some of its federal funding. It would mean spending as much as $3.5 million every calendar day, holidays and weekends included — the fastest rate of transportation construction known in U.S. history, according to industry and academic experts. Over four years, the California High-Speed Rail Authority...