quote:

Originally posted by joel9507:

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Originally posted by LS1 GTO:

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Originally posted by BamaJeepster:
It's official...

https://www.wsj.com/articles/t...eed-rail-11558034243

Trump Administration Revokes $929 Million for California High-Speed Rail
Transportation Department follows through on threat after state scaled back plans for troubled project

Good!!!!

Well, partly good.

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Mr. Batory, in his letter Thursday, said his agency planned to open up the $928.6 million it was stripping from the California project to bids for funding other intercity rail projects around the country.

Now, if he'd said he was putting the money toward the wall.....

The problem is that pesky U.S. Constitution that gives Congress the power of appropriation, and those funds were lawfully appropriated for rail. Congress could redirect the funds the the wall. I’m sure Pelosi will get right on it.

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Originally posted by Pipe Smoker:
“California is refusing to repay the federal grants it took for its failed high speed rail project, and is demanding more federal dollars to complete what critics are now calling “a train to nowhere.”

The head of California’s high speed rail authority — Brian Kelly — sent two letters to the Federal Railroad Administration this week. In the letters he denied the state violated its federal contract, which gave California $3.5 billion to build high-speed rail from San Francisco to Los Angeles.

Under the terms of the contract, California is required to repay the money if it does not complete the project by a certain deadline.

Earlier this year, Governor Gavin Newsom slammed the brakes on the project due to cost overruns. He also cut the route by more than half…”

www.oann.com/calif-demands-mor...-to-pay-back-grants/

Ok Cal. pay up. You did not full fill the terms of the contract.

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It's hard to imagine how your agency — or the taxpayers — might benefit from partially constructed assets

This is the “To much money has been invested to stop now.” stage.

The project started with grand promises and underestimated costs. When reality set in, more money was needed. Then the project was scaled back and more money was needed. Right now, just for the current build the costs are projected to increase by $1.8 billion, taking the total to $12.4 billion. Worse the full $77-billion project to connect Los Angeles to San Francisco with 220-mph trains had no funding or realistic plan for completion.

Last: “Both the Due Diligence Report (2008) and Updated Due Diligence Report (2013) state that no existing high-speed system currently meets the proposed operation speed and safety goals. It notes that the highest cruising HSR speed in the world on production runs is about 200 miles per hour (320 km/h) in France, and this is significantly less than the sustained speed of 220 miles per hour (350 km/h) the CHSRA plan requires. ”
In short, what has been promised is unlikely to happen.

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Originally posted by SigSAC:
The governor announced in his State of the State

171 miles from Bakersfield to Merced.

Pray tell, what are you going to use to get to and from the two ends of this track that will make sense in terms of time and cost? This area has nothing that would benefit from any usage.

Yea, that's not gone pencil out.

It made more sense when they proposed the first section to be from Corcoran to Chowchilla - a train straight between the women's prison and the men's prison.

In those days, we called it the conjugal express.

It made more sense because there was more interest in ridership than the new proposal.

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Originally posted by slosig:
That the new governor scaled things way down is good. That the new governor didn’t have the testicular fortitude and clarity of vision to write the whole thing off, blame it on Moonbeam, and just pay the Feds back. I’ve got to imagine that if they build enough to hold onto the Fed’s $3.5B, they will spend more than another $3.5B of the state bond holders’ money (Yes, the taxpayer will pay eventually, but they’ll pay a boatload of interest too. ). At the end of the day the poxy thing will be an albatross around the taxpayers’ necks that makes Amtrak and the USPS look like money printing machines.

The worst thing is he didn’t even have to admit to making a massive screwup spinning this abortion up. He could have blamed the whole thing on Moonbeam and painted himself as saving the state from this festering pile. Sigh...

.... testicular fortitude ....

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Originally posted by flashguy:
IMO, the only way high-speed rail will work in this country is for it to be built as a monorail with above-ground rails supported on pillars built down the center of Interstate highways. That way the right-of-way is already paid for and conflicts with vehicular travel is eliminated. It probably would cut costs in half. And stations would have to be at least 100 miles apart. It would compete with air travel, not road travel.

flashguy

That would probably be great once it was built. The construction would be an absolute nightmare though. The logistics of getting men, material, and equipment to the median to do the work would be interesting. The traffic on the freeways would be insane between the constant lookieloos (sp) and the periodic lane closures for some work. It would be interesting to see how the increased cost of construction compared to savings on right of way.

So, the Democrat Elite stole too much to get the job done. Too bad, so sad.

And "opening up for bids" is not the same thing as "making grants".