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.
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.
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.
Which means that it will actually cost far more than $98.1 billion.
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.)
***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. ***
Somehow Boss Tweed’s Courthouse comes to mind.
And every bit of that violates the terms outlined in the original initiative. I bet the hot shot who spent his wealth to get it passed regrets it now
If they kept the route from la to San Francisco like planned, it wouldn’t be a problem. But they decided to go into rural areas of the state too. Dumb!!!
Technology has moved beyond fixed transportation infrastructure as surely as the Germans moved beyond the Maginot Line.
Watch this FIVE YEAR OLD video of acrobatic drones:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2itwFJCgFQ
If you watched Musk’s boosters returning to Canaveral, you’ve seen one possibility. Musk has said this technology will be used for mass transit very soon.
$98,000,000,000... and likely to go higher... All to shave about 20-30 in off of the overall trip from LA to SF... and seriously, how many people commute between those two cities on a regular basis?
Wouldn’t flying be better between big cities and use trains etc for moving people from airports to smaller towns, the downtown or the burbs?
It just seems to make more sense than to waste all this money and take over all this land. Nevermind the earthquake issue. But what the hell do I know.