Passenger Trains > WSJ Editorial: "California's Big Dig"

Editorial in today's Wall Street Journal recommending incoming Transportation Secretary cut off all funding to this activity.  

      Elaine Chao is rolling to confirmation as Transportation Secretary with little trouble. The same can’t be said of California’s beleaguered bullet train, and one of Ms. Chao’s first orders of business should be to cut the choo choo off federal life support.
    Last week the Los Angeles Times reported that the first 118-mile segment in the state’s rural Central Valley could run 50% over budget, according to an internal Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) risk analysis that was labelled “confidential.” The FRA also warned that the California High-Speed Rail Authority would miss several deadlines...
       All of this is ominous since the Central Valley segment was supposed to be relatively simple compared to building in urban areas and boring through the geologically complex Tehachapi mountains. That’s why the Obama Administration required that it be built first. 
      The Trump Administration can stop the federal cash advances, which are merely encouraging the rail authority to burn through funds to meet spending deadlines. This may also be contributing to cost overruns. Why should national taxpayers pay for a boondoggle that California’s liberal legislators won’t?

http://www.wsj.com/articles/californias-big-dig-1484609909

Link above, or you should be able to Google the editorial under the italicized title above. 

As an epitaph for CAHSR, this might be the time to remember the words of Winston Churchill: 

     Now this is not the end. It is not even the beginning of the end. But it is, perhaps, the end of the beginning.
 



Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 01/17/17 08:31 by hazegray.

Anyone out there not see this coming? Anyone?

irhoghead Wrote:
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> Anyone out there not see this coming? Anyone?

Sure, the TO posters who habitually drink the HSR Kool-Aide!
"Don't confuse me with the facts; my mind is made up!"  :-)



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/17/17 08:30 by hazegray.

hazegray Wrote:
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> http://www.wsj.com/articles/californias-big-dig-14
> 84609909
>
> Link above, or you should be able to Google the
> editorial under the italicized title above. 

LA Times posted an article 4 days ago, and also this morning:

http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-bullet-cost-overruns-20170106-story.html

http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-bullet-train-react-20170116-story.html

Excerpt from the first article:

Audit reports last year, for example, found that the rail authority lacks consistent management processes, takes on unnecessary contract risks, does not have orderly records and is short on clearly defined responsibility for its top officials.

And an internal report obtained by The Times notes a just-completed survey in which employees complain that morale is low and has declined in each of the last three years. Employees interviewed by The Times say turnover is consistently high, leaving staff overworked. The rail authority’s senior deputy, its chief administrative officer and its top information technology executive recently left.

The amateur accountant financial angle is easy to discuss endlessly, but this hints at rampant incompetence and corruption within the CA HSR Authority. Wall St. Journal is insulting Boston's Big Dig in a Big Way, because by making the comparison, they are hinting that CA HSR will actually be completed (with cost overruns). I don't even think that's possible at this point.

irhoghead Wrote:
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> Anyone out there not see this coming? Anyone?

I was waiting patiently for someone to post a thread regarding the recent findings, especially after the LA Times article was published 4 days ago. Other media outlets made references to the LA Times article, but still, no one here took the bait. In the meantime, I had plenty of time to read the article, form my opinions on it, and wait.

Interesting that one Bay Area media took notice and put it on the front page, yet another completely ignored it. That just reaffirmed my suspicions on who are the power brokers responsible for this "boondoggle."

I'm eagerly awaiting the end game. Should be quite entertaining.

The "end game" will be the Congressional hearings described in your 2nd LA Times article.
 With the management ineptitude described, any hearing, particularly before a Republican Congress, will be like shooting the proverbial fish in a barrel!



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/17/17 08:51 by hazegray.

Maybe the Pacific Imperial Railroad should take over. It ought to be an improvement!

Reports of CAHSR's demise are highly exaggerated. Back in Government 101, they used to say that the two furthest points in the universe were the front page and the editorial page of the WSJ.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 01/17/17 15:10 by railwaybaron.

I'm pro-HSR and want this project to work. On the other hand, I think the CAHSR people are out of their depth, so to speak, in terms of assuming that the political will and funding (Federal, state, and private) would always be there over the lifetime of this project (20 years?)

CAHSR still has the Tehachapis to deal with, and I don't think they have anywhere near a clear plan of building through there, let alone funding it.

Perhaps a series of incremental upgrades to existing rail would have been a better idea (ex. by 2015, all passenger tracks will be rated for 90 mph, by 2020, all tracks will be rated for 110, etc. and up to 150 or 200 if possible); At least we'd have something to show for it every few years. 

Exactly. Some serious, incremental upgrading of what people already use would have been a much wiser use of all of this HSR money, in my opinion. And, it would give people something to see and use much faster than this train from nowhere to nowhere.  It is very hard to pry people out of the airplane mode, which is what HSR is mainly hoping for, I would presume.

cph Wrote:
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> I'm pro-HSR and want this project to work. On the other hand, I think the CAHSR people are out of
> their depth, so to speak, in terms of assuming that the political will and funding (Federal,
> state, and private) would always be there over the lifetime of this project (20 years?)
>

Actually, I am also pro-HSR where it makes sense and has competent management -- which leaves out California.
Two current examples might be Brightline in Florida and Texas Central between Dallas and Houston....
 

The report in question was a planning document that stated they COULD go over budget by 50%. But it hasn't yet, so what's the point?

Nick

Posted from iPhone

If HSR had been correctly started, it would have laid rail and begun operations in Southern California where there is a market and potential for early success and expansion. The Bay Area's BART is an example which today is a necessity for commuters. Instead, HSR starts by digging dirt in a very rural area where there is little market or reason for such service.

Typical government job where the taxpayers once again are treated with contempt as their money is spent with little regard.

I think it would have been better if the project was managed by the Department of Water Resources.  They built the aqueduct system and could probably tackle the rail project with efficiency.  

Todd Clark
Canyon Country, CA
Trainorders.com

Unfortunately, California lacks the political clout in Congress to get this mess shoved into a blue ribbon study or other dark corner. That's usually how well connected projects stay around.  Right now, it's in Darryl Issa's (remember him?) interest to tie in a lot of Democratic politicians with this situation. 

Issa has made two prior attempts to become governor, neither went very far. He would love to tie the power brokers and Garcetti and Jerry Brown etc into the buckets of money which have vanished into consultants, etc

He has the ability to convene the Congressional republican oversight committee at just the right time to focus attention on things like lack of controls, etc.

CAHSR has responded:

http://www.hsr.ca.gov/docs/newsroom/2017_Letter_to_Legislature_LA_Times_Article.pdf

Nick

Posted from iPhone

Hi-Speed rail has been built all over the World - in almost every major Country--and is very popular and useful.
 .
Yet, in the U.S. it's  called a boondoggle--too expensive--nobody knows how to build it---a political swamp.

​Shame on us.  This "political swamp" has made us blind to what is actually good for our country.

I don't have the time to do the research, but what did the people/newspapers/etc. think/have to say in France and other countries when high speed rail was first proposed and built? I don't think the USA has the market cornered on greed and corruption and people lining their pockets at the taxpayers expense, but I do think we take that game to a whole new level as compared to other parts of the world.

The French have a different approach to eminent domain and national interest than the US takes.  The early TGV trains were built on new rights of way straight as an arrow. With passage under etc for farmers whose land was bisected. In places like Tours, the TGV stopped at a new station outside of town, and a rail shuttle brought you to down town.

When the line to Marseille was planned out, it was planned to go through some of France's best wine country.  Beaujolais and Burgundy wine growers launched a fulll scale attack, and the line was relocated. No messing with the patrimony of France.

Of course, France also pruned local air service as TGV lines opened. No point in subsidizing competing routes. The French equivalent to interstates (the A routes) have stiff tolls on them. Your car has a horsepower tax, and you're paying $7 a gallon for gasoline. No point in subsidizing competing services.

Most of France has a population density that far exceeds most of America. And, no way that Americans would accept tolls on almost all interstates, $7 gas, and a loss of their local air services.

I've heard Ohio's land mass, population, and distance between major cities is much like France. Is that true ?