by Jack Lee
Are you sitting down? Well, it doesn’t matter, you knew this was going to happen anyway, the California bullet train costs are exceeding cost projections by wide margins. Seems like the only people surprised by this revelation are the democrats in the legislature.
“The monumental task of building California’s bullet train will require punching 36 miles of tunnels through the geologically complex mountains north of Los Angeles.
Crews will have to cross the tectonic boundary that separates the North American and Pacific plates, boring through a jumble of fractured rock formations and a maze of earthquake faults, some of which are not mapped.
It will be the most ambitious tunneling project in the nation’s history.
State officials say the tunnels will be finished by 2022 (already being extended) — along with 300 miles of track, dozens of bridges or viaducts, high-voltage electrical systems, a maintenance plant and as many as six stations. Doing so will meet a commitment to begin carrying passengers between Burbank and Merced in the first phase of the $68-billion high-speed rail link between Los Angeles and San Francisco.” L.A. Times Burbank to Merced….really?
Chances are, the bullet train will be scaled back to just another freight train route, because ridership alone will be too low to support it. However, it will be the smoothest riding freight train bums could ever desire! So in the final sense, it will be a passenger train, sort of, just not, er, paying passengers.
Sort like the old adage, ‘That Train don’t stop here” neither does the drain on Tax payers dollars,
Dams we could use, water conservation storage under ground, services that make sense, not Trains to no where, why?
Maybe it is time for a “every one pays flat tax system”, then and only then will people will vote with their wallet in mind , not someone’s else’s
You really have to wonder about the intelligence of those wanting to build stationary tracks over a seismically active area. . . . . crossing how many faults?????
The bullet train funding was created with a ballot initiative, therefore it could be stopped in the same way. Unless, of course, Taxifornia voters actually WANT to have their tax $$ flushed away . . . . .
Sad but true, the majority of Taxifornia voters want the filthy lucre they do not deserve flushed away by left-wing wingnuts.
Why do the liberals still call it a bullet train? Don’t they know that is so un-PC? After all, the Washington Bullets had to change their name to Wizards. Maybe they can call the train the Wizard Train in honor of the senile old buzzard Brown Clown who is hell bent on seeing it through even if it bankrupts the state.
Think it was called a bullet after the Japanese version, and to make you think it’ll be speedy. After it’s fully built (if ever) it won’t be a bullet between LA and SF after adding in all of the stops along the way, it’ll be a blank.
Off topic: The fraudulent and wrongful, and deeply damaging frivolous litigation begins —
Exxon Mobil Investigated for Possible Climate Change Lies by New York Attorney General
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/11/06/science/exxon-mobil-under-investigation-in-new-york-over-climate-statements.html?_r=0
Those radical green S.O.B.’s never stop.
This is nuts. The Amtrak is a failed system that requires gov’t aide to keep it running. Why do they believe it will work in Calif. when it’s a proven failure in every state in the country? Rhetorical.
I looked into using Amtrak for a trip around the whole US. Despite the great price it would put me into the middle of large towns in the middle of the night with luggage in tow, and in areas like the north east it only travel through country during the dark of night.
The train track from New Orleans to Jacksonville, Florida is still not replaced from the 2005 Katrina hurricane. One can only imagine how long it would take to replace tracks damaged from earthquakes built on fault lines.
Agree, that money should be going for more water storage. We know there will be another drought in about 10 years.
Time to go back to the horse and Buggy I say!
Time for CA to join the rest of the world and it will help the states economy. This is the new world. All of Europe and any other countries already have real, fast, and efficient transportation. We look like a 3rd world country these days. Get over it!
Imagine and vision the future. I bet the Koch’s hate this one right?