Without researching the original ballot issue nor the original federal agreements, I suspect the accuracy much of what is bandied about here is doubtful.
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Then I suggest you go and do some of the necessary reading, and get educated.
I for one would love to be wrong about the details restricting fare amounts and the guarantee of no funding charges to taxpayers.
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I’m not the one making these charges. You and others simply are repeating stuff probably coming from various media sources. You don’t have to do anything since this is just a forum but if this were an investigation or even a research paper, citations would be required. I’m just not a fan of unsubstantiated charges.
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I base my comments about having witnessed a project done right, namely the original section of the San Diego “Trolley”. The original section was built on time and within budget because the promoters of the project, State Sen Jim Mills and SD Mayor Pete Wilson took a cautious approach, had a definite plan based on studies done in the mid-1970’s. One thing that helped was not having any federal funding.
I just have to look at the sewers installed at my old house. At first when we approved the construction in a bond issue the costs were supposed to be 7 million dollars for the entire project. Then federal and state government grants thanks to the Obama era stimulus packages were thrown into the mix. The costs ballooned from 7 million to 21 million with 14 million dollars coming from state and federal level grants. I remember the contractor literally said he was just buying new tools trucks backhoes for the project. The only thing that wasn’t bought new was the horizontal drilling machines for the high pressure lines. The rest of all their equipment was freaking brand new. Instead of using grass seed were the yards were torn up we had sod put in. That give you an idea.
Erik: Sorry but that is apples and tangerines.
I personally think CA would have been better off if the project had gone to the French operation but that is pure speculation.
Large projects, when they are concieved are represented by their proponents for a ‘price’ the proponents “think” they can sell to those that have to approve the project - be that voters in a public project or company officials for a company project. That initial ‘selling price’ may or may not have any real correlation to the ultimate cost of the project. Project proponents will do anything and everything they can to get the project approved and then keep it progressing.- no matter how the costs may show up in the real world. The same dynamics happen no matter if it is a Public Works project or some large company’s internal project.
On large project, both public and private, Fraud is in the eye of the beer holder.
I strongly disagree. The San Diego Trolley system got federal funding later on due in part by demonstrating that they knew how to manage projects. The CAHSR group has demonstrated that they have been doing a poor job of managing their project.
One of my beefs with the CAHSR fiasco is that the money could have been better spent by funding 110mph lines in California. Upgrading the LOSSAN corridor to allow sub 2 hour times for LA to SD would generate a lot more passenger miles than the sub 3 hour LA to SF. Having an I-405 rail line and an I-15 rail would also have been a huge benefit. Stockton to Silicon Valley would also support a fair amount of traffic.
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The reason why the CASHR dreamers got hung up on LA to San Francisco was the sheer amount of aircraft that fly that route. It’s a 5 hour drive about a 90 min flight and United Airlines alone has 20 daily flights on it. The other carriers have roughly the same amount from LAX to SFO. So they were hoping to get some of that sweet business travel money.
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Been there, done that.
There’s a difference between being a factor of 4-5 off in cost and being a factor of 40 off in cost. A more realistic approach would have been an initiative to spend say 100 million to get reasonable (factor of 2-3) estimates for costs along with options for routes.
What I don’t remember is what the legislative analyst said about the initiative. I don’t recall the analyst making comments about the proposed costs being wildly optimistic.
One final note: With respect of routing the Surf Line through Del Mar, the mayor of said city said with a straight face that the line could be moved to follow I-5 from Del Mar to Oceanside. This almost exactly the same complete lack of understanding of the magnitude of the project that was exhibited by the CAHSR promoters.
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I would agree, but would go a bit farther. The CAHSR promoters should have had a long talk with the French group before circulating the initiative.
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Bet the French group would have been forthright about the importance of having your real-estate settled before starting construction!
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Large projects spanning miles and miles of territory rarely have all their real estate issues settled prior to construction. Real Estate is always a work in progress until the day of ultimate completion.
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We never turned a shove for a new transmission/distribution line, gas line, lignite coal mine, and/or power plant until we had locked down the real estate rights. We had landmen whose job it was to make sure that the real estate issues were resolved before a project was begun.
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But CAHSR had nearly NO arrangements in place. Even now, apparently, they have relatively few arrangements in place for the unstated sections. My suspicion (which people are invited to research) is that the idea was that eminent domain could compel sale quickly when needed; that certainly hasn’t been the case.
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Which is the preferred plan for ‘big money’ when it comes to stealing the land of real people, for whatever the project.
Locally there a contentious project - A Pennsylvania electric utility wants to build a high tension power line through the state of Maryland to service their prospective customers in Norther Virginia. They endeavor to get their right of way through active farm land with eminent domain and low ball the numbers. The Farmers are not happy and are not taking it lying down.
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I’m with Erik here. The San Diego trolley is routinely used as the gold standard comparable for other systems to be compared with. Extremely well run.
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But they pass over the Central Valley which has seen a dramatic pullback in service and then higher fares to boot.
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Not only that but they pay above market rates for land acquisition within reason. Cheaper than paying lawyers to argue and delay while inflation costs.
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