California's bullet train is hurtling toward a multibillion-dollar overrun, a confidential federal report warns
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California’s bullet train could cost taxpayers 50% more than estimated — as much as $3.6 billion more. And that’s just for the first 118 miles through the Central Valley, which was supposed to be the easiest part of the route between Los Angeles and San Francisco.
A confidential Federal Railroad Administration analysis, obtained by The Times, projects that building bridges, viaducts, trenches and track from Merced to Shafter could cost $9.5 billion to $10 billion, compared with the original budget of $6.4 billion.
The federal document outlines far-reaching management problems: significant delays in environmental planning, lags in processing invoices for federal grants and continuing failures to acquire needed property.
The California High-Speed Rail Authority had originally anticipated completing the Central Valley track by this year, but the federal risk assessment estimates that that won’t happen until 2024, placing the project seven years behind schedule.
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Wow! Already 7 years behind schedule on the easiest segment of the route through the flat and largely rural Central Valley.
$10 billion to build a train to and from nowhere. Merced to Shafter (Where TF is Shafter?!)
Nobody saw this coming, nope!
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The federal analysis shows that the state might have to come up with another $2 billion to complete the 118 miles of construction in the Central Valley, based on the new cost projection.
But the Legislature has already balked at giving the rail authority the ability to borrow against future state revenues, saying it would have to make do with existing allocations. And that was before Gov. Jerry Brown warned on Tuesday that California’s projected 2017-18 budget shows a $1.6 billion deficit.
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