Posted on 03/10/2018 6:33:11 AM PST by reaganaut1
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 that was issued in draft form Friday by the rail authority before public hearings and formal submission to the Legislature in about 60 days.
The new estimates will force California's leadership to double down on its political and financial commitments if it wants to see the system completed, against a backdrop of rising costs, years of delays, strident litigation and backlashes in communities where homes, businesses, farms and environmental preserves will have to give up land to the rail's right-of-way.
The rail authority's previous business plan made the case that it had just enough money in hand to build an initial operating system that could carry passengers and generate revenues, which would potentially attract private investors to help finance completion of the system. The new business plan implicitly makes clear that higher costs and uncertain funding leave it short of that critical goal.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Cali-logic.
This has nothing to do with transportation. I believe TPTB in Cali see the writing on the wall and are trying to scam what they can before the system collapses. $98B? Really? Give me a freaking break!
I live in South Carolina ... I am NOT going to California (ever!) Tell me again why MY tax dollars should help California when they are not willing to DEPORT illegals. Should be some negotiating give and take here ... its a one way street for California. So its a one way street for me. Don’t fund this thing.
Seriously, think about it!
Build it and they will come.
Too much even for Willie Green. Cost has doubled since it was pitched to the voters a decade ago.
Only liberals could love nineteenth-century transportation technology.
Bullet train? An embarrassment to snails and slugs.
This thing is becoming a parody of liberal foolishness, yet they’ll still double down on it because they can never admit that everything they believe is flat wrong.
“On time, on budget, as designed.” Never before heard phrase from the government.
>>At what point to California’s Democratic politicians say it’s not worth it?
When the lobbyists stop writing them checks and they stop getting sweetheart deals.
Bullet train. Contradicting statement if there ever was.
Can they construct a one way rocket train to send illegals back?
Think conveyor belt. It dumps them off across the border and then returns (upside down, open) to load up the next batch.
At that price one could hand out first class air tickets and limos to and from the airport to those who would use the train for the rest of their lives.
Tip of the hat to the late great Sen. Everett Dirksen, only he was talking in millions.
Not to mention that speaking of the train could get you arrested in California?
Which means that it will actually cost far more than $98.1 billion.
All we see are spiraling costs and the damn thing isn’t even being built.
If it ever is, it would be need to be propped up by government subsidies and run at a loss.
No public train system anywhere in the world turns a profit.
So this means $500 billion when all is said and done and a finish date of 2035+.
(See the VA Hospital in Aurora, CO for a smaller scale peoject.)
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