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$77B is outrageous. We have to fix infrastructure costs in this country. California would be better establishing an agency that progressively acquires, upgrade

by erentz 8y ago

$77B is outrageous. We have to fix infrastructure costs in this country. California would be better establishing an agency that progressively acquires, upgrades, and runs rail throughout the state as a single integrated system. We've been planning CAHSR for over a decade, and yet we still haven't electrified Caltrain, or Capitol Corridor. Incremental upgrades like that and improving curves and so on would've yielded huge benefits for the state by now. HSR would be the natural product of this this down the line when you would simply go the next step of adding a dedicated passenger high speed line connecting the Northern and Southern systems.

jdavis703 8y ago
Caltrain is being electrified as part of this. This is an incremental project that costs $77B.
- erentz 8y ago
  I’m aware. It still hasn’t been electrified a decade later. But hey they have built a viaduct in the middle of the Central Valley!
- umeshunni 8y ago
  The usual peninsula (Palo Alto, Atherton) NIMBYs have been actively trying to block caltrain electrification because it will ostensibly hurt trees, amongst other things: https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/06/07/caltrain-electrification-funding-plan-okd-atherton-objects/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/06/07/caltrain-electrificat...
1024core 8y ago
$77B was after they did severe "cost cutting". It used to be $100B. And, if the past is any indicator, it would have ballooned to $120B - $150B by the time it was done. At what point do you say it's not worth it?
- erentz 8y ago
  Personally I think it’s still worth it at that price, even if the project would’ve been better done in the way I described. It’s better than the alternative. If we don’t spend $77b on rail we’ll still have to spend it expanding freeways and airports instead. and infrastructure costs are insane across all forms of infrastructure in the US.
  - ananonymoususer 8y ago
    How much would the train need to charge each passenger to earn enough money to pay both the interest (assuming normal cost-of-money) and the principle? Would this amount be less than the cost of an airplane ride?
  - WillPostForFood 8y ago
    The alternative is spending money on rail inside SF and LA. Connecting the cities is a solution to a non-problem.
hinkley 8y ago
Look up how much it costs to build a mile of highway. On level ground, in undeveloped areas it's still amazingly expensive. Now try to build something through developed areas, maybe not at grade, and dealing with traffic rerouting, other infrastructure interruptions, and NIMBYism.
- bilbo0s 8y ago
  >maybe not at grade... I know I'm not from Cali or anything, but it's actually quite a bit worse than that. In California I'm almost positive it would require some tunneling. And not the easy kind of tunneling that you might see in, say, western North Carolina, asheville area. No. I'm talking about the hard kind that has to keep globally significant fault lines and seismic activity in mind.
  - hinkley 8y ago
    Well, there's a tendency when lambasting big infrastructure projects like this to compare one city's efforts to those done elsewhere, and if Japan can keep trains on tracks through an earthquake then you have to dig into the numbers for both and ask if they had the same problem. And if so, should hindsight from the earlier project have informed the plans for later one. There's also a tendency in big projects to be intentionally obtuse, come up with a number that the customers (tax payers) won't riot over, and then rely on sunk cost and other fallacies to let the project expand to its real size later on.
- rbritton 8y ago
  Does California have something like the following? It could explain some of the cost. In Washington state we have laws that require workers to be paid Prevailing Wage, the premise of which is that working in a county pays the corresponding wage for a position based on the largest city in that county. The reality is often that the wage set is significantly higher than the true market wage, which causes costs to ramp up quickly. http://www.lni.wa.gov/TradesLicensing/PrevWage/WageRates/default.asp http://www.lni.wa.gov/TradesLicensing/PrevWage/WageRates/def...
  - 8y ago

by erentz 8y ago

jdavis703 8y ago

Caltrain is being electrified as part of this. This is an incremental project that costs $77B.

erentz 8y ago
I’m aware. It still hasn’t been electrified a decade later. But hey they have built a viaduct in the middle of the Central Valley!
umeshunni 8y ago
The usual peninsula (Palo Alto, Atherton) NIMBYs have been actively trying to block caltrain electrification because it will ostensibly hurt trees, amongst other things: https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/06/07/caltrain-electrification-funding-plan-okd-atherton-objects/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/06/07/caltrain-electrificat...

1024core 8y ago

$77B was after they did severe "cost cutting". It used to be $100B. And, if the past is any indicator, it would have ballooned to $120B - $150B by the time it was done. At what point do you say it's not worth it?

erentz 8y ago
Personally I think it’s still worth it at that price, even if the project would’ve been better done in the way I described. It’s better than the alternative. If we don’t spend $77b on rail we’ll still have to spend it expanding freeways and airports instead. and infrastructure costs are insane across all forms of infrastructure in the US.
- ananonymoususer 8y ago
  How much would the train need to charge each passenger to earn enough money to pay both the interest (assuming normal cost-of-money) and the principle? Would this amount be less than the cost of an airplane ride?
- WillPostForFood 8y ago
  The alternative is spending money on rail inside SF and LA. Connecting the cities is a solution to a non-problem.

hinkley 8y ago

Look up how much it costs to build a mile of highway. On level ground, in undeveloped areas it's still amazingly expensive. Now try to build something through developed areas, maybe not at grade, and dealing with traffic rerouting, other infrastructure interruptions, and NIMBYism.

bilbo0s 8y ago
>maybe not at grade... I know I'm not from Cali or anything, but it's actually quite a bit worse than that. In California I'm almost positive it would require some tunneling. And not the easy kind of tunneling that you might see in, say, western North Carolina, asheville area. No. I'm talking about the hard kind that has to keep globally significant fault lines and seismic activity in mind.
- hinkley 8y ago
  Well, there's a tendency when lambasting big infrastructure projects like this to compare one city's efforts to those done elsewhere, and if Japan can keep trains on tracks through an earthquake then you have to dig into the numbers for both and ask if they had the same problem. And if so, should hindsight from the earlier project have informed the plans for later one. There's also a tendency in big projects to be intentionally obtuse, come up with a number that the customers (tax payers) won't riot over, and then rely on sunk cost and other fallacies to let the project expand to its real size later on.
rbritton 8y ago
Does California have something like the following? It could explain some of the cost. In Washington state we have laws that require workers to be paid Prevailing Wage, the premise of which is that working in a county pays the corresponding wage for a position based on the largest city in that county. The reality is often that the wage set is significantly higher than the true market wage, which causes costs to ramp up quickly. http://www.lni.wa.gov/TradesLicensing/PrevWage/WageRates/default.asp http://www.lni.wa.gov/TradesLicensing/PrevWage/WageRates/def...
- 8y ago