Posted on 10/28/2015 11:03:06 AM PDT by QT3.14
Infrastructure: California's high-speed rail project will never make its current 2022 arrival time, according to the Los Angeles Times. Doesn't this strike anyone in charge of this costly boondoggle as ironic?...Officials still haven't settled on a route, they're behind schedule in acquiring land, getting permits and financing, and the project faces several lawsuits.
Boring on the 36 miles of planned tunnels isn't likely to get started until 2019, the Times notes, and by any reasonable estimate it will take another 7 to 14 years to complete. Even that's probably optimistic, since several parts will traverse known fault lines, vastly increasing the complexity of the effort.
It could easily take another four years after the tunnels are finished to install all the track and equipment. That means that completion of just Phase 1 of the bullet train will be closer to 2030.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.investors.com ...
Where else but in LA-LA land???
Forget it Jake, it’s Chinatown......
exactly who is supposed to ride this thing when built? probable cost more than a plane ticket,take longer to get there, and break down more.
The Browndoggle is a lifetime jobs program for union workers...FUJB!!!
Maybe they should call it a The Slug Train.
They would not need the tunnels if they used the route the French were going to use. But, of course, the French route didn’t run across “valuable” Palmdale/Lancaster desert land that’s all owned by Democrats.
John and Ken out of Los Angeles covered this. They want to drill thru mountains that are above the 2 tectonic plates in Cali. That section alone has a cost of 61b. The voters approved for this Browndoggle in 08 and in it it said could only use 19b of taxpayers money.
“exactly who is supposed to ride this thing when built? probable cost more than a plane ticket,take longer to get there, and break down more.”
Southwest Airlines alone has dozens of daily flights from 4 or 5 different airports in Southern California that fly to Northern California for reasonable fares. However, if you want to visit Charles Manson at the prison in Corcoran the low speed bullet train will come in handy.
“The Browndoggle is a lifetime jobs program for union workers...FUJB!!!”
This will make “The Big Dig” in Boston look like a Sunday School Picnic. I just hope Brown dies before it’s finished, that is if it ever is!
I know how they might save themselves a LOAD of money right away.
Just kill the project outright. The savings in legal costs alone more than justify the move, and it removes what promises to be a BIG black hole in the California state budget for decades to come.
There is no economic, environmental or particularly legal benefit to be found ANYWHERE in this endless boondoggle.
Unless the route goes right up from the Santa Monica waterfront through Malibu Beach, it cannot ever get close enough to those who claim to expect most benefit from it, for it to ever be economically viable. Not that many riders in Bakersfield.
If you use the Caldecott 4th bore as a benchmark for tunneling it will get done around 2053, if you use the Devils Slide tunnel project it will get done around 2120-2130...
Anyone who ever travelled up or down I-5, or any other freeway of such caliber, can easily identify one more problem with the train: you cannot haul stuff. The train is only good for lawyers who need to go from SF to LA with just a briefcase, for a meeting, and be back home by dinner time. That is, assuming that the promised deal on travel time - 2 hours from SF to LA - that had been already changed to 2 hours and 40 minutes - won't be changed any further.
Unfortunately, the lawyer's time is expensive, so no lawyer will ever take the train. No farmer with a truck full of grain will take the train. No rancher with a trailer full of cattle will take the train. No business traveler will take the train because he uses airplane to come here from NYC or wherever. No experienced traveler in an RV will take the train. Locals won't take the train because they have cars, and the train stations are too far apart.
Trains are designed only for passengers with little luggage. This leaves only young and poor tourists, students perhaps, with only backpacks, who will certainly be glued to windows, eagerly watching the moon-like landscape of the water-starved Central Valley. That would be their trip of a lifetime - simply because they will never make that mistake again.
Ahh, but then the well connected politicos would not be able to purchase the now fallow farm land in the Central Valley (no water) for pennies on the dollar and then sell it at a premium to the HSRA.
The same people who think this is a good idea scoff at the notion of building a border wall.
No problem. Just raise the price of ammo to pay for it. I think gavin useless is working on that already.
Thank you for finally explaining why the Rats want this so much.
If they really wanted to make money, they would run it up the side of a mountain and use it for low cost space launches!
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