Look up in the sky. It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s the cost of the first section of California’s proposed high-speed rail line!
Look up in the sky. It’s a bird! It’s a plane! No, it’s the cost of the first section of California’s proposed high-speed rail line! And its estimated costs are increasing faster than Obamacare waivers.
The Merced Sun-Star reveals the future and the losing thereof:
Building tracks for the first section of California’s proposed high-speed rail line will cost $2.9 billion to $6.8 billion more than originally estimated…
California High Speed Rail, designed to deliver the Golden State into bankruptcy even faster
A 2009 business plan … estimated costs at about $7.1 billion for the equivalent stretch of tracks. Officials say those estimates were made before detailed engineering work and feedback from communities along the proposed route.
OK, the data produced by the Magic 8-Ball was wrong.
The latest estimates are contained in two environmental impact studies…
Environmental impact studies have destroyed more infrastructure projects than the Luftwaffe.
The rail authority’s chief executive, Roelof van Ark, said planners anticipated the higher costs as more information about land acquisition and other details related to actual construction became known.
Planners knew their estimates were bogus but it’s raaaaacist to bother Obama when he’s playing with his trains.
“We’ve had cost increases, but I believe the costs are now realistic and fair,” he said.
Likely they are neither.
Van Ark also said he expects the estimated total cost of the project, originally pegged at $43 billion, to rise.
Why produce an estimate he knows is low? It’s a game. He estimates $43 billion knowing it’s actually $200 billion and will act surprised when it hits $500 billion. All for a project nobody but politicians actually wants.
But at least your destitute grandkids will have a nice train station to sleep in.
No one would be able to get to Chicago quicker than now. Only in America does anyone call a train that averages 45 miles per hour “high speed rail.”
What’s bigger than a breadbox and slower than a bus? Hint: Joe Biden fantasizes about it. Give up? New Geography solves the riddle:
The state of Iowa is being asked to provide funds to match federal funding for a so-called “high speed rail” line from Chicago to Iowa City.
High speed rail: Pissing away your tax dollars faster than any competitive system
Luxury intercity bus service is [already] provided between Iowa City and Chicago twice daily. The luxury buses are equipped with plugs for laptop computers and with free wireless high-speed internet service. Perhaps most surprisingly, the luxury buses make the trip faster than the so-called high speed rail line, at 3:50 hours. The trains would take more than an hour longer (5:00 hours). No one would be able to get to Chicago quicker than now. Only in America does anyone call a train that averages 45 miles per hour “high speed rail.”
For the sake of accuracy, that last line should read “Only in the Obama Administration…” as we don’t recall that idiot Bush proposing anything this “visionary.” Nor this hallucinatory.
By the way, fares are simply un-fair:
The state would be required to … [make] up the substantial difference between costs and passenger fares. This is despite a fare much higher than the bus fare, likely to be at least $50 (based upon current fares for similar distances). By contrast, the luxury bus service charges a fare of $18.00…
The plan will be workable once Obama decides the Commerce Clause empowers him to outlaw buses.
In the 1940s, F.A. Hayek wrote about “The Road to Serfdom”; now we have hi-speed rail to get there. Progressives are all about progress.
