"Horrible mistakes" on high-speed rail project

Photo: Gary Coronado

From today's LA Times:

A series of errors by contractors and consultants on the California bullet train venture caused support cables to fail on a massive bridge, triggering an order to stop work that further delayed a project already years behind schedule, the Los Angeles Times has learned.

The bridge is longer than two football fields and is needed to shuttle vehicles over the future bullet train right of way and existing BNSF freight tracks in Madera County.

Authorities have yet to finalize a plan to repair the bridge. Late last year, crews installed temporary steel supports to prevent it from collapsing.

Hundreds of pages of documents obtained by The Times under a public records request show the steel supports snapped as a result of neglect, work damage, miscommunications and possible design problems.

“It is a horrible sequence of mistakes,” said Robert Bea, emeritus professor of civil engineering at UC Berkeley and co-founder of its Center for Catastrophic Risk Management.

The bridge is part of a 31-mile stretch of construction under contract to Tutor Perini Corp., a major construction firm based in Sylmar. The company declined to answer a series of written questions or to make a statement.

The bridge is part of Gov. Gavin Newsom’s plan for a 171-mile, $20.4-billion bullet train operation from Merced to Bakersfield.

The bridge work began in 2016 and was supposed to be completed in 12 months. Relocation of underground utilities became a problem, as there were schedule glitches, according rail authority and Madera County officials. 

Months turned into years, during which thousands of residents were forced to take long detours around the site...

See also Kamala Harris and high-speed rail.

Scott Wiener still supports the dumb project.