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California's Bullet Train Hurtles Towards a Multibillion-Dollar Overrun (latimes.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the train-troubles dept.

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.

10 of 408 comments (clear)

  1. Well, duh. Mass transportation is a slush fund. by SensitiveMale · · Score: 5, Insightful

    It may work eventually, but it's a boondoggle for construction companies and mayors/governors.

    1. Re:Well, duh. Mass transportation is a slush fund. by fizzer06 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      And a certain US Senator.

    2. Re:Well, duh. Mass transportation is a slush fund. by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Insightful

      It may work eventually, but it's a boondoggle for construction companies and mayors/governors.

      Sure, but we should give credit where credit is due. The rule of thumb is that public works eventually cost three times their original budget. So if the overrun is only 50%, that is pretty good. But I am skeptical, since overruns generally follow the "salami algorithm" of publicising the overruns in small digestible slices. This is most likely just a slice, not the final figure.

    3. Re:Well, duh. Mass transportation is a slush fund. by Applehu+Akbar · · Score: 4, Insightful

      "London and Paris are about 200 miles apart. The distance between San Francisco and Los Angeles is about 350 miles."

      That's 200 miles with a stormy ocean channel in the middle vs 350 miles on land with some mountain passes. Every route has "interesting" construction problems, but the Swiss just completed a bullet train tunnel that passes under the Alps north-south in a straight line ("base tunnel") as if the range wasn't there. That dwarfs the largely political problems that are inflating California's HSR budget.

      Commercial air travel is optimized for long distances. We will always use it to go from Los Angeles to Seattle, Chicago or New York. But trains in busy corridors can replace the fleet of planes it takes to shuttle people over Europe-sized distances within the US, just as they do successfully in, you know, Europe.

      This is not new and unexplored tech. The cost overruns are not because it's a train, but because it's California.

  2. There will be no train by Kohath · · Score: 4, Insightful

    It will never have a single paying passenger. This has been an easy prediction since at least the year after it was approved.

    It's the 21st century, not the 19th. How many airports could you build with $68 Billion ?

    1. Re:There will be no train by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Insightful

      -mass transportation needs to be able to pay its own way or it isn't something we should be putting in.

      I disagree. Some forms of mass transit should be subsidized. The problem is that THIS ISN'T ONE OF THEM. This is long distance travel that only well-off people will be able to afford, that will carry a small proportion of traffic on a route that is not congested anyway, and is already well served by other mass transit options (airplanes, buses, Amtrak).

    2. Re:There will be no train by AuMatar · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Now add in 90 minutes at the airport before and after which don't exist on trains. Now add in the extra pollution and carbon usage of the planes. Now add in lower prices because rail is cheaper to run and uses less gas. Now add in the lower congestion at airports because some percentage is now using rail. You end up with a trip that's cheaper, barely if at all longer, more comfortable, less polluting, and improves things for everyone else too. I'm very glad to have voted for it.

      --
      I still have more fans than freaks. WTF is wrong with you people?
  3. Support High Speed Rail by Kreuzfeld · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I am shocked that by LA Times writer Ralph Vartabedian's article on the supposed risk and overruns to California's ongoing high-speed rail (HSR) effort. Vartabedian is a known opponent of HSR whose every article drips with antagonism against this project, as a quick review of his past articles will clearly show. Anyone who reads the purported analysis (in fact a single Powerpoint file, taken out of context) will quickly see that the article's claims are not justified -- for example, a *possible* $3B overrun (really less, since this compares against obsolete estimates) does not equal a 50% budget problem for a project of this size. The entire state stands to benefit immensely from this project, which will connect BART, Caltrain, and VTA users in the North with Metro, Metrolink, and Amtrak users in the South --- and connect both to the isolated, ignored, economically-depressed Central Valley. Californians, and all who believe in progress, should embrace this transformative project and reject the uniformed mudslinging by the Vartabedians of the world.

  4. Re:Welcome Back to DrudgeDot! by gtall · · Score: 5, Insightful

    The Interstate System. NASA's trips to the planets. FDA keeping your food from killing you. SS keeping Grandma from moving in with you. NiH keeping research going on the diseases that might kill you. Need I continue or has your myopic stupidity completely clouded your vision?

  5. Re: Well, duh. Mass transportation is a slush fund by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 4, Insightful

    What is so difficult anout doing ground radar surveys so that you know in advance what you are going to encounter

    Because if you identify all the problems upfront, and give an accurate estimate, then YOUR PROJECT WILL NOT BE APPROVED. It is much smarter to drastically lowball, and then start jacking up the costs after enough has been spent to invoke the "sunk cost" argument. Business people are taught to ignore sunk costs, but in politics, sunk costs are never ignored.