California High Speed Rail: Final Cost Could Top $200 BILLION (San Francisco: rental car, rental)

[18Montclair]

What a fiasco. Let's kill this now.

As one news account noted, if the entire project's cost increases similarly, the San Francisco-to-Anaheim system would cost up to $87 billion. That's without taking into account inflation. One academic study projected a final cost exceeding $200 billion, based on cost overruns for other large public projects. When California voters in 2008 approved selling $9.9 billion in bonds, the entire project was estimated at $33 billion. Within a year, that was "adjusted" to $43 billion...

Train price tag racing up at high speed | project, billion, cost - Opinion - The Orange County Register

$200 Billion could completely modernize all our major airports and seaports, modernize all of our urban freeways, expand existing public transit and we'd still have change left over.

[Phil306]

Absolutely. People complain about "jobs." Sure, this will "make jobs." But for how long? Then what when those "jobs" are no longer necessary? And "jobs" paid for by taxes, for something not needed and is a total waste of money.

[yeahthatguy]

Originally Posted by 18Montclair

What a fiasco. Let's kill this now.



$200 Billion could completely modernize all our major airports and seaports, modernize all of our urban freeways, expand existing public transit and we'd still have change left over.

[BMW3series]

If it actually ended up costing $200 billion to create a few high speed rail lines and trains, it would cost $1-2 trillion to update all our ports, airports, highway systems, and public transportation systems. People against high speed rail will use creative accounting to make their case and so will people in favor. Look at China, Japan, Korea, or any modern country in Europe to come up with an accurate estimate.

[hoffdano]

Originally Posted by BMW3series

If it actually ended up costing $200 billion to create a few high speed rail lines and trains, it would cost $1-2 trillion to update all our ports, airports, highway systems, and public transportation systems. People against high speed rail will use creative accounting to make their case and so will people in favor. Look at China, Japan, Korea, or any modern country in Europe to come up with an accurate estimate.

Do all those things need to be updated? Why is anyone concerning about updating seaports when talking about high speed rail?

As for rail and China - they claimed to have spent $1.33B for 19 miles of maglev rail. They completed it in 2006 - five years later not a single kilometer has been added. All in a country where politics is less likely to slow decision-making.

[BMW3series]

Originally Posted by hoffdano

Do all those things need to be updated? Why is anyone concerning about updating seaports when talking about high speed rail?

As for rail and China - they claimed to have spent $1.33B for 19 miles of maglev rail. They completed it in 2006 - five years later not a single kilometer has been added. All in a country where politics is less likely to slow decision-making.

From the OP: "$200 Billion could completely modernize all our major airports and seaports, modernize all of our urban freeways, expand existing public transit and we'd still have change left over."

[hsw]

Another useless welfare project for more $100K+/yr union make-work "jobs"...

Business travelers have employer-paid travel via barely profitable airlines and rental cars (let the dumb shareholders of those cos. subsidize Luddite travel nonsense)
Truly tech-savvy efficient workers use videoconf/email to avoid Luddite travel
Any commercial freight seems fine with current modalities and can pay for own upgrade needs
AMZN and other online merchants seem to be able to deliver goods ASAP and profitably via current US infrastruc
Tourists should pay own way for their travels and not rely on raping taxpayers for silly 20th century trains or other tourist travel modalities

More relevant (and far cheaper) is smoothly paving major fwys and roads on SF Peninsula and LA's Westside where CA's biggest taxpayers live/work (make the damn things derestricted speeds like Germany's autobahn on 280 btwn SF and Cupertino)....the mass transit crap is for commies and poors....and major employers in SV already run own private buses to truck in their poorer yuppie workers from SF's slums to MtnVw/Cuper, etc...why should taxpayer subsidize these lifestyle choices?

[esmith143]

There's something you should keep in mind whenever you read anything in the press about HSR. There is a group of people in this state who hate high speed rail so much that they are willing to go to great lengths to make false accusations and fabricate data. Reminds me of the climate-change denialism. It's mostly a combination of NIMBY's who want to kill high speed rail because it is proposed to go through their neighborhoods, commuter airline lobby worried about losing revenues, and plain old conservatives (the "keep your government hands off my Medicare" kind) who honestly believe that government is incapable of ever doing anything right.

The statement, "One academic study projected a final cost exceeding $200 billion, based on cost overruns for other large public projects", looks like just one of such fabrications - I can count at least three red flags in this single sentence. For starters, the complete absence of references to that "academic study", which I can't seem to find on scholar.google.com. And it's not even the kind of subject that could plausibly be undertaken by an academic study.

This statement: "It now is believed to cost up to $13.9 billion –$6.8 billion more than the previous $7.1 billion estimate – to construct tracks from Merced to Bakersfield", is a half-truth. The route from Merced to Bakersfield is not yet set in stone and there are many different options to consider. The most expensive possible route from Merced to Fresno and the most expensive route from Fresno to Bakersfield would add up to $13.9 billion. (The least expensive route currently considered adds up to $10 billion.) This would include the cost of acquiring land, constructing 170 miles of tracks (basically one third of the total length of phase 1), running electricity, and building train stations.

[esmith143]

And the whole nature of the debate is quite telling. The United States is one of the few large developed countries in the world left without HSR. (The only other major countries which still don't have high speed rail are, AFAIK, Canada and Australia, both substantially less densely populated than California.) HSR has proved itself a useful, capable and popular method of transportation everywhere else.

So what happens whenever HSR hits a snag, like the aforementioned increase of the cost of the Merced-Bakersfield section? Do we hear debates about the cost of construction, environmental requirements, etc., all the actual reasons why the final bill might go up? No, whenever that happens, all sorts of characters start showing out of the woodwork, saying, basically, "we don't need no stinking high speed rail!" They aren't really concerned about the cost. They just don't want to see it built, period. If this were 1955, they'd surely be objecting against the Interstate Highway System, too.

[ZhugeLiang]

Originally Posted by esmith143

There's something you should keep in mind whenever you read anything in the press about HSR. There is a group of people in this state who hate high speed rail so much that they are willing to go to great lengths to make false accusations and fabricate data. Reminds me of the climate-change denialism. It's mostly a combination of NIMBY's who want to kill high speed rail because it is proposed to go through their neighborhoods, commuter airline lobby worried about losing revenues, and plain old conservatives (the "keep your government hands off my Medicare" kind) who honestly believe that government is incapable of ever doing anything right.

So anyone who disagrees with your world view doesn't raise any valid points?