https://www.zerohedge.com/news...h-speed-rail-project

California won't be building a high-speed rail line between San Francisco and Los Angeles after all, as Governor Gavin Newsom (D) announced on Tuesday that the project would "cost too much and, respectfully, take too long."

"We face hard decisions that are coming due," said Newsom. "The choices we make will shape our future, and the future of quite literally millions, for decades to come."

Newsom told a joint session of the Legislature that, for the high-speed rail, “there simply isn’t a path to get from Sacramento to San Diego, let alone from San Francisco to L.A. I wish there were.” -SF Chronicle

The project - the type of transportation centerpiece included in Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez's so-called "Green New Deal," was slated to cost California taxpayers approximately $77 billion, with a completion date of 2033.


Esoteric Jeff
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@EsotericCD
· 33m

Wow. Big news out of California. Ask anyone living there how much money this has already cost the state, and how long it's already been being worked on. We all knew it would never happen, but I'm sort of stunned that Newsom publicly gave up on it.

Esoteric Jeff
✔
@EsotericCD

The timing of Newsom giving up on the dream of high-speed rail between LA and SF as "too expensive" versus the Green New Deal's fairytale dream of replacing all domestic air & car travel with high-speed rail couldn't be more...inauspicious.
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2:45 PM - Feb 12, 2019
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Newsom says that instead of a statewide system, he wants the high-speed rail line to go from Merced to Bakersfield along California's Central Valley, which he says could bring an economic transformation to the state's agricultural region.

Totally abandoning the project would require the state to return $3.5 billion of federal dollars.

In 2008, California voters approved a $10 billion bond for a bullet train between San Francisco and Los Angeles. The state finally broke ground in 2015 on a 119-mile segment between Madera and Bakersfield - however it quickly began to blow through deadlines and budgets.

Newsom said he would appoint a new chair of the High-Speed Rail Authority, his economic development director Lenny Mendonca, and bring more transparency to the project by posting spending online. He also vowed to push for more federal and private funding to eventually complete the entire line.

“But let’s get something done once and for all,” he said.

Newsom, who had previously toyed with the idea, also committed to a preference for one delta tunnel, rather than the twin tunnels that former Gov. Jerry Brown wanted to build.

Last October, Oracle co-founder Larry Ellison panned the $77 billion project.

"Trains leave when you don’t want to leave, from a place you don’t want to leave from, and take you to a place you don’t want to go to, at a time you don’t want to get there, and then you have to get into a car and go wherever you’re going. It is a crazy system," said Ellison during an interview with Fox's Maria Bartiromo.

Wonder which of his buddies will get rich off this change of heart and how much they kick back to him.

Wow, that's a significant blow to the New Green Deal. Will have to keep cars in CA after all.

No worries, AOC has got you covered.

quote:

Originally posted by Skins2881:
No worries, AOC has got you covered.

True. Why tax just California to build "Green Rail" from SF to LA, when you can tax all 50 states to build "Green Rail" from SF to LA.

Yeah, like he had a choice - and the rail line between Merced and Bakersfield isn't somehow going to magically cost more than $3.5 billion. Riiiiight.

quote:

Originally posted by wcb6092:
https://www.zerohedge.com/news...h-speed-rail-project

[snip]
Totally abandoning the project would require the state to return $3.5 billion of federal dollars. [end snip]

Suuure. Riiight.

I have to say as a California guy that I did not see this coming.

Good for him and us...

I chalk this up to the broken clock theory

Hopefully Texas' will follow suit

They have already spent billions on this fiasco. There will be nobody, and I mean NOBODY, who will be taking this train from Merced to Bakersfield. Instead of completing this section, they would be better to abandon it, return the $3.5 large, and just let the completed infrastructure stand as a testament to when reality commingles with fantasy. That’s its destiny anyway, or keep pumping in millions to operate empty trains.

California cannot blame their politicians for this one. The people gave the green light when they approved the bond in a referendum. The project would have died had they not approved the initial 10 billion.

This project illustrates the problem with California’s system of governance by referendum. They get taken in and approve spending on any hot item of the moment. In 2004, they approved a $3 billion bond for stem cell research because it was all the rage. In 2010, it was windmills and trains, because Obama said it was good. Californians will referendum themselves until this semi-direct governance leads to bankruptcy. This train project is a perfect illustration of referendum governance gone awry.

It's not often you see a Democrat kill a program, so good on Newsom for recognizing the absolute lunacy of this project.

$77 billion for a train from LA to SF.... it is hard to fathom how anyone could have ever seriously considered such a proposal.

It's funny seeing Commiefornia slam their genitals in a door, repeatedly.

quote:

Totally abandoning the project would require the state to return $3.5 billion of federal dollars.

Use it for the freakin' wall.

Seriously, dems quibble over less than $6 billion for a border wall, and these slugs in California blow how much again on something that will never be built? What a disgusting and criminal waste of money.

They should just scrap the whole thing. They are only going to lose more money. They will never recoup their losses, and I bet it will cost more to operate than they bring in. I really don't see many people riding an expensive train back and forth in "Prison Valley." If it was SF to LA or LA to SD, something where they have two places people actually want to go, it might work out. I just can't see the current plan having any chance.

Personally, I’d rather see them dig deep, give the feds their $3.5B back, and stick a fork in the whole darned thing. That said, this is orders of magnitude better than Governor Moonbeam’s brain dead idea of building the whole thing.

wow. I guess I have to give him credit for actually pulling the plug on it rather than continue to throw good money after bad. He did one thing right. <slow Claps for Gavin>

and he thought of money as finite and precious? I'll assume that was a one time thing.

quote:

Totally abandoning the project would require the state to return $3.5 billion of federal dollars.

So the numbskull would rather waste billions more to avoid having to refund the US tax money to DJT.

quote:

Originally posted by PR64:
I have to say as a California guy that I did not see this coming.

As a non-California guy I'd strongly recommend you start trying to determine where he plans to re-direct these monies instead.

You all need to read a little closer and not believe the media - he didn't cancel anything.

He is keeping it alive with the line from Fresno to Bakersfield. Once this portion of the boondoggle is complete (with estimated final cost nearly what the whole original project was supposed to cost), they will tout how well it's working (with a forecasted 80% subsidizing per filled seat and less than 30% of the seats filled) and why the full project needs to be completed.

Don't be fooled by the smoke.