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California's Bullet Train Hurtles Towards a Multibillion-Dollar Overrun (latimes.com)
schwit1 quotes the Los Angeles Times: 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, lags in processing invoices for federal grants and continuing failures to acquire needed property. The California High-Speed Rail Authority originally anticipated completing the Central Valley track by this year, but the federal risk analysis estimates that that won't happen until 2024, placing the project seven years behind schedule.
The whole project is expected to cost more than $68 billion.
The federal document outlines far-reaching management problems: significant delays in environmental planning, lags in processing invoices for federal grants and continuing failures to acquire needed property. The California High-Speed Rail Authority originally anticipated completing the Central Valley track by this year, but the federal risk analysis estimates that that won't happen until 2024, placing the project seven years behind schedule.
The whole project is expected to cost more than $68 billion.
It was obvious from before it was approved. I voted against it. But what do I know? Oh, right - that mass transportation needs to be able to pay its own way or it isn't something we should be putting in. It was very clear that this was going to be a boondoggle.
a mere $3B? no big deal, chump change
The liberal voters in Seattle pushed through a $54B transportation bill for only 64 MILES of track....Ya, with "B"..
http://www.seattletimes.com/se...
Every property owner in 2 counties will get the benefit of higher taxes ($400+ per year) on top of our already 10+% sales tax.
Sure, traffic is awful, but I can't fathom over $843M per mile of light rail. What a testament to government bloat, payola and incompetence...
California tax payers should consider themselves lucky with such a paltry number.
Certainly, few people drove on the first five miles of controlled-access highway --- but the fully built-out Interstate system is used by many millions. To describe the entire project as only the Central Valley segment is foolish at best and malevolent at worst.
> How many airports could you build with $68 Billion ?
Can you imagine the pollution produced by airliners? The typical A-320 or B-737 has app. 60000 horsepower jet engines or about 4x times of power what a bullet train uses to transport 3-4x more people. There is a magnitude of difference in efficiency of propulsion.
Furthermore, all of that aviation power comes from burning hydrocarbons, since it is difficult to attach a high-voltage catenary to a plane in-flight... (On a B-737 just five minutes of flight consumes app. 300 liters of fuel, consider that a modern compact car would do a coast-to-coast trip on that allowance.) Electrified railways can be run from wind, hydro, photo-voltaic, biomass or fission powerplants, with zero carbon balance. (In fact the Netherlands now covers 100% of its railway traction energy needs with wind turbine power, thanks to their infamously gusty seashore.)
Also consider that airports cannot be located inside populated areas, due to big noise and vibrations issues. Grand railway terminals can be placed in the heart of cities, since trains can easily ride the final few miles at a reduced pace for less noise and the tracks can be surrounded with sound-absorbing walls, which are now even available in transparent form.
Airports must be located outside cities, which necessitates 4x4 lane super-highways and/or a shuttle rail connection. Why not build a railway for the entire route, so people can travel city centre to city centre, without changing modality?
YOu need to get out of the US. Throughout Europe they use trains. They go 200 miles per hour. They're more comfortable than a plane (more leg room, dining cars, etc), cheaper to operate, and when you count the time it takes to get through security faster. Also far more likely to be on time. The only way planes win is if the trip is at least 800 miles so the speed difference beats the amount of time wasted at an airport. Anything else, take a train. Literally nobody in Europe or Asia prefers planes for medium distance travel.
Except in America of course where we're decades behind on rail technology and have trains limited to 50-60 mph. Its about time we catch up with the rest of the world.
I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
It may work eventually, but it's a boondoggle for construction companies and mayors/governors.
So I must have been just dreaming when I thought I remembered zipping from London to Paris in just over two hours and sending emails from under the Atlantic seabed.
Your response is strange; the article and the GP are about cost overruns not whether the project is completed or not. The Chunnel did indeed overrun by about 80%.
Emphasis mine. What you say does not contract what OP said. From the Wikipedia article on the Channel Tunnel:
I suspect what's going on is a bit more insidious than mere corruption. Construction companies bid low so that they'll win the contract. Then they charge the actual construction costs as cost overruns. What's needed is an incentive to encourage companies to bid a realistic estimated cost, rather than a completely unrealistic underbid just to win the contract. Something like, say, not paying for overruns and holding the company to its original bid price.
Must be nice to be this incompetent and still have no fear of losing your job.
This is NOT incompetence. It is corruption. They are intentionally lowballing to get the project approved with the connivance of the politicians. They knew exactly what they were doing. The only incompetents are the voters who continue to tolerate this behavior.
Almost a hundred years ago, Henry Flagler had the Florida East Coast Railroad built from Jacksonville to Miami to Key West in approximately the same time it now takes **just** to do the environmental impact studies.
It's taking longer to re-double-track FEC along a roadbed built decades ago between WEST PALM BEACH & Miami (for the new Tri-Rail) than it took to build the entire original railroad across a mostly-uninhabited swamp literally a hundred miles from the nearest real city (in 1900, Miami's population was barely 100).
No, what is needed is a PUNISHMENT for not completing the project as they specified.
Do this a couple of times, and believe me, the problem will be solved.
Just go and have a look at how the Chinese government gets work done. Hint: NO contractors get to overcharge, or walk away folding the company 1 week after 'completion', etc. THEY ARE HELP ACCOUNTABLE.
Such construction has long been another slush-fund for politicians to line the pockets of their backroom funders.
Almost all public construction in the west is not so completely corrupt that the 'organisations' running it make vice and drug gangs look straight..