(The Center Square) – The California High Speed Rail Authority announced its new CEO, who will be taking over the $135 billion project to connect downtown San Francisco to downtown Los Angeles with high speed rail.
While the project recently completed a major milestone by securing environmental clearance for the entire 463-mile SF-LA route, the initial 171 mile operational segment in the sparsely populated Central Valley between Bakersfield and Merced will cost $30-$33 billion to be operational in the now 2030-2033 timeframe. CAHSR admits to being short approximately $8 billion — even after $4.2 billion from Proposition 1A in 2022, and another $3.3 billion federal grant in 2023 — and says its strategy is to “secure $8 billion in new federal grants over the next five years.”
Given that the state just closed a $47 billion budget shortfall through funding shifts and spending cuts and delays, more state funding does not seem to be an option for the system, which was approved by voters in 2008 with a $10 billion bond and a 2020 completion date. more
Will never be built, will never connect those cities in any functional way. This is all just another example of government/connected friends grift of taxpayer dollars. Government is the greatest evil ever created by man.
This is Primo Construction at its finest!
A relative of a highly-connected politician wins a bid for some sort of work.
Said work is “completed” and immediately begins to fall apart. Hence, the Primo bros show up to “fix” said problems, however, for an additional price because said problems weren’t within the scope of the original problem. Never mind that the new problems were the result of the shoddy work.
It happens in Riverside CA ALL THE TIME!
We had all the storm drains redone in my neighborhood. After the first rain, all the intersections were flooded because the storm drains did not drain. Same crew that did the work bid to do the repairs, and won the contract!
Just started reading Economics in One Lesson by Henry Hazlitt. Published in 1946 – and how had I not heard of this before??? It states everything we already know – in particular that gov’t spending, apart from minimal necessities, is ALWAYS bad for the economy. And like pedophiles are drawn to elementary schools, grifters are drawn to government.
Book link: https://www.amazon.com/dp/0517548232
And this is somehow less expensive than just hopping on an airplane or simply driving there?
To Governor Shlick Shtick and all the Californians who voted for this, it’s all about their love of choo-choo trains.
Do a lot of people in Merced really want to get to Bakersfield quickly and vice versa – all at the low, low cost of $30 billion? I’ve been in the Central Valley, and generally the answer is “no.”
But there is a silver lining in this mess – with all of the overpasses and underpasses being constructed, the growing homeless population will have more and newer places to establish tent cities.
Where can I buy a ticker?
And the people voted for this…just before they left their shithole cities and moved to other states to spread their “wokeness”.
Left Coast – as the funny Peanut’s meme says, they will NEVER teach you the things you need to know to overthrow them. By that same token, nobody is going to publicly praise a book that clearly shows why we need to get rid of government and its wasteful spending/regulating/destroying. Glad you found it. The great website of the Ludwig von Mises Institute (mises.org) has plenty more Hazlitt, and books, articles, and so much more (all for free or for purchase – it you would prefer a bound book). Check them out. Great economics education.
When you add up all the vast amounts of dollars looted from defense spending, infrastructure spending, education spending, and foreign aid, the US taxpayer has been the most abused class of people in all of human history, especially when you add in all the other ways government interferes with or impedes ways that you or your children can work your way to a better existence.
The government leeches caste live like royalty in return for NOTHING. It should NEVER cost this much money to FAIL to build a rail line that NO ONE would use anyway.
The original cost for the whole thing was $60 Billion. Now $135 Billion before today’s and tomorrow’s inflation. And now they want to build Los Angeles to Vegas. Bureaucrats and politicians are dog shite.
Current CEO made so much money even he couldn’t take anymore….
@ 1151: lots of things can happen to dog shi-ite…said somebody named eastwood
They should have hired the Bostonian expertise that managed the Big Dig. Actually, maybe they did
More than ever, government at all levels has its boot on our necks. The Federalist movement which replaced the Articles of Confederation with the Constitution did not, and probably could not, anticipate that the Fed. gov’t would become the beast it is today.
It’s more likely that it was twisted and interpreted out of all recognition by liberals and socialists,
@Left Coast Dan — I’ll second @MrLiberty’s recommendation of mises.org (I support them and have done for years) for resources.
Two other books that in my opinion should sit on the bookshelf near Hazlitt:
— The Law, Frédéric Bastiat, 1850. There are multiple places on the web to read this for free, one is https://www.gutenberg.org/files/44800/44800-h/44800-h.htm
— Basic Economics — A Common Sense Guide to the Economy, Thomas Sowell, 2000. This one’s still under copyright but scribd has a free download if you sign up (free trial for 30 days, download accessible, cancelable). https://www.scribd.com/document/470042185/Basic-Economics-5th-Edition-by-Sowell-Thomas
Both of these are absolutely worth your time.
Wyatt
Dwight Yoakam and Buck Owens have both left Bakersfield. There’s no longer any reason to go there.
@Brad — LOL! I can think of only one reason to go to Bakersfield these days. If you’re in a hurry (and you should be) you have to at least skirt the place to get the hell out of California via I-40.
Uncle Al
Been there, done that, except we were coming back into Cali from Prescott. What a drive. Did it in one shot.
Dwight Yoakam, some what recently made a movie, South of Heaven, West of Hell. Pretty good movie actually. At the end of the credits, Producer, Buck Owens. They do take care of their own.
The only place in the US where high speed rail might be economically feasible is the Northeast Corridor, DC to Boston with stops in between.
L.A. to Vegas.
But nooOOOooo…