The steady drumbeat of bad news just keeps getting worse. This week a new, worst-case number KTLA is reporting a possible hit of $231 billion! They report
In a newly proposed business plan released this year, project leaders estimate the Los Angeles-to-San Francisco segment will cost about $126 billion, with service beginning around 2040. In the meantime, the state is focused on getting the Bakersfield-to-Merced section up and running earlier, with a target of no later than 2033. All of this falls under what officials are calling an “optimized plan,” which reduces the scope of the original proposal. Under the updated plan, some segments would share tracks with existing systems such as Metrolink, and the number of tunnels would be scaled back, at least for now. Project leaders say those changes could significantly reduce costs. Without them, officials estimate the full Los Angeles-to-San Francisco buildout could have cost as much as $231 billion.
You would not be wrong to ask why, at this stage of the game, they are still tweaking the design? It’s the shockingly bad management we have some to expect along with the waste noted in Part 167. The latest circus act was reported in the Comicle this week involving Cesar Chavez of all people and his 187-acre monument. The headline read “Add a $1 billion detour for California high-speed rail to Cesar Chavez’s legacy”:
Add one more twist to the complicated legacy of disgraced civil rights icon Cesar Chavez: A reroute around his grave site has inflated the cost of California’s high-speed rail project by nearly $1 billion. Ironically, Chavez’s monument already sits on a key rail corridor that carries about 36 freight trains each day through the rugged Tehachapi. A single track loops around the property, creating a constant rumble for anyone walking among the Mission-style buildings and courtyards where Chavez lived and organized grape-field workers. Through letters and stakeholder meetings, the Chavez Center and the Cesar Chavez Foundation successfully lobbied for a bespoke alignment called the “refined Cesar Chavez National Monument design option,” which moved the track about three-quarters of a mile away from the monument boundary. Board directors for the High-Speed Rail Authority adopted the alternative design in 2021, as part of a final environmental impact report for the 80-mile Bakersfield to Palmdale (Los Angeles County) section. Now, some rail authority staff or board members might call for a do-over.
Here’s the mindset on the Authority Board:
“We are constantly reviewing decisions that we’ve made along that alignment,” said board director Henry Perea, pointing to other potential revisions, such as the relocation of a future train stop in Merced. Plans that are really lines and dots on draft paper are always subject to change, Perea noted, particularly if policymakers are seeking to save money, or trying to acknowledge a historical wrong.
Will any gubernatorial candidate with a D after their name have the guts to say we should just cut bait on this monstrosity? We only have a month to go until the primary.
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