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California Bullet Train Costs Soar To $77.3 Billion, Will Take 5 Years Longer To Complete
The California High-Speed Rail Authority announced today that the cost of connecting Los Angeles to San Francisco would total $77.3 billion, an increase of $13 billion from estimates two years ago, and could potentially rise as high as $98.1 billion. They also said the earliest trains could operate on a partial system between San Jose and the farming town of Wasco would be 2029, five years later than the previous projection. Los Angeles Times reports: The disclosures are contained in a 114-page business plan that was issued in draft form by the rail authority and will be finalized this summer in a submission to the Legislature. The rail authority has wrestled with a more than $40-billion funding gap, which would increase sharply under the new cost estimates. The biggest immediate driver of the cost increase has been in the Central Valley, where the rail authority is building 119 miles of track between Wasco and Merced. The authority disclosed in early February that the cost of that work would jump to $10.6 billion from an original estimate of about $6 billion. Roy Hill, one of the senior consultants advising the state, told the rail authority board, "The worst-case scenario has happened." In its 2014 business plan, the rail authority optimistically projected that it could begin carrying passengers in just seven years. But the warning signs of uncontrolled cost growth had already started mounting then, even though until this year the rail authority has vehemently denied that it was facing a problem. The project began having trouble buying property for the route almost immediately after it issued its first construction contract in 2013.
...and the victims of "The Big Dig", we feel your pain.
$78B? OMG. That is like almost 8% of the cost of the Iraq war.
No way we could ever fund something that big.
Gallant wakes up and realizes that the High Speed Rail is just a boondoggle used to drain California of more of it's money.
Goofus waves as he is driven by the train station.
Gallant hops on a Greyhound, and cries into his chai tea.
> Iâ(TM)ll take a plane [from London to Paris] instead. Well, it doesn't really sound like you've had the opportunity. Planes go from airport to airport. The last time I took Eurostar, I went from the center of London to the center of Paris. And took a lot less time than getting to and from each airport.
Bruce Perens.
While the Interstate system is a great success story, it spawned the very hurdles that CAHSR is trying to overcome. Highways were built by:
1. Siezing and demolishing everything they *might* need to use for a RoW
2. Completely ignoring anything resembling environmental impact
The only reason we have our successful system now is that by the time the legal system caught up and mechanisms to stop the "destruction" were put in place, most of it was already built.
Engineering, labor and materials costs have mostly kept up with inflation. At this point that's maybe 20% of the total cost of this project; the rest is in fighting lawsuits.
It's taken longer to dredge a South Carolina harbor 5 feet deeper to accomodate the upcoming supercargo ships for the Panamax expansion than it took Teddy Roosevelt to dig the original Panama Canal itself.
When an empire stops keeping the trade routes open and instead turns to preying on its own people, it falters, and the center of empire moves to the growing regions on the edge.
It matters not how good the intentions. If the net effect is the same as massive corruption, oh well.
(-1: Post disagrees with my already-settled worldview) is not a valid mod option.
Texas Central is confident they will transport the first true high speed passengers in the country, despite not having yet turned a shovel. If they can manage to reach construction, I think they will win because the route is easier (mostly flat open land), 100% new build (versus sharing with existing passenger/freight RoW), and less encumbered by regulations (e.g. FRA crash safety standards can be relaxed as it does not connect to the national freight network).
And by not taking government subsidy, they were able to come up with the route of "least resistance" versus routes that involve deviating to serve every local politician's one horse town. Stations are pretty expensive, and by only having one intermediate one they save on cost, time, and legal wrangling.
Comment removed based on user account deletion
You could have a school with a capacity of 100,000 where the average student had a BSc/BA by 18 and 15% had PhDs by then, and teachers and researchers were paid a decent salary, and run it for 40 years on the same money. That includes the cost of building it. The benefit to the economy would be infinitely greater than the train system, which should have been built for far, far less. Maybe set the design of its replacement to the kids.
It's a small world and it smells funny; I'd buy another if it wasn't for the money; Take back what I paid (SoM)