Spare_change
Gold Member
- Jun 27, 2011
- 8,690
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From the LA 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 analysis, obtained by The Times, projects that building bridges, viaducts, trenches and track from Merced to Shafter 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.
From The National Review -
[T]he fact is that the route already has service — through the airlines. At least a half-dozen airlines fly that route each day, with multiple departures and arrivals through multiple airports throughout both endpoint metropolises. The costs of those flights cost less than the full projected cost of a round-trip ticket on the 160-minute train ride, and gets there in less than half the time. There is almost literally no need for this boondoggle except to aggrandize the politicians wasting taxpayer money by laying track adjacent to and across the West’s largest earthquake fault.
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And we wonder why California is sinking under its own debt. You've got to love the leadership of this haven of progressivism.
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 analysis, obtained by The Times, projects that building bridges, viaducts, trenches and track from Merced to Shafter 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.
From The National Review -
[T]he fact is that the route already has service — through the airlines. At least a half-dozen airlines fly that route each day, with multiple departures and arrivals through multiple airports throughout both endpoint metropolises. The costs of those flights cost less than the full projected cost of a round-trip ticket on the 160-minute train ride, and gets there in less than half the time. There is almost literally no need for this boondoggle except to aggrandize the politicians wasting taxpayer money by laying track adjacent to and across the West’s largest earthquake fault.
----------------------------------------------------------------------
And we wonder why California is sinking under its own debt. You've got to love the leadership of this haven of progressivism.