Posted on 12/17/2018 11:33:35 AM PST by george76
a report from the Auditor of the State of California on the High Speed Rail Project
...
To understand just how damning the HSR audit was, just consider the subtitle: “Flawed Decision Making and Poor Contract Management Have Contributed to Billions in Cost Overruns and Delays in the System’s Construction.” But like many government documents, the audit is couched in bureaucratic language that ordinary citizens may not understand. For that reason, below are the summary points as provided by the state auditor with accompanying translations.
Auditor: “Although the Authority has secured and identified funding of over $28 billion that it expects will be sufficient to complete initial segments, that funding will not be enough to connect those segments, or finish the rest of the system—estimated to cost over $77 billion.”
Translation: The Authority has succeeded in talking both the federal government and the state of California into providing billions of dollars on a failed project and yet still has no idea where the rest of the money will come from.
Auditor: “It has incrementally modified its plans for a fully dedicated high-speed rail system since 2012 and now intends to share—blend—existing transit infrastructure wherever feasible. Although blending is less costly, it subjects high-speed trains to lower speed limits and may require sharing time on the tracks with other rail operators.”
Translation: All those promises made to voters about getting from San Francisco to Los Angeles in less than three hours were never serious.
Auditor: “The fact that [the Authority] has now exhausted all feasible options to use existing infrastructure raises concerns about its ability to mitigate future cost increases.”
Translation: The Authority has followed Willie Brown’s advice... the first budget is really just a down payment. If people knew the real cost from the start, nothing would ever be approved.
(Excerpt) Read more at sbsun.com ...
But wait!
There is more!
It will go really fast!
Daily flights from LA to Vegas cost $100, for round trip. For the high speed rail to work, the r/t ticket has to be less than that. It simply won’t be that cheap.
I knew all this going in.
It has taken them years to figure out what I knew then.
I have always seen this as nothing more but another jobs program for Democrat voters.
Are these union employees?
High speed trains from Burbank and Ontario to Barstow. Barstow to Vegas. Drinks and gambling on board. Room tax in vegas to fund. Then self paying trains based on gambling revenue. If you see the parking pot from barstow to Ontario on weekends, there is your ridership. In SD i can see cars headed up the 15 starting on Friday afternoons and the line goes all the way to LV.
Not holding my breath, but it’d be nice if Gavvy Newsom pulled the plug on Moonbeam’s choo-choo. There’s reportedly no love lost between the two.
In a couple of years from now you’ll be able to take a driverless Uber from San Francisco to LA and watch movies, drink beer etc. while not sitting next to stinky strangers!! The train will really just be “welfare transit.” Only poor people will take it.
Southwest Airlines has daily flights from about 6 airports in Southern California to several airports in Northern California. Even if you don’t own a car you can get to any of those airports using public transportation.
What’s wrong with regular rail?
Proposition 1A allocated $9.95 billion for the “core segments” of the rail system. We’re now looking at costs that will almost certainly be much more than 10 times that amount. I sincerely believe the proponents of this should all be indicted and convicted for perpetrating what they had to know was a massive fraud on the state and federal taxpayers.
It isn't an open checkbook for the unions and politicians.
At the rate we're going, it won't be long before it'll cost that much to drive round trip from Haymarket into DC on I-66.
The Willie Green Law Of Mass Transit: “Damn Thing Never Gets Built.”
Voters were conned into approving it with a low cost down payment.
The actual, complete cost is much, much higher. And taxpayers are on the hook to subsidize it forever.
Wonderful! Gotta love government math.
Hammer.
Nail.
Head...
Never understood the liberal fascination with nineteenth century transportation technology.
Apparently they’ve never heard of the plane or the car.
It means Califonia is going off of the rails on a crazy train?
And they will take us all down with them?
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