RIP in Peace
https://www.sacbee.com/news/politics-go ... oTrth8abbQ" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
Should have started with Tehachapi Pass....
Railroad Forums
Moderator: lensovet
Importantly, he also reaffirmed our commitment to complete the environmental work statewide, to meet our “bookend” investments in the Bay Area and Los Angeles and to pursue additional federal and private funding for future project expansion.
Ridgefielder wrote:Will the state just shift the San Joaquins off the BNSF and onto the new alignment from Merced to Bakersfield?Interesting question, where we can speculate forever over. It might even deserve its own thread.
gokeefe wrote:California is committed ... They're going to fund it themselves if they have to ...That didn't age well....
Worst Practice #1: Legally defining project parameters in ways that can never be changed. (using a Ballot Prop)I think 6 is the grossest error. Theoretically, they were making it un-cancellable by building an unusable segment first.
Worst Practice #2: Using different types of dollars for your cost estimate and your pay-for. (un-inflated vs current $)
Worst Practice #3: Relying on non-existent, hypothetical funding sources for the bulk of your capital costs. (said Feds would pay)
Worst Practice #4: Appropriating funds with a short deadline for greenfield projects and untried technologies.
Worst Practice #5: Committing federal dollars for construction of a project that is clearly not ready for construction.
Worst Practice #6: Committing federal dollars for anything less than an operable segment of a new system. (stranded in CV; not tying at SF or LA)
Worst Practice #7: Allowing the state to spend all the federal dollars first. (no state skin in the game)
djlong wrote:I just did a little research. Adjusting for foreign currency and km/mi conversions, the most expensive line of France's TGV system cost $35M/mile. Some of their older lines cost one seventh of that. France has mountains and valley and rivers to deal with as well (Google "The Alps").Megan McArdle over at the Washington Post had a good piece about this. Key point:
At $35M/mile, 400 miles of HSR should cost a little over $14B.
WHERE THE HELL DOES THIS $77B NUMBER COME FROM?
Read any essay bemoaning the cost of American infrastructure — say Brian Rosenthal’s 2017 behemoth for the New York Times — and don’t just gawk at the inflated numbers; ask yourself why U.S. infrastructure projects use so many consultants, so many union featherbedders and so on.Link to the full column here: https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions ... 6a2207f06c
Answer: They are there to fend off future lawsuits, or to smooth compliance with some other level of government’s regulatory bodies, or to appease some powerful lobby. And because these infrastructure projects involve so many different governments, none of whom has final authority over the project, there are a lot of lobbies that must be appeased.
Other countries have crony capitalism, of course, but the downside of our highly decentralized government, which pushes a lot of power down to smaller, more locally responsive governments, is that almost anyone can get a few cronies together and grab some politician’s ear.