Free Republic

The California bullet train is facing at least another billion dollars of proposed cost increases from its contractors... The state’s High-Speed Rail Authority has mostly approved such increases in the past, and if it does so again, contractors could proceed with one of the biggest price escalations since bullet train construction began in the San Joaquin Valley. The state has budgeted $22.8 billion to build a partial segment from Bakersfield to Merced. Originally, construction of the Los Angeles to San Francisco system was pegged at $33 billion. But the surging costs will probably force the state to dig deeper into...

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...

2014, when the rail authority awarded the contract, it went with the lowest bidder...which promised $300 million in cost savings by altering the design that the authority had proposed to regulators. Seven years later, these changes have been largely abandoned and have contributed to more than $800 million in cost overruns on the Kings County segment. That figure is 62% above the contract price tag, which the rail authority has agreed to pay, according to interviews and technical and contractual documents reviewed by The Times. In addition, the rail authority awarded the contract without first completing a scientific assessment of...

Former Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger celebrated when the California Transportation Commission voted, despite a host of warnings, to pay a contractor more than $1 billion to build two tunnels and a stretch of road outside San Francisco nine years ago. Schwarzenegger said the project’s new approach, which aimed to cap public expenses and shift responsibility to the private sector, would serve as a “shining example” of an innovative way to improve the state’s highways while saving taxpayer dollars. Now the project, known as the Presidio Parkway, is more than two years late and $208 million over budget. When the commission approved...

The space agency has always coughed up the extra cash, but some politicians wonder if the contractor responsible for major errors should pitch in.If everything had gone according to plan, the most powerful space telescope would be in orbit right now, perched about 1 million miles from Earth, peering deep into the universe, and returning home mesmerizing photos of glittering stars and galaxies. Instead, it’s still in a factory in California, waiting to receive more money so engineers can finish building it. The James Webb Space Telescope, NASA’s next big astronomy mission, has been in the works for two...

A $2 million study on replacing part of Interstate 81 in Syracuse with a tunnel supports what national transportation experts say they have known for years: Tunnels usually are a bad idea.While an I-81 tunnel would be technically feasible, it would be difficult to justify the cost of up to $4.5 billion at a time when few publicly-financed tunnel projects are moving forward, according to four transportation policy experts interviewed by syracuse.com.The few highway tunnel projects approved in recent years have been expensive mega projects, often plagued by delays and cost overruns that have drawn public criticism, the experts said.New York...

They’ve butted heads and talked of lawsuits as the MoPac Boulevard toll lane construction project has dragged on two years beyond its target completion date. Now the Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority and its toll project contractor appear to be near a financial settlement. The mobility authority board, in a specially called meeting scheduled for Tuesday morning, will consider an agreement with CH2M, the Denver-based engineering and construction firm that in April 2013 agreed to design and build the 11-mile project. The contractor agreed then to a fixed price of $137 million. But in a March 2017 memo, written when...

More than a year behind schedule, the massive project to add toll lanes to 11 miles of MoPac Expressway is now costing the government agency overseeing construction some of its savings. The Central Texas Regional Mobility Authority is dipping into its cash reserves to repay some of the $230 million it owes to the Capital Area Metropolitan Planning Organization, the Austin American-Statesman reports. The agency said once the rest of the toll lanes open — which is now projected to happen June 15, per the Statesman — the revenue collected will solve such cash flow problems. The tolls are expected...

WASHINGTON, March 26 (Reuters) - President Barack Obama's nominee to fix Pentagon purchasing problems vowed Thursday to root out cost overruns in major arms programs, fearing the $150 billion arms-procurement budget may be on its way to becoming unaffordable. Ashton Carter, a physicist, international-security expert and Harvard University professor, told his Senate confirmation hearing he expected funding for big-ticket programs to be under "increasing pressure in the future." If confirmed as expected, Carter would become under secretary of defense for acquisition, technology and logistics. He said he would go program by program to "see if there isn't more to that...

MASSIVE WTC COST OVERRUNS LOOK 'GRIM'FREDRIC U. DICKER State Editor June 28, 2008 Last updated: 5:00 am ALBANY - New Yorkers will be told the "grim truth" Monday about new delays and cost overruns at the World Trade Center redevelopment site by Port Authority executive director Christopher Ward, state officials and real-estate industry sources said yesterday. Ward, in what one source called "the coming grim truth," is expected to outline for Gov. Paterson and the PA more than 20 major problem areas facing the $16 billion redevelopment efforts, including massive cost overruns and unrealistic construction timetables. At least one project,...

Sacramento -- A state Senate committee approved a $7.7 billion bond proposal Tuesday that would help pay for the new eastern span of the Bay Bridge, along with a variety of transportation, port and levee projects throughout the state. "This is basically a savings plan," said Senate President Pro Tem Don Perata, D-Oakland, the bill's sponsor. "We are going to save California's economy by doing this."

Posted 04/07/05 09:19 U.S. Jet Fighter Programs Beset by Prohibitive Rising Costs By JIM MANNION, AGENCE FRANCE-PRESSE The U..S. Air Force's jet fighter programs; the F/A-22 and the Joint Strike Fighter are beset by soaring costs, development delays and changing world threats that raise questions about their viability," Congress's investigative arm said April 6. The Government Accountability Office said in a report that the original business case for the F/A-22 has been "severely weakened, and that the original business rationale for the JSF is unexecutable." The uncertainty surrounding the two fighter programs, which together require future investments of 240...

Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger upped the ante Thursday in his fight with Bay Area leaders over the financially troubled Bay Bridge seismic retrofit project, planning to submit legislation that puts the $2 billion-plus overrun cost on motorists using the bridge. The administration said earlier this week it would seek a November ballot measure asking Bay Area voters to approve diverting $1 of the $3 bridge toll to paying for the overruns. The actual wording of the bill, however, makes a November vote mandatory even though several Bay Area county election officials contend that the ballot deadline already has expired. The bill...

With the effort to rebuild the Bay Bridge now almost $5 billion over budget, Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger on Monday said Bay Area residents should cover the cost overruns and called for a November ballot measure in which voters would decide how to do it. "Gov. Schwarzenegger is not going to take important transportation money from all over the state, including Southern California, to pay for the cost overruns of the Bay Bridge," said Vince Sollitto, a spokesman for Schwarzenegger. Officials announced Monday their intent to send a bill that would include the call for a November vote as well as...

HOME > GOVERNMENT > STATE GOVERNMENT > AGENCIES, BOARDS & COMMISSIONS Accountancy, Board of Administrative Services, Dept. of Adult & Family Services Division Agriculture, Department of Alcohol & Drug Abuse, Office of Appraiser Certification & Licensure Architect Examiners, Board of Archives, Secretary of State Area Commissions on Transportation Arts Commission Asian Affairs Commission Attorney General Audits Division, Sec. of State Aviation, Department of Black Affairs Commission Blind Commission Board of Medical Examiners Board of Naturopathic Examiners Building Codes Division Business Name Search Capitol Planning Commission Child Support, Division of Children & Families Commission Children & Families, Services to Children's Health...

<p>City officials issued two dozen change orders to the construction contract for the Marine Education Center and related improvements at Hanauma Bay, sending the project 23 percent over its $10.6 million budget and prompting the City Council budget chairwoman to schedule a special hearing on the costs.</p>