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California Bullet Train Cancelled: This Train Won’t Leave the Station

chuckiechan

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If high-speed rail can’t make it in California, it can’t make it anywhere.

If high-speed rail can’t make it in California, it can’t make it anywhere. | City Journal

Perhaps the most critical national casualty may be the Green New Deal proposed by New York congresswoman Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. Much of her platform for a ten-year transformation of the American economy centers on transportation. In her bid to kill the internal-combustion engine, Ocasio-Cortez apparently seeks to eliminate both cars and planes. Her favored solution for cross-continental travel: a massive network of high-speed trains.

Some of this must seem fanciful even to the democratic-socialist heartthrob from the Bronx. In contrast with Western Europe, where several high-speed rail lines operate, the United States has huge distances between cities; its average population density is generally lower than that of the European continent. Even on the California coast, a 450-mile high-speed rail trip from Los Angeles to San Francisco would have taken nearly four hours, compared with a one-hour plane ride. Imagine taking high-speed rail from Los Angeles to Chicago: a three-hour trip by plane becomes a 15-hour or longer trek across vast, empty spaces. During that time, the traveler would cover more high-speed rail mileage than the current length of the entire French system.

Even fervent supporters of the Green New Deal must recognize what California’s cancellation means: if high-speed rail is not feasible in the state with the three densest major metro areas in the nation, and the highest overall urban density, it is not feasible anywhere else in the United States.

So in a nutshell, the project could not contain it's costs and went so far over budget it will be a miracle if the fed's don't do a criminal investigation to find out where the money went. The project ate up the budget with planning and engineering before a spike was driven. The proposal started with a (phase one) 9 billion dollar budget with a voter proposition that just barely passed in 2008.

Price tag (estimate to complete) at cancellation: 99 Billion.
The leg between Merced and Bakerfield is still being built. Rumor has it that leg was rushed so the state could get their hands on the federal money to help pad the general fund. The state will keep working on it, albeit slowly, to keep the fed's from clawing it back. So that money is firmly in the state government's furnace, it seems.

So much for the end of fossil fuels and other major government schemes that are "all wind and no rain". It was doomed by people being unable and unwilling to be engineered.

The project history...
California High-Speed Rail - Wikipedia
 
If high-speed rail can’t make it in California, it can’t make it anywhere.

If high-speed rail can’t make it in California, it can’t make it anywhere. | City Journal



So in a nutshell, the project could not contain it's costs and went so far over budget it will be a miracle if the fed's don't do a criminal investigation to find out where the money went. The project ate up the budget with planning and engineering before a spike was driven. The proposal started with a (phase one) 9 billion dollar budget with a voter proposition that just barely passed in 2008.

Price tag (estimate to complete) at cancellation: 99 Billion.
The leg between Merced and Bakerfield is still being built. Rumor has it that leg was rushed so the state could get their hands on the federal money to help pad the general fund. The state will keep working on it, albeit slowly, to keep the fed's from clawing it back. So that money is firmly in the state government's furnace, it seems.

So much for the end of fossil fuels and other major government schemes that are "all wind and no rain". It was doomed by people being unable and unwilling to be engineered.

The project history...
California High-Speed Rail - Wikipedia

They can still build their train. All they have to do is impose a tax on the wealthy.
 
I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of the money was spent on special interests, bloat, and kickbacks to allies of the DNC in Cali. Asian countries make high speed rail work and they are less wealthy than we are. I believe this was nothing more than a special interest project to reward the loyal. Corruption in a nutshell.
 
This happened last week and there has already been at least three threads on it.

Just another excuse thread to bash liberals.
 
This happened last week and there has already been at least three threads on it.

Just another excuse thread to bash liberals.

I do not see how this ends well for those charged with its construction, from the governance level down to the contractors employed.

To your comment, I do not see how those involved can hide behind their political affiliations no matter if it is a (D) or (R) or whatever else behind their name.
 
In Europe, at the high end high speed rail costs $39 million per kilometer. That's about $62 million per mile. California High Speed Rail was to be 800 miles, so by that cost estimate it should have been $50 billion. However, their estimates ran up to near $100 billion. For whatever reason, everything we do here is absurdly expensive.

By the way, the cost in China is half of that. The Chinese model would have cost at most $25 billion.
 
If high-speed rail can’t make it in California, it can’t make it anywhere.

If high-speed rail can’t make it in California, it can’t make it anywhere. | City Journal



So in a nutshell, the project could not contain it's costs and went so far over budget it will be a miracle if the fed's don't do a criminal investigation to find out where the money went. The project ate up the budget with planning and engineering before a spike was driven. The proposal started with a (phase one) 9 billion dollar budget with a voter proposition that just barely passed in 2008.

Price tag (estimate to complete) at cancellation: 99 Billion.
The leg between Merced and Bakerfield is still being built. Rumor has it that leg was rushed so the state could get their hands on the federal money to help pad the general fund. The state will keep working on it, albeit slowly, to keep the fed's from clawing it back. So that money is firmly in the state government's furnace, it seems.

So much for the end of fossil fuels and other major government schemes that are "all wind and no rain". It was doomed by people being unable and unwilling to be engineered.

The project history...
California High-Speed Rail - Wikipedia

Just where I always wanted to go, Merced.
 
This happened last week and there has already been at least three threads on it.

Just another excuse thread to bash liberals.

And had this been a conservative boondoggle the statement would be "just another thread to bash conservatives". In case you haven't noticed that is what the majority of these threads are about, one way or another, I bash you - you bash me.
 
This happened last week and there has already been at least three threads on it.

Just another excuse thread to bash liberals.

Yes. :beatdeadhorse:hammer:
 
In Europe, at the high end high speed rail costs $39 million per kilometer. That's about $62 million per mile. California High Speed Rail was to be 800 miles, so by that cost estimate it should have been $50 billion. However, their estimates ran up to near $100 billion. For whatever reason, everything we do here is absurdly expensive.

By the way, the cost in China is half of that. The Chinese model would have cost at most $25 billion.

Why can't we have nice things?

It seems the U.S. used to be able to build great projects but not anymore. Look at how long it took to build the Freedom Tower and compare that to how long it took to build the original Twin Towers...

Construction of the World Trade Center's North Tower began in August 1968, and the South Tower in 1969. Extensive use of prefabricated components helped to speed up the construction process. The first tenants moved into the North Tower in December 1970 and into the South Tower in January 1972. Four other low-level buildings were constructed as part of the World Trade Center in the early 1970s, and the complex was mostly complete by 1973.

Construction of the World Trade Center - Wikipedia
 
I wouldn't be surprised if the majority of the money was spent on special interests, bloat, and kickbacks to allies of the DNC in Cali. Asian countries make high speed rail work and they are less wealthy than we are. I believe this was nothing more than a special interest project to reward the loyal. Corruption in a nutshell.

The Bull train was a payoff to unions to shut up and stand down while the SF Bay Bridge was built with Chinese materials and (mostly) labor. The Bullet train was promised to be a eternal union project funding the democrat party for generstions.
 
This happened last week and there has already been at least three threads on it.

Just another excuse thread to bash liberals.

If you would have bothered to read the article, you would have read that the death of the Bullet Train fortells the death of the pie in the sky plans the democrats plan to use to upend our society for a goal that does not exist and will turn us citizens into serfs due to the outrageous expenses incurred by sociaism.

Your outrage is noted, but unnecessary.
 
This happened last week and there has already been at least three threads on it.

Just another excuse thread to bash liberals.

The conservative side and many on the more liberal side in California had been arguing against this from day one.

It was a flawed proposition based on a lie. Californians voted in the initial law without any understanding of what would actually happen.
 
Why did they even bother?...The days of America doing big projects is over...That is the domain of China and Europe...Americans essentially hate their government and don't want to spend a dime in Taxes for anything...The roads and bridges are crumbling and 1/2 the population wants to spend Billions on a useless wall
 
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