It certainly would be, except that that’s not what seems to have happened. It has not been cheaper; construction has not been expedited; key parts of the route are only now becoming cleared for construction (with, as I said on the other thread, a somewhat ominous lack of concern for the local authorities through whose jurisdictions the HSR runs).
By the time they’re getting around to negotiating for the land, the ‘inflation’ (or opportunism, etc.) has cranked the price up, and without carefully researching details it seems that considerably more land is needed than the original plans called for. Whether or not taxpayer dollars are freely available to pay for the ever-more-inflating land costs, it would have been less expensive (and I think considerably safer) to have locked in the ROW land costs as soon as a route had been chosen – and then ‘midcourse correct’ as necessary as the execution needed to change.
.
1 Like
I was referring to French practice, not California. The French proposed a route in the I-5 median, minimizing private land acquisition. Essentially what Brightline is now doing in the I-15 median LA to LV. The US is litigation city.
The French don’t turn a shovel until all land is acquired. They also don’t pay for any land until all land is contracted. Puts peer pressure on the holdouts. Brilliant really.
1 Like
It would be sensible United States practice as well.
The typical US approach would be to use ‘stealth mode’ and buy up options or rights as soon as there was arranged financing – see the methods used to acquire the land for the Biltmore estate. It’s not as if Alfred Vanderbilt couldn’t pay for privilege – but you can bet asking price would have ballooned if the buyer and scope were known in advance.
One of the early applications of eminent domain to private entities came with construction of the first large-scale pipeline from the Pennsylvania oil fields to ‘tidewater’. Rival interests cleverly (they thought) bought strips of properties from the north to the south of Pennsylvania, to block any east-west rights of way at minimal cost. That might have worked better if all the parcels had been improved in some way precluding a necessary easement, and arguably that could have been done once the physical route of the pipeline in the affected area had been fixed.
I’m interested in reading about the history of the recent Millbrae agreement – and all the assumable issues that made it so ‘significant’.
3 Likes
There’s an enormous difference in scale and type between a trolley and a major HSR.
I like the SD system but the comparison is laughable.
2 Likes
That’s another example of not needing to reinvent the wheel. Why we assume that only we have the know how has been proven to be incorrect and at huge costs.
2 Likes
The main difference between managing a project the size of the SD Trolley and the CAHSR is the amount of delegation involved. What is likely the critical difference is that the people involved with the SD Trolley had years of time to analyze expected traffic and compare options for the routes before committing to construction. The CAHSR routing started with two somewhat arbitrary endpoints, and little guidance on priorities for intermediate service. On top of that, there were a number of changes made for political reasons, e.g. the ACA vote.
2 Likes
That makes sense. Thanks for the clarification.
1 Like