Free Republic

Ron Tutor, chief executive of Tutor Perini, said the redesign was not his firm’s fault... “We designed it and they approved it and then they changed their minds,” Tutor said. “They had a change of heart.” At least three other bullet train bridges in the Central Valley used the same design as the Avenue 8 bridge and are now being redesigned, according to a January rail authority status update, raising questions about whether potentially more costly designs will be required in the future. The previous design for Avenue 8, using what is known as mechanically stabilized earth walls, is generally...

Friday, California's High-Speed Rail Authority published its draft 2018 Business Plan. Its 800-mile bullet-train project's estimated cost is now $77.3 billion, up from $64 billion two years ago, and its final completion has been pushed out another four years to 2033. The current estimate is now more than 70 percent above the $45 billion presented to voters in 2008. The related Associated Press story failed to disclose that original cost estimate, as did three leading California newspapers. The Authority's draft discloses that "More than $3 billion has been expended to date on construction in the Central Valley and planning for...

Federal officials warn that the Big Dig's cost may rise by an estimated $75 million, forcing state taxpayers to cover any increase. The projected hike, outlined in a memo drafted by the U.S. Department of Transportation's inspector general, would be the first increase in the project's price tag since 2001. There are numerous reasons for the possible hike, federal officials told The Boston Globe: Officials may have miscalculated the cost of settling disputes with Big Dig contractors and underestimated how much money the state will recover from contractors that performed late or shoddy work. A spokesman for Transportation Inspector General...

Sacramento -- Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, betting that new bids or a different design for the new Bay Bridge will save hundreds of millions of dollars and won't cause further delays, rejected on Thursday what Bay Area leaders had considered the best chance of getting the span built before the next big earthquake. The state chose to let expire the lone bid for the new bridge's trademark -- a spire-like single-tower suspension span to Yerba Buena Island. The decision, announced by Sunne Wright McPeak, state secretary of business, transportation and housing, is a gamble.

TOKYO - A magnetically levitated Japanese train raced to a new record Tuesday, topping its own record set just last month. The experimental maglev set the world's top speed for a train, clocking 361 mph in a test run in Yamanashi Prefecture (state), west of Tokyo, Central Japan Railway Co., which is carrying out the experiments, said in a statement. Maglev trains differ from conventional trains in that magnets lift them slightly off the track, eliminating speed-reducing friction and reducing noise. (they also cost about 100 times as much) The maglev is part of a government-financed project to develop faster...