Cost for part of high-speed rail goes up $1 billion!
The LA Times reports that the cost estimate for only one segment of the state's high-speed rail project has gone up $1 billion and that the bullet train won't be able to make the SF to LA trip in two hours and 40 minutes as promised to voters in 2008:
Louis Thompson, chairman of the High-Speed Rail Peer Review Group, a state-sanctioned panel of outside experts, testified that "real world engineering issues" will cause schedules for regular service to exceed the target of two hours and 40 minutes. The state might be able to demonstrate a train that could make the trip that fast, but not on scheduled service, he told lawmakers...Thompson's assessment came as lawmakers consider a proposal by Gov. Jerry Brown to allocate $250 million in greenhouse gas taxes to the controversial project next year, and a third of all the revenue from so-called cap and trade revenue in future years. If all of the greenhouse gas fees were allotted to the bullet train system, it would leave a shortfall of up to $16 billion in required construction funds, Thompson said...
Labels: High-Speed Rail
posted by Rob Anderson @ 1:21 PM
2 comments
2 Comments:
I just love that Jerry Brown wants to use supposedly emissions off-setting (by 2020) Cap & Trade funds for this project only to have to turn around and pay $35 million to the San Joaquin Valley Air Pollution Control District to offset the anticipated pollution created by earth-moving and construction. What?! This is like an admission of guilt, and yet do they care? Does anyone able to stop this care?
The court may stop this boondoggle, and yes a lot of people care. As a liberal Democrat myself, it's embarrassing to note that most of the support for this dumb project comes from Democrats and Bay Guardian-type "progressives."
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