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Your naivety and lack of care is the reason why this project will enrichen a handful of people while incrementally making everyone else poorer. This is no ordin

Your naivety and lack of care is the reason why this project will enrichen a handful of people while incrementally making everyone else poorer. This is no ordinary 25% cost overrun which can be understandable in complex projects. This is 105 BILLION dollars horrendously wasted (the original estimate was 33 BILLION). They've already spent 10 BILLION and NOT A SINGLE MILE OF TRACK has been constructed. Imagine what great and useful things could be done with 105 BILLION dollars. Homelessness, Traffic in urban centers (LA, SF, etc.), healthcare...

dahdum 4y ago
Don’t forget the ongoing subsidies required and the unfunded pension liabilities it will rack up. Still, it’s not even projected to be on par with airfare, but I suppose CA could pass some special taxes to force equivalency.
ZoomerCretin 4y ago
Homelessness and traffic are not issues that money could fix. They are both problems borne from car-centric low-density urban planning.
- culi 4y ago
  well money can fix car-centric low-density urban planning...
panick21_ 4y ago
> Traffic in urban centers (LA, SF, etc.), What California really needs is adding more lanes to fix traffic. There are way to better spend money, but fixing traffic is literally the last thing anybody should try to do. Unless fixing traffic means public transport and bike infrastructure.
- pkulak 4y ago
  Adding lanes has never fixed traffic before, but it sure will this time!
  - kortilla 4y ago
    It works all the time if you actually build them.
    - panick21_ 4y ago
      Go and actually look at the cost of those projects. Adding another line to a major highway is incredibly expensive both now and in maintenance and has a minor impact on avg speed of travel. From a European perspective American cities already look like a bunch of highways with to occasional development of identical looking single family homes sitting between the highways. The idea that putting down even more road infrastructure is gone improve anything is bonkers. The amount of road, water pipe and other utilizes the city has to support per citizen has exploded to an absurd degree and is a big reason why most US towns can't maintain their infrastructure. Actually utilizing existing infrastructure in a better way would be far more useful building new one.
MarkSweep 4y ago
While I’m mildly skeptical about the whole HSR project, it’s a little disingenuous to say “not a single mile of track has been constructed”. Maybe they are not laying track, but it not like they are doing nothing. Their YouTube page shows a lot of grade separation projects being done. https://youtu.be/ZXgY5fQq3ew https://youtu.be/ZXgY5fQq3ew
culi 4y ago
In 2017, 6.5% of global GDP ($5.2 trillion) was spent on fossil fuel subsidies. And you're complaining about trains? Most of the money wasted has been because litigation battles by wealthy individuals who oppose the project $105 billion is about the size of California's current (and growing) surplus. Or about a fifth of how much California spent in 2021 ($512.8 billion). Yes it could be used to do more important things in the immediate sense but projects like these pay off tenfold in the long term
- joe_the_user 4y ago
  In 2017, 6.5% of global GDP ($5.2 trillion) was spent on fossil fuel subsidies. And you're complaining about trains? Yes, he's complaining about the abject failure of trains (and I have too). The project won't pay off if the same corruption that cost $105 billions results in an impractical project and that's the common result. The US can't create an alternative to fossil fuels unless it solves it's inability to create public transit projects problem.
  - panick21_ 4y ago
    One way to get better at infrastructure is to actually build it. Japan also massively over-payed for their first High speed rail, but got better at it. And if that money is not invested in trains, they only other suggestion practically speaking is, lets make highways bigger. So yeah, I agree, you the US needs to get better at public infrastructure projects, but doing so while also working on trains, is better then doing so and building insane Texas highway cloverleaf interchanges.
    - joe_the_user 4y ago
      One way to get better at infrastructure is to actually build it. Japan also massively over-payed for their first High speed rail, but got better at it. If a nation pays a lot for a given infrastructure project because the nation is developing the means to produce it, then that nation would likely be able to produce the thing better later. Maybe that's Japan. If a nation pays a lot for a given infrastructure project because corrupt interests have positioned themselves to soak up a lion's share of the money, there's no reason to think that won't happen the next time. That's what happens in the US. Further, thing about the US is that failed public transit project have become normal and accepted. Something is needed to change this but uncritically throwing money at them obviously won't be it.
pkulak 4y ago
I assume, given your passion, that you live in California? So hey, that’s fine. Far be it from me to tell you how to conduct your business. To me it’s possibly one of the great US infrastructure projects, a way to take millions of tons of carbon out of the air, and an opportunity for Californians to commute between their two great cities in style and comfort. But, it’s in a state I rarely visit, and I’d probably never even ride it more than a couple times. If you think the money is better spent adding half a dozen more lanes to 405, I won’t argue. No matter what, I’ll be living somewhere that doesn’t require me to waste my life sitting in a car, and that will probably never be somewhere in California, train or no train.

dahdum 4y ago

Don’t forget the ongoing subsidies required and the unfunded pension liabilities it will rack up. Still, it’s not even projected to be on par with airfare, but I suppose CA could pass some special taxes to force equivalency.

ZoomerCretin 4y ago

Homelessness and traffic are not issues that money could fix. They are both problems borne from car-centric low-density urban planning.

culi 4y ago
well money can fix car-centric low-density urban planning...

panick21_ 4y ago

> Traffic in urban centers (LA, SF, etc.), What California really needs is adding more lanes to fix traffic. There are way to better spend money, but fixing traffic is literally the last thing anybody should try to do. Unless fixing traffic means public transport and bike infrastructure.

pkulak 4y ago
Adding lanes has never fixed traffic before, but it sure will this time!
- kortilla 4y ago
  It works all the time if you actually build them.
  - panick21_ 4y ago
    Go and actually look at the cost of those projects. Adding another line to a major highway is incredibly expensive both now and in maintenance and has a minor impact on avg speed of travel. From a European perspective American cities already look like a bunch of highways with to occasional development of identical looking single family homes sitting between the highways. The idea that putting down even more road infrastructure is gone improve anything is bonkers. The amount of road, water pipe and other utilizes the city has to support per citizen has exploded to an absurd degree and is a big reason why most US towns can't maintain their infrastructure. Actually utilizing existing infrastructure in a better way would be far more useful building new one.

MarkSweep 4y ago

While I’m mildly skeptical about the whole HSR project, it’s a little disingenuous to say “not a single mile of track has been constructed”. Maybe they are not laying track, but it not like they are doing nothing. Their YouTube page shows a lot of grade separation projects being done. https://youtu.be/ZXgY5fQq3ew https://youtu.be/ZXgY5fQq3ew

culi 4y ago

In 2017, 6.5% of global GDP ($5.2 trillion) was spent on fossil fuel subsidies. And you're complaining about trains? Most of the money wasted has been because litigation battles by wealthy individuals who oppose the project $105 billion is about the size of California's current (and growing) surplus. Or about a fifth of how much California spent in 2021 ($512.8 billion). Yes it could be used to do more important things in the immediate sense but projects like these pay off tenfold in the long term

joe_the_user 4y ago
In 2017, 6.5% of global GDP ($5.2 trillion) was spent on fossil fuel subsidies. And you're complaining about trains? Yes, he's complaining about the abject failure of trains (and I have too). The project won't pay off if the same corruption that cost $105 billions results in an impractical project and that's the common result. The US can't create an alternative to fossil fuels unless it solves it's inability to create public transit projects problem.
- panick21_ 4y ago
  One way to get better at infrastructure is to actually build it. Japan also massively over-payed for their first High speed rail, but got better at it. And if that money is not invested in trains, they only other suggestion practically speaking is, lets make highways bigger. So yeah, I agree, you the US needs to get better at public infrastructure projects, but doing so while also working on trains, is better then doing so and building insane Texas highway cloverleaf interchanges.
  - joe_the_user 4y ago
    One way to get better at infrastructure is to actually build it. Japan also massively over-payed for their first High speed rail, but got better at it. If a nation pays a lot for a given infrastructure project because the nation is developing the means to produce it, then that nation would likely be able to produce the thing better later. Maybe that's Japan. If a nation pays a lot for a given infrastructure project because corrupt interests have positioned themselves to soak up a lion's share of the money, there's no reason to think that won't happen the next time. That's what happens in the US. Further, thing about the US is that failed public transit project have become normal and accepted. Something is needed to change this but uncritically throwing money at them obviously won't be it.

pkulak 4y ago

I assume, given your passion, that you live in California? So hey, that’s fine. Far be it from me to tell you how to conduct your business. To me it’s possibly one of the great US infrastructure projects, a way to take millions of tons of carbon out of the air, and an opportunity for Californians to commute between their two great cities in style and comfort. But, it’s in a state I rarely visit, and I’d probably never even ride it more than a couple times. If you think the money is better spent adding half a dozen more lanes to 405, I won’t argue. No matter what, I’ll be living somewhere that doesn’t require me to waste my life sitting in a car, and that will probably never be somewhere in California, train or no train.