Free Republic

California’s bullet train could cost taxpayers 50% more than estimated — as much as $3.6 billion more. And that’s just for the first 118 miles through the Central Valley, which was supposed to be the easiest part of the route between Los Angeles and San Francisco. A confidential Federal Railroad Administration risk analysis, obtained by The Times, projects that building bridges, viaducts, trenches and track from Merced to Shafter, just north of Bakersfield, could cost $9.5 billion to $10 billion, compared with the original budget of $6.4 billion. The federal document outlines far-reaching management problems: significant delays in environmental planning,...

Officials with state and federal transportation agencies say they did not review funding assumptions for the Regional Transit Authority of Southeast Michigan's $4.6 billion metro Detroit transit tax proposal. If approved by voters on the Nov. 8 ballot, the measure will impose a 20-year, 1.2-mill property tax increase on property owners in Oakland, Macomb, Wayne and Washtenaw Counties. The Regional Transit Authority’s spending plan assumes that some funds will come from both the Michigan Department of Transportation (MDOT) and the Federal Transit Administration (FTA). The money will mainly be used to expand municipal bus service in the region. “Total state...

The bill, authored by Senator Andy Vidak (R-Hanford), will give previous owners of property, once thought to be in one of the many proposed paths of High-Speed Rail, the opportunity to buy it back if the state is selling it. The new law will require the High-Speed Rail Authority (HSRA) to notify previous property owners when it plans to sell unneeded property, then wait 30 days before selling it.

Jerry Brown’s dream of constructing a high speed rail line connecting the Bay Area with Southern California suffered a major setback this week, but rest assured every effort is being made to spend enough money quickly enough to make pulling the plug seem unreasonable. Construction costs of the project have escalated so rapidly since the times state voters narrowly approved a bond issue that instead of constructing new tracks in the Bay Area and Los Angeles, the trains will share existing tracks with conventional freight and commuter trains, drastically increasing travel time, and making the trains half-fast at best. But...

California will need to double down on support of the bullet train by digging deeper into the state's wallet and accepting a three-year delay in completing the project's initial leg, a new business plan for the 220-mph system shows. Rail planners have turned their construction plans upside down, attempting to fit the mega-project within the state's limited budget. The 2016 business plan, released last month, shows that the Los Angeles-to-San Francisco rail link has proved to be politically and technically more complicated to build than foreseen in 2008, when voters agreed to help finance the project with a $9-billion bond....

California's plans for a high-speed rail system are coming undone as indecision over routes undermines progress, the Los Angeles Times reports. In 2012 the state rail authority decided to build the first segment of the $68 billion project from LA's Union Station into the Central Valley, ending well short of the final goal: a 2 hour, 40 minute trip from LA to the San Francisco Bay Area. The 2012 plan would confront the most challenging part of the route first: the rocky Tehachapi and San Gabriel Mountains just north of LA. It would also provide the first physical manifestation of...

Talk about a trainwreck. Today, California broke ground on another disastrous government-funded project: high-speed rail that will eventually go from San Francisco to Los Angeles. The project is estimated to cost $68 billion. The plan is that the private sector will ultimately invest around one-third of the total cost, but so far, there have been no takers. And it’s no wonder. It’s hard to see how this project makes sense. Backers say the train will be able to make the trip between San Francisco and Los Angeles in under 2 hours, 40 minutes. However, according to a 2013 Reason Foundation...

Ready or not, Californians - and America - here it comes. After a two year delay, during which the cost nearly doubled, California's high speed rail system will break ground this week. The project - said to cost $68 billion - will link Los Angeles to San Francisco by 2028. There's only one teentsy, tiny problem: They have no idea how they are going to fund it. ... What of that 200 MPH boast? The original design of the project called for railroad tracks totally dedicated to the high speed rail system. But that proved even more ruinously expensive than...

Los Angeles Times architecture critic Christopher Hawthorne–who claims to be an “unabashed supporter” of high-speed rail–reviews Anaheim’s new train station and finds it “oddly antiseptic.” Hawthorne doesn’t care that taxpayers spent $2,764 per square foot for what is essentially a big glass tent. He is a little disturbed that the design is so dysfunctional that train passengers “exit onto an uncovered platform, take the elevator or stairs [up] to a pedestrian bridge, and then enter the building at its highest interior level” only to have to go back down again to get to ground level. ... While Hawthorne’s critique is...

President Barack Obama on Thursday set U.S. transportation policy on a new course, announcing at least $13 billion to enhance passenger rail service as an alternative to clogged highways and overcrowded airports. "Building a new system of high-speed rail in America will be faster, cheaper and easier than building more freeways or adding to an already overburdened aviation system, and everybody stands to benefit," Mr. Obama said, speaking at an event in Washington before leaving for Mexico. Mr. Obama was flanked by Vice President Joe Biden, a long-time Amtrak rider who looked visibly moved, and Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood, who...

He is public transportation’s loudest cheerleader, boasting that he takes the subway “virtually every day.” He has told residents who complain about overcrowded trains to “get real” and he constantly encourages New Yorkers to follow his environmentally friendly example. But Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg’s commute is not your average straphanger’s ride. On mornings that he takes the subway from home, Mr. Bloomberg is picked up at his Upper East Side town house by a pair of king-size Chevrolet Suburbans. The mayor is driven 22 blocks to the subway station at 59th Street and Lexington Avenue, where he can board an...

I just returned from an extended trip on Amtrak, Houston to Anaheim Ca. .. I wanted to take a slow boat to China, in order to extend the time I had to spend with my son before dropping him off at college, sniff (but as they say, that is another story).. Slow boats weren't available so I took the next slowest form of transportation, a train, and we loved every minute.. It has been years since I took a real train ride, my son had never had the pleasure.. I thought it would be a great time to slow down...

Calcutta's famous hand-pulled rickshaws will soon be banned, according to the chief minister of the Indian state of West Bengal. The rickshaws had long been considered "inhuman" and did not exist anywhere else, Buddhadev Bhattacharya said. The rickshaw, immortalised as a living symbol of Calcutta in films such as City of Joy, will be phased out in four to five months. The hand-pulled rickshaw came from China in the 19th century. Mr Bhattacharya said: "We have taken a policy decision to take the hand-drawn rickshaw off the roads of Calcutta on humanitarian grounds. "Nowhere else in the world does this...