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High-speed rail plan slashes costs to calm critics
SFGate.com ^ | 4/1/12 | Michael Cabanatuan

Posted on 04/01/2012 2:14:16 PM PDT by NormsRevenge

State transportation officials have slashed the price tag for California's controversial high-speed rail project by $30 billion and expanded the first stretch of track to run from Merced in the Central Valley south to the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles.

The California High Speed Rail Authority's revised business plan, which will be released Monday in Fresno, calls for those dramatic changes as the agency prepares to ask the Legislature to use $2.7 billion in state high-speed rail bonds to start construction by early next year.

The drastic revision, which puts the proposed cost of the system at $68.4 billion instead of the $98.5 billion estimated in November, intends to cool opposition to the project, which has been labeled a "train to nowhere" for its plans to start in the state's rural center, and criticized for its high costs and uncertain funding plan.

While the updated strategy still calls for construction to start in the Central Valley, it abandons plans to build only a 130-mile stretch from Chowchilla (Madera County) to Bakersfield. Instead, it extends the initial line north to Merced and south across the Tehachapi Mountains to Palmdale and the San Fernando Valley, probably Burbank, and calls for it to carry high-speed trains along the 300-mile stretch. It relies heavily on what officials have called a "blended approach" that uses existing commuter rail lines - including Caltrain - in the Bay Area and Los Angeles.

That shift, authority board members said Saturday, is largely responsible for the cost savings because it eliminates the need to build separate tracks for high-speed rail through dense metropolitan areas.

(Excerpt) Read more at sfgate.com ...


TOPICS: Business/Economy; Culture/Society; Politics/Elections; US: California
KEYWORDS: california; calm; costs; critics; highspeedrail; hsr; slashes
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Pinch me. It's April Fools , right?

a pig in a poke is a pig in a poke..

no matter how much ya liposuction fat off of it.

1 posted on 04/01/2012 2:14:22 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
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To: NormsRevenge
They changed the number. They're using a different number when they talk about the price tag.

I'm sure they changed the cost at all.

2 posted on 04/01/2012 2:15:59 PM PDT by ClearCase_guy (Like Emmett Till, Trayvon Martin has become simply a stick with which to beat Whites.)
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To: ClearCase_guy

Should be: I’m not sure they changed the cost.


3 posted on 04/01/2012 2:16:42 PM PDT by ClearCase_guy (Like Emmett Till, Trayvon Martin has become simply a stick with which to beat Whites.)
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To: GeronL

Willie Green Memorial Ping.


4 posted on 04/01/2012 2:18:57 PM PDT by Army Air Corps (Four Fried Chickens and a Coke)
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To: NormsRevenge
State transportation officials have slashed the price tag for California's controversial high-speed rail project by $30 billion

Seems to me that if they're able to do that, then people should be asking why it was $30 billion more in the first place. Somebody is running a scam.
5 posted on 04/01/2012 2:19:25 PM PDT by cripplecreek (What does it profit a man if he gains the whole world but loses his soul?)
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To: cripplecreek
Somebody is running a scam.

Bingo!
6 posted on 04/01/2012 2:21:57 PM PDT by Army Air Corps (Four Fried Chickens and a Coke)
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To: NormsRevenge
They are going to use existing commuter tracks for high speed rail. Yeah that ought to work just fine. Why didn't they think of that earlier?/s
7 posted on 04/01/2012 2:25:50 PM PDT by hinckley buzzard
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To: NormsRevenge
"State transportation officials have slashed the price tag made up new cost estimates for California's controversial high-speed rail project, by which are $30 billion less than the previous low-ball estimates ...."
8 posted on 04/01/2012 2:27:03 PM PDT by USFRIENDINVICTORIA
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To: NormsRevenge
State transportation officials have slashed the price tag for California's controversial high-speed rail project by $30 billion and expanded the first stretch of track to run from Merced in the Central Valley south to the San Fernando Valley in Los Angeles.

LOL, they have lied from the get-go (to the voters), and they are clearly just lying now (with multiply compound lies).

They lied about the costs, initially, and they lied about the jobs it would create (and, the big big jobs IIRC have gone out-of-state and also to china).

This is corruption and graft, in their most clearly visible and heinous forms.

Lies are bad things. Lies that convince voters to take money from working people to support fraudulent schemes are bad things. Lies that are developed in committees by conspiring individuals are bad things. Lies about the previous lies are still bad things.

Bernie Madeoff has nothing on these people.

.

9 posted on 04/01/2012 2:27:58 PM PDT by Seaplaner (Never give in. Never give in. Never...except to convictions of honour and good sense. W. Churchill)
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To: NormsRevenge

They know they can give us any number they want, the enormous cost overruns are already a given.


10 posted on 04/01/2012 2:29:48 PM PDT by Mr. Blond
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To: cripplecreek

Somebody is running a scam.”

One of the best things that could happen IMO is for there to be a law that no project can be started unless it can be fully funded, completed and in full operation during the current supporter’s term of office.


11 posted on 04/01/2012 2:33:04 PM PDT by Grams A (The Sun will rise in the East in the morning and God is still on his throne.)
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To: NormsRevenge

What a joke. A few weeks back, it doubled from $50B to $100B. Then they found $100B made the public gag and think we’ve been robbed. So today they conveniently find a way to lop off $30 and take it back to $70B.

On the face of it, this proves that HSR proponents are liars, charlatans, cheats, connivers, schemers, mountebanks, crooks and thieves.


12 posted on 04/01/2012 2:42:31 PM PDT by ProtectOurFreedom
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To: NormsRevenge

It’s not a train to nowhere - it’s a train to Merced.


13 posted on 04/01/2012 3:02:37 PM PDT by eclecticEel (Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness: 7/4/1776 - 3/21/2010)
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To: NormsRevenge

Can you say, “bait and switch”, boys and girls? I knew you could.


14 posted on 04/01/2012 3:19:09 PM PDT by MasterGunner01 (11)
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To: NormsRevenge

High speed rail on old tracks becomes low speed rail.


15 posted on 04/01/2012 3:20:51 PM PDT by driftdiver (I could eat it raw, but why do that when I have a fire.)
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To: NormsRevenge

The 2008 voters approved LA to SF in 2.5 hours.

If the plan does not produce that, deal off.

This will never happen. There’s no market to justify it. Put high speed service within the LA basin as a first step. They can sell millions of trips for Riverside to Long Leach, Van Nuys to Anaheim if on a high speed transportation mode.

Trips of 400 miles in Europe are generally by air. There are exceptions, but the cost makes a high speed rail trip an expense account frill. The masses go by air.


16 posted on 04/01/2012 4:05:39 PM PDT by cicero2k
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To: NormsRevenge; Grampa Dave; Carry_Okie; calcowgirl; tubebender; hedgetrimmer; forester; ...
Hey! It's still the most monuMentally STUPID IDEA because the CA Dems have already squandered everybodys tax dollars and ruined our state's credit worthyness!!!

Screw Jerry brown to the pavement about 10 miles from the CA State Crapitol!!! (like in the people's republic of davis)

17 posted on 04/01/2012 5:56:03 PM PDT by SierraWasp (Negativity must die because it's self-fulfilling!!!)
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To: Army Air Corps; All

I kinda miss old Willie Green..


18 posted on 04/01/2012 7:58:34 PM PDT by KevinDavis (Go Mitt Go!!!)
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To: KevinDavis

He did provide quite a bit of amusement. It didn’t take much for him to launch into ad hominem attacks and rants about peak oil.


19 posted on 04/01/2012 8:12:12 PM PDT by Army Air Corps (Four Fried Chickens and a Coke)
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To: driftdiver
High speed rail on old tracks becomes low speed rail.

And totally hoses the existing slower service that people are relying on now in many areas, such as Caltrain on the SF Peninsula.

20 posted on 04/01/2012 8:18:51 PM PDT by SFConservative
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