Free Republic

California’s embattled high-speed rail project has been beset by “flawed decision making and poor contract management” that have led to billions of dollars in cost overruns and significant delays in construction in the San Joaquin Valley, according a report issued Thursday by state Auditor Elaine Howle. Howle’s audit, requested earlier this year by the state Legislature, is a sharp critique of the California High-Speed Rail Authority, the agency tasked with planning and developing the state’s bullet-train system. Among its key findings is that the authority, in an effort to beat the clock on a federal deadline for spending stimulus grant...

The cost of constructing the Southern California section of the state bullet train could jump by as much as $11 billion over estimates released earlier this year, though rail authority officials caution that their new numbers assume a more expansive design than is likely to be built. The new estimates are contained in environmental reports prepared for Thursday’s meeting of the authority board, which will review planned routes throughout the Southland. The reports acknowledge that the new cost estimates could affect the $77-billion price tag of the Los Angeles-to-San Francisco system, though they also use a different methodology than previous...

Jerry Brown did not invent the idea of a high-speed rail system to connect Northern and Southern California. It was voted on by the state Legislature and ratified by voters years before he returned to the governor’s office in 2011. But for the last eight years, as cost estimates have skyrocketed and federal and private sector funding for the project has evaporated, Brown has become high-speed rail’s most persistent defender. Only weeks away from the election to replace him, neither candidate for governor appears to share the depth of Brown’s commitment to a statewide rail system. Fellow Democrat Gavin Newsom...

The California bullet train project has cost state taxpayers an average $3.1 million a day over the last year — a construction spending rate higher than that for the Bay Bridge, Boston’s Big Dig or any U.S. transportation project in recent history. ... “That burn rate is ludicrous,” ...James Moore, director of USC’s transportation engineering program. “It is so far outside standard experience that it doesn’t make sense to assume it will occur.” … The actual costs will depend on the price of a pound of steel, a cubic yard of concrete, an acre of farmland or an hour of...

Catastrophic wildfires continue to ravage California, as one blaze nearly doubled in size over the last three days, making it the largest in the state's history. Combined, they form the biggest blaze that California firefighters are currently battling. Altogether, the Mendocino Complex Fire has burned 283,800 acres -- growing about 80% since Friday night. As of Monday evening, it was 30% contained and had destroyed 75 residences. The Mendocino Complex Fire has now surpassed last year's Thomas Fire, which burned 281,893 acres in Ventura and Santa Barbara counties, as the largest fire in Cal Fire history. Exhausted firefighters across the...

Ron Tutor, chief executive of Tutor Perini, said the redesign was not his firm’s fault... “We designed it and they approved it and then they changed their minds,” Tutor said. “They had a change of heart.” At least three other bullet train bridges in the Central Valley used the same design as the Avenue 8 bridge and are now being redesigned, according to a January rail authority status update, raising questions about whether potentially more costly designs will be required in the future. The previous design for Avenue 8, using what is known as mechanically stabilized earth walls, is generally...

Let me just say from the outset that I still miss California. When I see news about my former state, it’s like reading the details of a train wreck after having safely disembarked a comfortable time ago. I and my family got to live in Orange County for seven glorious years and another year in the Bay Area when the state was not convulsed with insanity on stilts. It was sunny nearly every day, with low humidity. There were no bugs. Our local amusement parks were Disneyland and Knott’s Berry Farm. We did, as Californians are fond of boasting, go...

That may sound like a clickbaity headline, but it’s proving to be literally true. Apparently, no one can guess it, least of all the California High-Speed Rail Authority that is running the bullet-train project. Their latest projection shows total predicted cost has jumped 20% to $77 billion, with a completion date moved out four years to 2033.For now, anyway. Be sure to check back next week in the Boondoggle Lotto! The price of the California bullet train project jumped sharply Friday when the state rail authority announced that the cost of connecting Los Angeles to San Francisco would be...

The price of the California bullet train project jumped sharply Friday when the state rail authority announced that the cost of connecting Los Angeles to San Francisco would be $77.3 billion and could rise as high as $98.1 billion — an uptick of at least $13 billion from estimates two years ago. The rail authority also said the earliest trains could operate on a partial system between San Francisco and Bakersfield would be 2029 — four years later than the previous projection. The full system would not begin operating until 2033. The disclosures are contained in a 114-page business plan...

William Shelton will not let go of the past, even if it is in the way of someone else's future. He has spent more than five years rebuilding his family's ancestral home, board by board, and has no intention of leaving it or the 250-acre farm that has been in his family since 1851. Two years ago, surveyors started showing up, wanting a clear idea of his property lines for Texas Central Railway, the company behind plans for a 200-mph "bullet train" connecting Houston to Dallas. The proposed route would go through Shelton's farm. "I guarantee I will be restoring...

January 24, 2018 at 2:26 pm Editor’s note: Breaking views are thoughts from individual members of the editorial board on today’s headlines. California’s bullet train project has basically been one long, embarrassing and wasteful disaster ever since it got started. Alas, it persists. The latest update on the first phase of the project, the 119-mile Central Valley section considered the easiest to build, came out a week ago, when the rail authority had to revise its 2016 cost estimate of $7.8 billion in favor of the more realistic though perhaps still optimistic $10.6 billion. It was originally expected to cost...

Officials increased the cost estimate for the first phase of California’s high speed rail project by 35 percent on Tuesday, to $10.6 billion. That would put the entire cost of the train from San Francisco to Los Angeles at roughly $67 billion, although officials said they hope to recover the newly announced costs later. […] The $2.8 billion price jump is for a 119-mile (191-kilometer) segment in the Central Valley, which is partially under construction. The fresh costs are due to trouble acquiring rights of way for the track, the need to build more barriers along the tracks and other...

“My high-speed rail proposal will lead to innovations that change the way we travel in America,” Obama boldly proclaimed during his first year of his first term. A recent Investor’s Business Daily article pointed out that the recent Amtrak train derailment near Tacoma, Washington, was on a stretch of track that was the direct result of President Obama’s pie in the sky vision of high-speed rail under his stimulus plan. Monday’s crash of the Amtrak train, which killed three and injured many more, was remarkable in that this was the very first route of this line on a new track...

While the California attorney general pleads for more state funding to battle the Trump administration in court and the legislature extends a $25,000 monthly contract to bring the top legal minds of Eric Holder’s law firm to bear against the White House; Gov. Jerry Brown (D) is asking President Trump for help with California’s high-speed train project. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra (D) told a Senate Budget Subcommittee on May 4 his office needs more money to continue fighting Trump’s executive orders. Becerra, who took office in January, has already filed a lawsuit against the Trump administration over an Interior...

State Waste: The Golden State's vaunted bullet train project, planned to connect San Francisco to Los Angeles, may be in its financial death throes. If so, it's probably the best fiscal news for the Golden State in years. To say that Gov. Jerry Brown's pet project, the so-called high-speed train, is troubled would be an understatement. From the very beginning, it has been a testament to political hubris, fiscal irresponsibility, outright lies and abysmal planning. The bullet train idea was floated on a blustery gust of political promises in 2008, when proponents put the high-speed rail to the state's voters...

DALLAS –Texas Central, developers of the state’s high-speed train, announced on February 7th that it reached a significant milestone in its land option program, the result of collaborative and ongoing engagements with property owners and stakeholders along the project’s potential route. The company said it has reached option agreements on about 30 percent of the parcels estimate to be needed for the bullet train’s route in the 10-county stretch between North Texas and Houston. Negotiations have resulted in option agreements in all 10 counties, including 50 percent of the parcels for the proposed route in Waller and Grimes counties. Grimes...

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 risk analysis, obtained by The Times, projects that building bridges, viaducts, trenches and track from Merced to Shafter, just north of Bakersfield, 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,...

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 risk 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...

The cost of toll roads, the toll of urban congestion, ride-hailing battles and a high-speed train war garnered plenty of attention in Texas this year. And after the Legislature spent two sessions focusing on highway funding, lawmakers now appear poised to tackle other transportation matters next year. Here's a look at the year's biggest transportation stories and how they may continue to unfold in the coming months:1. Uber and Lyft roll out of Austin after losing city electionNational ride-hailing companies Uber and Lyft stopped operating in Austin after voters there rejected an ordinance that would have repealed certain regulations, including...

The bill, authored by Senator Andy Vidak (R-Hanford), will give previous owners of property, once thought to be in one of the many proposed paths of High-Speed Rail, the opportunity to buy it back if the state is selling it. The new law will require the High-Speed Rail Authority (HSRA) to notify previous property owners when it plans to sell unneeded property, then wait 30 days before selling it.