Economy Updated project canceled: California bullet train costs soar to $77 billion

No they haven’t. It’s not even remotely the same. The current Vancouver system is extremely primitive and slow ... it’s no more high speed rail than Pluto is a planet.

Primitive? It's in the sky, man.

My point was more light rail isn't that hard to do. California seems to have set out to do something they weren't realistically capable of in this particular instance.
 
They should pay Germany or Japan to take over the project. They can do these things much more efficiently and without so much corruption. Of course that would rob the crooked US politicians of a lot of their motivation for even considering the project.

They did this in BC with the ferries. Let's just say it wasn't popular with voters.
 
it’s no more high speed rail than Pluto is a planet.

Still too soon.

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I like how they gave themselves an award for best rail or some shit like that, they had wrap type signs on the trains saying they won or were voted best....

Yeah, I think that was 2016.

If you look at their numbers, they're actually pretty good when compared to other systems. I think they're like #3 in the country for ridership per mile. But this just illustrates how shitty all of light rail is period.

Underground, heavy rail > all
 
Is California high speed rail still a ‘train to nowhere’?
By Dan Walters | March 15, 2018

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One of the elevated sections of the high-speed rail under construction in Fresno​

Ten years ago, California voters approved — very narrowly — a $9.95 billion bond issue to partially finance what was described as a $40 billion high-speed train system linking the northern and southern regions of the state.

Since then, construction has started on a 119-mile starter line in the San Joaquin Valley, from Madera to an orchard near Bakersfield.

However, the project as a whole has undergone numerous revisions of scope, timing and costs.

At first, the plan was to extend the San Joaquin Valley stretch southward to Los Angeles, but that was scotched when the difficulties and costs of traversing or tunneling through two mountain ranges proved daunting, as did local opposition.

Instead, it was decided to extend the San Joaquin Valley segment to San Jose and connect with an upgraded commuter rail line to San Francisco.

The latter, dubbed a “blended system,” was decreed because opposition to noisy high-speed trains through the very wealthy San Francisco Peninsula could have been fatal.

However, switching to a blended system, with lower-speed service between San Francisco and San Jose, would also make it virtually impossible to meet the 160-minute travel time between San Francisco and Los Angeles that had been promised in the 2008 ballot measure.

Last week, the High-Speed Rail Authority issued its latest “business plan,” which supposedly lays out how the bullet train would be completed.

The cost estimate, which had once ballooned to about $100 billion before being dropped back to about $65 billion, has once again risen to $77.3 billion, or just about twice the 2008 figure.

The 160-minute travel time has been banished from the newest plan in favor of three hours, more or less, but with the blended system, even that higher figure seems highly unlikely.

Although voters were told that the $9.95 billion would be taxpayers’ only burden for the system, hopes for enormous federal or private investment have faded. Therefore, the latest version would build the line to San Jose by using the project’s 25 percent share of proceeds from the auction of greenhouse gas emission permits, known as cap-and-trade, to secure a loan from somebody.

California consumers thus would be tapped, through their utility bills, gasoline purchases, etc., to pay for the bullet train, an indirect form of taxation. And to make the projected loan work, the business plan says, cap-and-trade would have to be extended from the current 2030 to 2050 and the state would also have to give the lenders some guarantees for backup payments.

It should also be noted that while cap-and-trade auction proceeds are supposed to be used for projects that reduce greenhouse gas emissions, the bullet train, by official estimate, would reduce automotive travel by just 1 percent, even if fully built out.

Finally, the plan assumes that once passengers were riding between San Francisco and Bakersfield, the system would generate enough profit from fares to finance extension to Los Angeles. That assumption counts on as many as 31.7 million passengers during the segment’s first full year, 2033, or roughly as many who board planes in the Dallas-Fort Worth Airport each year. Realistic or wishful thinking?

The 2008 ballot measure assumed that the system would be completed, including service to Anaheim, by 2030, but the new plan barely sees very limited service on the San Jose-Bakersfield portion by then.

There are obviously a lot of uncertainties in the new business plan. But even if all are resolved, the bullet train still looks like a solution in search of a problem, rather than a vital transportation system.

California has no shortage of transportation problems, but traveling between San Francisco and Los Angeles isn’t one of them.

https://www.sfchronicle.com/news/article/Is-California-high-speed-rail-still-a-train-to-12757303.php
 
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As a life long Californian this idea was one that really pissed me off. So the train takes me to LA - so fucking what. LA is massively sprawled with hardly any public transit. I’d have to Uber around which can be expensive. It’s way cheap and fast to just fly down from sfo to any number of airports down there.

Instead we should’ve massively expanded the bart system in nor cal. We still don’t have it in the South Bay and it needs to be expanded possibly even to Sacramento. A lot of people commute in from as far as Modesto, Napa, Santa Rosa and Vallejo and it’s fucking all done by cars.

BART isn’t the best public transit ever, but it’s also not the worst. Which is saying something considering how neglected of a system it is.

The last major improvement was a small shuttle that goes from the coliseum to Oakland airport. Took them fucking years to build it too. There’s rampant corruption in whoever we contract with for construction and it’s fuckin crazy at the lack of accountability.

If you need further proof, read articles on the bay bridge. Massive fraud and fuckups happened in building thr bridge yet nobody fucking cares. So it doesn’t surprise me in the slightest that the high speed train is a complete fuck up.
 
I never knew why California was building the new train system. Soon automatically driven vehicles will be on the roads, taking people directly where they want to be. The train is costly to build, and once completed will be costly to maintain. I can imagine from a political view point building the train system helps create jobs for many supporters of the political party within California. Maybe that was a deciding factor. Overall, since the train is being built hope it works out better than I imagine it will for California residence.
 
Hmm a border wall would cost less and be more practical.... I would be pretty upset if I lived in California over this blunder
 
‘Who could’ve forseen this cost increase!’

Every single time. I have a friend who runs a construction company that does state projects, and they have their lawyers preparing to litigate each contract before it is even signed. Like a law of nature, the government will come back and claim that 5,783 things have come up that ‘nobody could have seen’ and so the contractor should build them in and eat the costs.

Companies have lawyers who see this sham coming a million miles away and can take steps to protect against it. The general public, by contrast, has nobody to protect it against the scam.

You also run into pissing contests on government project. A government inspector on site might approve something but a higher up will make the contractor change it just to prove they have more power. Contractors have learned the hard way to bid high on government work.

Governments are also prone to using unproven and "innovative" techniques that there is no experience with.
 
It was an obvious boondoggle from the beginning. Flying will remain cheaper and faster for all concerned. This is just another opportunity for politicians and their beneficiaries to fleece us all.
 
You also run into pissing contests on government project. A government inspector on site might approve something but a higher up will make the contractor change it just to prove they have more power. Contractors have learned the hard way to bid high on government work.

Governments are also prone to using unproven and "innovative" techniques that there is no experience with.
the florida bridge collapse for example, there's a huge political background to that story as well
 
They should use a few billion of those dollars to make desalinization plants for water.
 
I never knew why California was building the new train system.

Here are the list of (now-broken) promises:

1) Taking you from NorCal to SoCal (and vice versa) in under 160 minutes.

2) MINIMUM speed of 200 mph.

3) Only cost $10 Billion for a revolutionary overhaul of the transport system that will unclog all the jammed freeways.

4) Completely self-sustainable (operation and maintenance) with no subsidies or new taxes.

You can go here to see the original proposition and rebuttals before the vote, just for giggles:

https://web.archive.org/web/2013041...ast/2008/general/argu-rebut/argu-rebutt1a.htm
 
Their rail system is really something to behold. They have the advantage of very high population density, 10 times that of the US, which makes it more cost effective, so it's understandable. I still agree it should have been a priority a couple of decades ago at least. However, big oil keeps the cost of oil low enough that they can still sucker people into believing that it's much nicer to sit around in traffic sucking up smog in your own car than to cruise along on a high speed train stretched out, having a drink, and enjoying yourself, instead of driving.

Americans are spoiled, we want to go wherever we want, whenever we want without worrying about schedules. Taking a bus in cities is much cheaper than driving but the schedules often aren't friendly. Where I worked and started at 7AM, the buses arrived at 5 minutes after the hour or 35 minutes after the hour. In most of the city a rider would have to transfer to another bus so you are on one bus for a 20 minute ride to the transfer station and a second bus for a 20 minute ride to your destination. 40 minutes on a bus compared to a 10 minute ride in a car.
 
the florida bridge collapse for example, there's a huge political background to that story as well

They could have had a steel bridge in half the time and at 1/10 the cost.
 
this is a very dumb and pointless train they could have built a train from Los Angeles to las vegas or a better train from los Angeles to san diego.

a train that follows the 5 fwy from L.A to S.F would have also been a better idea.

iirc this train is also not a real bullet train but a closer to the current Amtrak and metrolink trains we already have.
 
I like how the high speed bullet train will commute from SF to LA now twice as fast as my 2011 Nissan could. Definitely worth the costs.
 
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