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Ten Miles per Year; And $500 million per mile
Topic Started: May 22 2016, 10:24 AM (121 Views)
George K
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Finally
High Speed Rail in California

Quote:
 
Wednesday’s news that the Obama administration had extended for four years a 2017 deadline to complete a 118-mile section of the state’s bullet-train system illustrates the utter failure of federal oversight of the troubled $64 billion project.

A $2.5 billion grant provided to the state under 2009’s American Recovery and Reinvestment Act had included the deadline. That law was a $787 billion behemoth meant to jump-start an economy stuck in a deep recession by funding a vast array of “shovel-ready” projects in all 50 states. To win support for its passage, President Obama agreed to include strong guidelines to prevent money being wasted on half-baked proposals. On high-speed rail projects, funding was only to be granted after “rigorous analysis” demonstrated a sound “financial plan (capital and operating),” “reasonableness of financial estimates” and “quality of planning process.”

Based on these restrictions, the $2.5 billion grant should never have been approved in the first place. The foundation of the California bullet-train project is Proposition 1A, a 2008 ballot measure allocating $9.95 billion in state bonds as seed money toward building a state high-speed rail network then expected to cost $43 billion.

The measure bans taxpayer subsidies of operating costs. But the California High-Speed Rail Authority’s very first business plan issued after Proposition 1A’s passage said that the state would be unable to attract the private investment it needed because “most private firms made it clear that they would need both financial and political commitments from state officials that government would share the risks to their participation.” Translated, that means that investors want ridership or revenue guarantees, and if those guarantees aren’t met, then the state of California would have to chip in to cover the shortfall. A year later, the Legislative Analyst’s Office issued a report detailing this shortcoming.

Plainly, the state’s plan never got a “rigorous analysis” from anyone at the U.S. Department of Transportation. But if the case was weak for providing $2.5 billion in federal grants in 2009 and 2010, now it is nonexistent. Promised private investment has never materialized because of the ban on subsidies. Even more crucially, Gov. Jerry Brown and rail officials have never credibly explained how they can address what an appellate court likened to a “financial straitjacket”: the Proposition 1A mandate that before the state begins building the bullet train’s initial operating segment, it needs to fully identify how it will cover the cost, which is now estimated at $21 billion.

Yet instead of protecting taxpayers, the Obama administration acts as an enabler. The latest modification to the $2.5 billion grant’s terms gives California breathing room for yet more years of futile attempts to escape the “straitjacket.”

But in 2017, we’ll have a new president, and in 2019, a new governor. Last year, gubernatorial candidate Gavin Newsom said the bullet train’s “math doesn’t add up,” so perhaps one or both of these individuals will realize the obvious: It’s wrong to waste billions of dollars on a badly planned project that’s always had a business plan built on bad math.
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"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... "
- Mik, 6/14/08


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George K
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Finally
Gov. Brown vetoes bill that would improve oversight.

Quote:
 
Gov. Jerry Brown on Wednesday rebuffed lawmakers’ efforts to subject California’s $64-billion bullet train project to increased financial scrutiny, vetoing a bill that had gained bipartisan support.

The bill, introduced by Assemblyman Jim Patterson (R-Fresno), would have adopted into law two key recommendations from the Legislative Analyst’s Office: requiring the state rail authority to provide detailed cost, scope and schedule information about each segment of the project and to disclose how those segments would be paid for.

It was among the few pieces of legislation that attracted bipartisan support over the last five years, and the veto left Patterson furious.

“If this project keeps going forward without the necessary oversight, it will continue to collapse,” Patterson, the former mayor of Fresno, said. “It is already in the process of collapsing in front of our eyes. It is a make-believe project.”

Brown said the bill, AB 2847, was unnecessary.

“As with other projects of this magnitude, state law requires strict standards of accountability and transparency, and I have every expectation that the authority will meet these high standards,” Brown said in his veto announcement.

Of course he has that expectation, because government programs never run over budget or behind schedule, and high standards are always met. Just look at the VA.

By the way, in the 19th Century, Doc Durant and others laid over 1900 miles of rail in six years - by hand.
Edited by George K, Oct 1 2016, 08:48 AM.
A guide to GKSR: Click

"Now look here, you Baltic gas passer... "
- Mik, 6/14/08


Nothing is as effective as homeopathy.

I'd rather listen to an hour of Abba than an hour of The Beatles.
- Klaus, 4/29/18
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