California bullet train cost surges by $2.8 billion: 'Worst-case scenario has happened'

[umbrella39]

tajbot may be about to enter strokemode based on its posting today. Are you having a stroke?

I suspect Texas Hiker will be tagged back in any time now... This sock is losing his shit...

 

[xaeniac]

why would you not want this as a citizen of the U.S. Spend useless money on wars or build something like high speed rail? C'mon, but you know America

 

[Greenman]

why would you not want this as a citizen of the U.S. Spend useless money on wars or build something like high speed rail? C'mon, but you know America

I just read a cost breakdown on all public transportation in the US built since 1970. Turns out the cost works out to be 40 times the cost of roads.

 

[senseamp]

Though, the US doesn't necessarily need HSR - it would be nice, but is it the best use of money at this point? There is still plenty we can wring out of existing right-of-ways, and in some areas (like the northeast), we could get a huge bang-for-our-buck by just improving the average speed of existing service through improvements to the existing infrastructure.
https://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/julyaug-2011/the-case-for-not-quite-so-high-speed-rail-2/

We just blew trillions of dollars on tax cuts for corporations that were already swimming in money. There is no shortage of money out there. Surely building infrastructure that actually grows GDP and fundamentally improves society overall, is a better use of money than redistributing it up and praying for trickle down. You can always make do with something, but in the long run, all you are doing is settling for lower prosperity especially in the more rural areas on the train path. Central California where you can get on a high speed train and be in downtown SF or LA in an hour is a fundamentally better place than one where you have to sit in a car for 2-3 hours. Someone would be able to work in a big city and live in Central Valley, spending money and paying property taxes there, improving funding for schools, etc. Or someone can take a train and go see a specialist who is not available in their area, or visit a theater or museum in a big city, and do a day trip without a crazy long drive. There are different economies of scale if the infrastructure friction is reduced.

 

[JSt0rm]

Uncle Jerry's crony train to nowhere is over budget? Shocking to no one.

nowhere isnt nowhere in 100 years.

 

[bbhaag]

Meanwhile in China:

US can't seem to be able to build anything now. We are lucky if we can maintain what we have.

Well I don't know if that is really a fair assessment. Sure the rails are built in China but at what cost? Not just environmentally speaking but also regarding the people who owned the land the Chinese government confiscated to put the rails on.
You can't even build a pipeline here in America without multiple organizations and ethnic groups throwing a fit and delaying the process for years. I guess America could become more like Communist China and have the government just take what they want from the people without any due process but that is not what America was founded on.
I don't think I would look to Communist China as a shinning example though. They have a horrible track record when it comes to honoring the rights of their citizens.

 

[pcgeek11]

Meanwhile in China:

US can't seem to be able to build anything now. We are lucky if we can maintain what we have.

I'm guessing that the cost for labor and the regulation cost in China are VERY Different than the USA.

Feel free to correct me if I am wrong. This is a comparison of apples and rocks.

 

[darkswordsman17]

Well I don't know if that is really a fair assessment. Sure the rails are built in China but at what cost? Not just environmentally speaking but also regarding the people who owned the land the Chinese government confiscated to put the rails on.
You can't even build a pipeline here in America without multiple organizations and ethnic groups throwing a fit and delaying the process for years. I guess America could become more like Communist China and have the government just take what they want from the people without any due process but that is not what America was founded on.
I don't think I would look to Communist China as a shinning example though. They have a horrible track record when it comes to honoring the rights of their citizens.

What?!? I think you need a history lesson, because that's exactly what America was founded on. Plus, you know, the genocide, and slavery that America used as well...

I don't think the US has any moral high ground when it comes to the development of our country. Hell, America's guilty of literally the exact same thing you're chastising China for (using Chinese labor, treated like garbage and 2nd class citizens, to build public infrastructure - specifically railways).

You do have a valid point that America isn't totally shitting all over its own people to accomplish such things these days so it is easier for China who is willing to do that.

There's a lot of pipelines put in, in spite of the resistance against them. Heck the Keystone doesn't even benefit the US much and that still got pushed through. But that's also the reasoning that Republicans use "well see if we treat our own people like garbage like China does, we'd be able to outdo them!" But that's the reasoning that WWI generals used, as long as we're willing to sacrifice people more then we'll win! The reality is, we can still prosper by both spending money to develop for ourselves and by treating our citizens properly. In fact, I'd say that's the most prosperous way forward (where we work to support citizens' health, mentally and physically), but that's another topic entirely.

 

[Greenman]

What?!? I think you need a history lesson, because that's exactly what America was founded on. Plus, you know, the genocide, and slavery that America used as well...

I don't think the US has any moral high ground when it comes to the development of our country. Hell, America's guilty of literally the exact same thing you're chastising China for (using Chinese labor, treated like garbage and 2nd class citizens, to build public infrastructure - specifically railways).

The US stopped doing that, China didn't.

 

[bbhaag]

What?!? I think you need a history lesson, because that's exactly what America was founded on. Plus, you know, the genocide, and slavery that America used as well...

I don't think the US has any moral high ground when it comes to the development of our country. Hell, America's guilty of literally the exact same thing you're chastising China for (using Chinese labor, treated like garbage and 2nd class citizens, to build public infrastructure - specifically railways).

Alright then I don't want to hear anymore bitching and moaning from now on when there is a major infrastructure project proposed. We can let the federal government swoop in at a whim take what they want and be done with it. Let them build any damn thing they want without any repercussions. Pipelines, damns, walls, oil platforms, highways hell you name it and let the feds build it.

 

[Zorba]

I just read a cost breakdown on all public transportation in the US built since 1970. Turns out the cost works out to be 40 times the cost of roads.

Got a link for that? It doesn't even get close to passing the BS test. I've seen several studies that show public transportation is one of the best ways to decrease road costs.

I am assuming if this is based on anything factional, it is based on some really irreverent metric, such as passenger-mile or ton-mile.

 

[JSt0rm]

I'm guessing that the cost for labor and the regulation cost in China are VERY Different than the USA.

Feel free to correct me if I am wrong. This is a comparison of apples and rocks.

china is gonna roll over your dumb ass.

 

[pcgeek11]

china is gonna roll over your dumb ass.

And yours.

 

[Mike64]

As a country we need density, less cars, more public transportation, etc.

What are you, some sort of communist or something?/

 

[darkswordsman17]

Just realized I didn't even comment about the actual topic of the thread. Sadly not surprising that costs have ballooned like that. And its not a Democrat or Republican thing, as both have saddled us with things like that (and if they ever get replaced, those will do the same).

Something to keep in mind, it costs so much because the value of American resources is so high. Can't help but think its massively overpriced, but what can I say, America thinks really highly of itself. And the project in general seems like a best they could do idea shoehorned where they could fit it. Which is sadly a recipe for...not greatness. It doesn't appear that technology is up to snuff (by that I mean, our ability make high speed rail for a reasonable price). Or perhaps its because America languished in pushing the technology so we're stuck trying to figure it out.

Will be interesting to see if this or Musk's ideas (although I give him less credit for the ideas, and more for just, getting people to go "why don't we try and see if we can do it?" instead of writing it off as not possible) pan out. There are things that are bad ideas, and then sometimes just bad ideas at the time, that work out much better in the long run. Time will tell if this is the former or might be able to turn into the latter (although it'd take quite an upgrade to get it there, so I'm kinda leaning towards the former for this project).

The US stopped doing that, China didn't.

I think you might want to actually check who picks the produce you get in your grocery stores. And who you're talking to when you call customer support. And who does a lot of coding and computer engineering work. Among other things. Absolutely its largely not on the level of what China does, but you're deluding yourself if you think America doesn't still massively profit from people that a large portion of our country treat as effectively not fully American (and in some cases not fully human; see sex trafficking which affects minority groups far far more).

Of course, more than anything, when you consider how many American companies are exploiting Chinese workers, kinda hard to take the highroad over China doing that. Its ok though, if all goes according to Republican plan, we'll be able to let corporations exploit Americans in the same way! Yay, what a great future for America! MAGA, baby!

Alright then I don't want to hear anymore bitching and moaning from now on when there is a major infrastructure project proposed. We can let the federal government swoop in at a whim take what they want and be done with it. Let them build any damn thing they want without any repercussions. Pipelines, damns, walls, oil platforms, highways hell you name it and let the feds build it.

Uh...ok? I hope you realize a shitload of things you take for granted were created in exactly that manner. The interstate highway system, the power grid, dams, the fucking Mississippi River. The reason why you get to cop this holier than thou attitude is because the US already did that stuff. But that's a positive, in that because we already did that stuff, we have areas where we can maintain/upgrade those things. China is still modernizing, so they are doing a lot of that stuff now.

Most of the criticisms you can levy against China, you could (and often still can) levy against the US. Because China more or less followed our blueprint for the past 30 or so years. That's not to absolve them of their evils, just to remind you of our own and that maybe not such a great idea to cast dispersion on China as though you're morally superior. I still believe that we are a bit better, not enough to gloat about, and we far too often do things that could be argued make us worse. Hell, I can't even actually argue that we're less corrupt any more thanks to our modern political situation.

Er, I'm not sure if you're intentionally trying to actually make the things you say/how you say those things, be true and not the opposite like you seem to intend them...but, they already largely do. There are very very few instances where the federal government doesn't get what it wants.

Sorry that I had to give you a reminder of American history that apparently flies in the face of your righteous indignation about China. I don't know why you're crying because I showed you to be a perfect epitome for the US (ignorant, hypocritical, but somehow massively righteous all the same), but hey, thanks for proving exactly why I needed to write what I did. America has done a lot of heinous shit to others and to ourselves. I don't think its so bad to recognize that, or to recognize that while we've improved, we're still nothing close to the myth that Americans seem to desperately want to believe. Oftentimes, we just outsourced the misery so we didn't have to look it in the face. Meanwhile, we keep bleating this "America is the bestest!" nonsense to delude ourselves while our country rots. The thing is, our problems are not insurmountable at all, but we have way too many people that refuse to even accept that they exist (and if they do, they have no real solution, they just seem to want to play the blame game, but in fact they can't even properly ascertain blame so they sadly tend to make the problems worse).

In the paper today tales of war and of waste
But you turn right over to the T.V. page

 

[K1052]

we're talking about 2 different things here. You're talking about what you believe is the probability of the Central Valley to San Jose segment being completed.

I'm asking that if the new governor and legislature changed their minds, would it be hard to shut down the project within a couple years IF it was deemed wise to do so. From what I can tell, the only funds allocated for this entire first phase of the project are the roughly 1/4 of the cap-and-trade program. This does not add up to the tens of billions of dollars required to actually get to San Jose.

I'm actually in a weird spot because in a vacuum, I'd easily support HSR in CA. I actually feel it's sound in theory although perhaps better suited to the Northeast corridor. It's more that I don't trust our state government to complete the project (or any portion thereof) at reasonable cost to taxpayers. As some have stated, it's unknown how they will go from Bakersfield to L.A. so how can you reliably estimate the price tag?

Which I think is high no matter who ends up in office except for a hardcore conservative which probably isn't going to happen. If the project is truncated it will be a SF to Bakersfield system. It will probably cost about $10-15B do the SJ-Cowchilla segment, mostly dependent on the Pacheco tunnel. The geology is unfortunately pretty shit for tunnels but the often suggested alternative of running over the Altamont pass has it's own also expensive (but different) problems.

The LA end of this thing is a wreck unfortunately.

 

[Brainonska511]

We just blew trillions of dollars on tax cuts for corporations that were already swimming in money. There is no shortage of money out there. Surely building infrastructure that actually grows GDP and fundamentally improves society overall, is a better use of money than redistributing it up and praying for trickle down. You can always make do with something, but in the long run, all you are doing is settling for lower prosperity especially in the more rural areas on the train path. Central California where you can get on a high speed train and be in downtown SF or LA in an hour is a fundamentally better place than one where you have to sit in a car for 2-3 hours. Someone would be able to work in a big city and live in Central Valley, spending money and paying property taxes there, improving funding for schools, etc. Or someone can take a train and go see a specialist who is not available in their area, or visit a theater or museum in a big city, and do a day trip without a crazy long drive. There are different economies of scale if the infrastructure friction is reduced.

We definitely have the money for big sign infrastructure projects, but we don't have the political will.

At least in some areas, incremental improvements will greatly improve existing service. You get the average speed of the Northeast Regional up to 80-90mph from it's current average of ~48mph, you could easily shave a fair amount of time off trips between Boston and NYC or NYC and DC. And those routes are already running with full trains.

Plus, these are transit issues that also need addressing. We can't just focus on HSR and ignore the backbone routes that carry more local service.

 

[K1052]

We definitely have the money for big sign infrastructure projects, but we don't have the political will.

At least in some areas, incremental improvements will greatly improve existing service. You get the average speed of the Northeast Regional up to 80-90mph from it's current average of ~48mph, you could easily shave a fair amount of time off trips between Boston and NYC or NYC and DC. And those routes are already running with full trains.

Plus, these are transit issues that also need addressing. We can't just focus on HSR and ignore the backbone routes that carry more local service.

We need it all but drastic changes have to be made to how projects are planned, designed, and contracted for in order to contain costs. Europe builds transit and HSR for a fraction of what we do.

 

[Zorba]

We need it all but drastic changes have to be made to how projects are planned, designed, and contracted for in order to contain costs. Europe builds transit and HSR for a fraction of what we do.

This is the real problem. Government contracting is so messed up. Some of the issues are due to them trying to mage everything fair and accountable, some because people want to actively break the system, and some due to corruption.

This is the one thing I think private or semi-private companies could help with, but they bring their own issues as well. I wish we could just fix the current problems with government contracting, but one party wants to actively break the system and media loves blowing up over "high" costs of things they don't understand.

 

[brycejones]

I just read a cost breakdown on all public transportation in the US built since 1970. Turns out the cost works out to be 40 times the cost of roads.

Source?

 

[Greenman]

Got a link for that? It doesn't even get close to passing the BS test. I've seen several studies that show public transportation is one of the best ways to decrease road costs.

I am assuming if this is based on anything factional, it is based on some really irreverent metric, such as passenger-mile or ton-mile.

I'm not sure where I read it, it might have been the HSRA website. And yes, I believe it was passenger miles. They have a lot of interesting information there, another little tidbit is the expected 4% reduction in road traffic between SF and LA, and that they expect fares to cover 25% of operating costs.

I don't believe that the system will come in anywhere near the estimate. 120 billion absolute minimum.

 

[1prophet]

Meanwhile in China:

US can't seem to be able to build anything now. We are lucky if we can maintain what we have.

Maybe Trump can lower our wages, eliminate the EPA, OSHA, the Labor Dept, so we can compete with China on their level while breathing in that quality manufactured air, then they can build all the tech junk here that our Silicon Valley faux liberals are so in love with because of the mad profits they enjoy due to the leveraging of the disparities between societies, and the deplorables can now be proud to see made in America at their local big box store while the 1% can enjoy greater profits due to cheaper than china domestic production and reduced shipping costs,

but look at the bright side, if you beg/protest/threaten to burn down the neighborhood enough the 1% might allow your politicians (their puppets) to give you a trickle down paycheck called basic income while providing you with all the reality TV to fill that unemployed time you will now have loads of so you can be shooting/snorting/swallowing/smoking up your opioids/weed/coke, etc. while crying over the injustice of it all on facebook/twitter/Instagram, etc.

 

[K1052]

This is the real problem. Government contracting is so messed up. Some of the issues are due to them trying to mage everything fair and accountable, some because people want to actively break the system, and some due to corruption.

This is the one thing I think private or semi-private companies could help with, but they bring their own issues as well. I wish we could just fix the current problems with government contracting, but one party wants to actively break the system and media loves blowing up over "high" costs of things they don't understand.

At this point maybe just bring a bunch of people over from UK/France/Spain/Germany and ask them how they do it stem to stern. And just codify that.

 

[JimKiler]

I think we should be adding self driving lanes to all interstate highways. That would be huge.

What would be the point. If you have a self driving car it does not matter what lane it is in. Also then you would be nose deep reading your phone or tablet and would not care how slow traffic is.

 

[dyna]

What would be the point. If you have a self driving car it does not matter what lane it is in. Also then you would be nose deep reading your phone or tablet and would not care how slow traffic is.

There are so many possible failure points in the hardware/software for a self driving car. It makes me cringe at the idea of these being on the road. I think a good first step would be a dedicated lane.