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Moderator: lensovet

 #1590094  by eolesen
 
Imagine how fast that's going to go when they get into more populated areas with higher land values....

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 #1590108  by GaryGP40
 
Maybe they should just make it a tunnel/subway if parcels are too tough to get, or too cost prohibitive! :-D

I know that will never happen, but it seems like 9 years to get all the land needed is going to be even more in cost overruns than CAHSR already has, as I am sure once negotiations start and people know they want/need it, the cost will skyrocket.

Re:

 #1590150  by west point
 
Chafford1 wrote: Tue Jan 22, 2008 10:24 am
I'm sceptical about the proposed 220mph maximum speed in California. The Spanish planned this top speed for their Madrid - Barcelona high speed line but this has now been scaled back to 186mph. Similarly, the Japanese who have decades of experience in high speed rail travel, were planning 220mph from 2011 for their 'Fastech' Shinkansens, but again this has been scaled back to 199mph (320kph). Problems with noise, pressure changes in tunnels and general wear and tear suggest that 200mph is about the limit for conventional high speed railways.
Wonder how the China HSR figures and these problems are being addressed?
 #1591582  by Gilbert B Norman
 
Any surprise, volks?

The Journal's Editorial Board "teed off" today:

Fair Use:
Recall how the Obama Administration dangled $3.5 billion in federal funds to force construction to start in the sparsely populated Central Valley. The White House said there would be fewer environmental obstacles, though one apparent motive was to reward Rep. Jim Costa (D., San Joaquin Valley), a longtime project proponent, for his ObamaCare vote.

Yet communities along the train’s first 119-mile operating route, from Wasco (population: 27,047) to Madera (population: 66,224), have demanded design changes anyway. Meantime, Democratic state legislators are pushing to delay electrifying that 119-mile segment and to redirect bond funds to commuter rail in metropolitan areas.

The first trains that run might be slow, diesel and mostly empty. “I’m worried that we’re dead in the water,” Assembly Speaker Anthony Rendon said last fall. “I’m also worried that we have what would be a laughingstock for California.” Too late.
Well, maybe ten minutes can be shaved off the existing San Joaquin's schedule - and Warren can have his railroad back.
 #1591710  by lensovet
 
Tees off indeed, by bringing up the reservoir bogeyman to pander to their right-wing audience. Well done!

Apart from that, no real news here. Inflation is here for everything, and property taxes all around the country continue to climb. As for environmental mitigation — demanded by communities that the line runs through — I can't wait to hear the same people shouting about cost overruns. The ones that, you know, they are causing.

Nothing to see here, move along…
 #1591713  by eolesen
 
Well to be fair, the water reservoirs would be more useful to the taxpayers than a train route to nowhere...

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 #1591715  by lensovet
 
eolesen wrote: Sun Feb 13, 2022 12:50 am Well to be fair, the water reservoirs would be more useful to the taxpayers than a train route to nowhere...

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I doubt it. Water reservoirs can't change the fundamental problem of attempting to grow water-intensive crops in a desert and the impact that climate change is having on making the region even drier than it already is.
 #1591756  by John_Perkowski
 
AP Article on 8 Feb

Link: Costs climb again for California’s high-speed rail project: By KATHLEEN RONAYNE

Brief, fair use quote
SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — Another $5 billion has been added to the cost of California’s ambitious but long delayed high-speed rail line, according to estimates released Tuesday that show it could take $105 billion to finish the route from San Francisco to Los Angeles.

The figures were included in the California High Speed Rail Authority’s latest biennial business plan. . . . . . .

The project’s price tag has steadily risen since voters first approved nearly $10 billion in bond money for it in 2008, when the total cost was pegged at $40 billion. In the years since, the costs have kept climbing amid struggles to obtain the necessary land and other delays. Today, the rail authority is far short of the money it needs to complete the full project.
 #1593418  by NealG
 
GaryGP40 wrote: Sun Jan 23, 2022 9:51 am Maybe they should just make it a tunnel/subway if parcels are too tough to get, or too cost prohibitive! :-D
They would still have to do mineral takings beneath private property. It's likely a fraction of the market value of a parcel at the surface, but they would still have to compensate. A relative of mine has a Massachusetts Water Resources Authority water tunnel running ~300 feet beneath their home in Boston's MetroWest region. The taking only applies to the fifteen or twenty foot wide footprint of the tunnel, so their mineral rights are retained elsewhere on their half acre lot, and are even retained until a certain depth down. When they bought the house, the the title examiner noted its existence and noted that there was compensation to the former owners from when the MWRA did its order of taking in the 1990s. The compensation probably wasn't much, but anything is better than nothing, considering it is buried deep under a substrata of soil and schist and has no effect whatsoever on the owners' enjoyment of the property.
 #1597195  by electricron
 
lensovet wrote: Tue Feb 15, 2022 10:48 pm Well, land prices aren't going down and neither are construction supplies.
True. But that reality reinforces what I have been saying all along, time is money, more time = more money. Fone of the reasons for building the CHSR was that the higher speeds would allow higher fares, reducing the subsidy required. But all these delays have increased building costs so much that I doubt CHSR will never require a huge subsidy every year.
 #1597211  by eolesen
 
It was always going to require a subsidy. Anyone believing otherwise wasn't worthy of public office in the first place.

Acela has never been able to price itself above flying. LAX-SFO can be as low as $65 one way on any of the various airlines flying it.

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