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Costs of California’s troubled bullet train rise again, by estimated $5B

latimes.com

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Re: Costs of California’s troubled bullet train rise again, by estimated $5B

#41

Post by sokoloff »

Traster wrote: post #17

Are there many large infrastructure projects in America that actually turn out to be a waste of time? It seems like any large infrastructure project tends to get a whole load of pushback and political shenanigans (which often are the direct cause of spiralling costs), but in the end once it's built (if it's built) it's a massive benefit. Is the real lesson here just that we should all just shut up and get on with it?

My aggravation with infrastructure projects is not with the rebar and concrete parts but with the “everyone will vote for this, so I’m going to staple some completely unrelated pork to it” BS that is frequently attempted and sometimes succeeds in US politics.

Of course, one person’s pork is another person’s dinner, so it’s unlikely to stop.

I’m not sure this project would have been viewed quite as favorably as the Big Dig: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravina_Island_Bridge though there are many who characterize the Big Dig itself as a massive pork barrel project.

Re: Costs of California’s troubled bullet train rise again, by estimated $5B

#42

Post by twobitshifter »

kylehotchkiss wrote: post #2

One thing about the route I don’t get… why don’t they use the space between the roads on the 5? Isn’t that mostly accounted for by the government already? Especially if so much of the tracks is raised.

The design is not supposed to preclude operating at 250 MPH. The minimum curve radius for this speed is enormous. The median in the interstate is not straight enough to support the speeds needed for HSR. You can put light rail in there but not anything much faster than that.

Re: Costs of California’s troubled bullet train rise again, by estimated $5B

#43

Post by hkt »

koolba wrote: post #40
ollybee wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Large infrastructure projects like this are paying it forward. They are a gift to future generations who will reap the benefit without having to pay for it, just as we have benefited from inherited infrastructure of our cities.

> They are a gift to future generations who will reap the benefit without having to pay for it, … Thanks to deficit spending they will be paying for it. The only people getting a gift here are the ones fleecing the government to run up the costs. They get their money now and all our kids and grandkids get the bill.

As is the way with most government debt - ideally, economic growth will outpace the cumulative interest accrued by the debt. There are other externalities too, like the economic benefits from quicker transport between major cities.

If you want to ask the size of those benefits, imagine London or New York without their underground/subway systems. It is a big deal and can't just be counted by ticket prices!

Re: Costs of California’s troubled bullet train rise again, by estimated $5B

#44

Post by trhway »

ollybee wrote: post #36
trhway wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>But how is it so expensive? that is a classic megaproject which will be expanding in cost until there is no more expansion is possible and then a bit more. Lets imagine some numbers - at 100B cost and say $5B/year expenses, it would need $7B/year of tickets for 50 years ROI, ie. it would need $20M/day, which is 100000 passengers/day at $200/ticket, like a 100 trains/day with 1000 riders each.

Large infrastructure projects like this are paying it forward. They are a gift to future generations who will reap the benefit without having to pay for it, just as we have benefited from inherited infrastructure of our cities.

One can wonder what the future generations are robbed off by the money being redirected into the black hole of HSR.

Re: Costs of California’s troubled bullet train rise again, by estimated $5B

#45

Post by twobitshifter »

asdff wrote: post #35
adastra22 wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, but why are we optimizing around the Central Valley population centers? When I voted for this high-speed rail (which I now regret), it was a bullet train between San Francisco and Los Angeles. Now it connects to neither.

It will connect to both. Big projects like this are typically built in stages and the central valley stage is being built first. The upgrades planned on the each end to support the rail aren't even done yet (e.g. LINK union station). There are a lot of people who live in the central valley already, and there is room for these regions to infill still.

For pieces in LA and SF it will use commuter tracks and not be a new alignment.

Re: Costs of California’s troubled bullet train rise again, by estimated $5B

#46

Post by fransje26 »

derriz wrote: post #38
carlmr wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, the government is quite inefficient, but infrastructure is a natural Monopoly. Privatization doesn't work here either. Germany tried and failed that. Natural monopolies only lead to rent seeking when in private hands. You'll pay even more than for inefficient government action. There's no incentive for them to lower their prices either. Privatization only works when you consider negative externalities and have a…

I don’t think it’s as black and white as that. The original railways in the US and in most of Europe were developed privately AFAIK - then in many cases the infrastructure was later nationalized - and in some cases subsequently privatized! More recently much of the mobile telecoms infrastructure was developed privately. Earlier it seems that much of the fixed line network globally was developed publicly.

The original railways in the US were giving outrageous rights and huge stretches of land, which quickly led to monopolies and cartel formations. That resulted in the first anti-trust laws in the US. On top of that, the current dire state of railways in the US can be directly linked to the fact that they are privatized.

Similarly, the early tracks in Europe were also often privately funded. Most were nationalized in the first half of the 20th century. Some countries tried privatizing tracks again (the UK, the Netherlands, Germany, ..) but quickly found out it didn't work.

Re: Costs of California’s troubled bullet train rise again, by estimated $5B

#47

Post by graycat »

At one time Baltimore worked long and hard, and spent a lot of money, building a subway system.

When the system was done, a prof I knew did a cost-benefit analysis and looked for an optimal way to proceed. His result, clear and solid: Brick up the entrances to the subway and otherwise just f'get about it. That is, even given the subway already built and for free, just the continuing operating costs would exceed any reasonable list of benefits.

The idea of cost-benefit analysis goes way back to the early 1900s: People saw that could have water resource projects that would let a desert bloom. So, there were a lot of such proposals. So, to filter the proposals people worked out the technique of cost-benefit analysis and wrote into some laws that for any such water projects the benefits had to exceed the costs -- that requirement filtered out nearly all the water projects. Subways and trains stand to be filtered similarly.

Re: Costs of California’s troubled bullet train rise again, by estimated $5B

#48

Post by koolba »

hkt wrote: post #43
koolba wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> They are a gift to future generations who will reap the benefit without having to pay for it, … Thanks to deficit spending they will be paying for it. The only people getting a gift here are the ones fleecing the government to run up the costs. They get their money now and all our kids and grandkids get the bill.

As is the way with most government debt - ideally, economic growth will outpace the cumulative interest accrued by the debt. There are other externalities too, like the economic benefits from quicker transport between major cities. If you want to ask the size of those benefits, imagine London or New York without their underground/subway systems. It is a big deal and can't just be counted by ticket prices!

> As is the way with most government debt - ideally, economic growth will outpace the cumulative interest accrued by the debt.

Actual growth might not, but as most infra spending is financed with fixed rate bonds, a couple more years of Biden’s 9.6% inflation will take a nice bite out of those costs in future dollars.

Re: Costs of California’s troubled bullet train rise again, by estimated $5B

#49

Post by HonestOp001 »

Traster wrote: post #17

Are there many large infrastructure projects in America that actually turn out to be a waste of time? It seems like any large infrastructure project tends to get a whole load of pushback and political shenanigans (which often are the direct cause of spiralling costs), but in the end once it's built (if it's built) it's a massive benefit. Is the real lesson here just that we should all just shut up and get on with it?

Simple rule of thumb:

If it is transit related, then it is a waste of time.

If it is auto and truck related, then it is not a waste of time.

Transit projects get a lot more “help” to make them viable because the lawsuit folks think that they are more green and for the greater good.

Auto projects (roadways and highways) go through much more scrutiny and evaluation than transit, so you better be sure to have your i’s dotted on these.

Which means there is much more analysis to justify a need for the roadway. Transit items are given as much lee way as possible to make it work.

Re: Costs of California’s troubled bullet train rise again, by estimated $5B

#50

Post by Fatnino »

MichaelBurge wrote: post #11
asdff wrote: post #7

So the total projected end to end cost is up to $105b from $100b 2 years ago. Isn't that just accounting for inflation? The LA times really has an axe to grind whenever they write about the bullet train.

In 2018, the entirety of all corporate income taxes collected was $200b, and the entire Medicaid program was $389b[1]. " In 2021, the solar industry generated more than $33 billion of private investment in the American economy": So the entire solar industry is 1/3 of this single rail line. You can't just casually call it "inflation" when you're spending significant percentages of the annual budget on a single train l…

Have you ever traveled long distance on amtrak? Their website claims there are trains between the stations you want but then a few clicks later tells you they are canceled for the day you chose to travel. Doesn't matter what day, it's canceled that day, sorry.

For example, try to get from the bay area to Chicago. Prices claim to start around 500 bucks for a non bed ticket for the 2.5 day trip. But it's actually not possible to get an itinerary that doesn't include traveling on a weekend.

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