530-993-4379
Sierra Booster
  • Home
  • Newspaper
    • Latest News
    • Letters to the Editor >
      • Submit Letter to the Editor
    • Old News Archive
    • Photo Tour
    • Events
    • About Us
    • SUBSCRIBE
  • Advertiser Directory
    • Advertiser Press Releases
    • Website Sponsors
    • Advertiser Area
  • Buy Ads - Services
  • Fishing Report
  • Contact Us
  • Admin Log In

High Speed Fail - Office of Senator Ted Gaines

4/13/2016

0 Comments

 


If you thought the Bay Bridge construction fiasco would reign forever as California’s worst, most unsurpassable example of a government project running wildly over budget, you are in for a bitter surprise.  High Speed Rail is on pace to be the grand champion money waster in California history and needs to be stopped before our citizens take an unprecedented fleecing.


As a reminder, the Bay Bridge was initially slated for a retrofit after its dramatic and tragic failure during the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. In 1995 the cost estimate stood at $250 million.  By 1997 it was $1.3 billion. In 2001, $2.6 billion, and finally $6.5 billion at completion, but even that estimate doesn’t include interest costs, which could push the final cost to $13 billion.


Now comes High Speed Rail (HSR), whose initial $33 billion total cost estimate has already ballooned to more than $60 billion, and the story is about to get worse.  With construction in its infancy, the California Rail Authority is facing potential cost overruns of $400 million dollars on just the first 29 miles of the 500+ mile project. And this is on the flat and sparse Central Valley. What will the cost overruns be in the infinitely more crowded and complex Bay Area, LA and San Diego?


We shouldn’t view this overrun as an anomaly, but a preview. It’s further proof that every HSR number should be disregarded and that the state is really obligating itself to build a project with an open-ended cost, taxpayers be damned.


Their own, recently updated business plan shows that they’ve identified only $20.7 billion in funding for their $64.2 billion in costs (and there is zero chance that $64.2 number doesn’t explode into something drastically higher).  Where will the rest of the money come from?  They are hoping for some more federal funding and for continued “cap-and-trade” revenue, but those are hardly guaranteed.  The cap-and-trade program is scheduled to expire in 2020.


Moving forward with such an unrealistic and unlikely financing scheme is really a leap of bad faith on the part HSR. They are playing a cynical game where they will waste $20 billion dollars, in hopes that the state (read: taxpayers) will have to see the fantasy project through to the end after sinking so much money into the “investment.”


It should speak volumes that private investors, required under the terms of the initial HSR plan, have stayed completely on the sidelines.  No investors will risk their own money on the project, but politicians gambling tens of billions of your tax dollars is just fine.


On April 4th I attended an oversight hearing on the updated HSR business plan, where legislators and bullet train representatives went back and forth on the new timelines, routes and funding proposals. One group did not have a seat at the table:  The opposition.  They did not get to speak!  On a project this big, with a brief but conspicuous history of wildly inaccurate cost estimates, the critics should be more than a silent ATM. 


Every assumption used to justify the initial High Speed Rail proposal approved by the voters in 2008 proved to be overly optimistic at best, purposely misleading at worst. The ridership projections have been slashed, the train speed cut, and, predictably, the updated cost estimate looks nothing like the 2008 version.


This is not the “Train to Nowhere” as it’s been derided – we should be so lucky. Its last stop is in the political hall of shame.  To build it is to rob Californians of the desperately needed roads, water storage, and other meaningful infrastructure projects those tax dollars could buy. To build it is to doom taxpayers to perpetual subsidies to prop up the ultimate green vanity project.


Senator Ted Gaines represents the 1st Senate District, which includes all or parts of Alpine, El Dorado, Lassen, Modoc, Nevada, Placer, Plumas, Sacramento, Shasta, Sierra and Siskiyou counties.


0 Comments



Leave a Reply.

    Archives

    March 2023
    February 2023
    January 2023
    December 2022
    November 2022
    October 2022
    September 2022
    August 2022
    July 2022
    June 2022
    May 2022
    April 2022
    March 2022
    February 2022
    January 2022
    December 2021
    November 2021
    October 2021
    September 2021
    August 2021
    July 2021
    June 2021
    May 2021
    April 2021
    March 2021
    February 2021
    January 2021
    December 2020
    November 2020
    October 2020
    September 2020
    August 2020
    July 2020
    June 2020
    May 2020
    April 2020
    March 2020
    February 2020
    January 2020
    December 2019
    November 2019
    October 2019
    September 2019
    August 2019
    July 2019
    June 2019
    May 2019
    April 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    January 2019
    December 2018
    November 2018
    October 2018
    September 2018
    August 2018
    July 2018
    June 2018
    May 2018
    April 2018
    March 2018
    February 2018
    January 2018
    December 2017
    November 2017
    October 2017
    September 2017
    August 2017
    July 2017
    June 2017
    May 2017
    April 2017
    March 2017
    February 2017
    January 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    August 2016
    July 2016
    June 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    September 2015
    August 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    April 2014
    September 2009

    Categories

    All
    2015
    Sierra County News

    RSS Feed

    Vie
    ​w Old News

CONTACT US:

Sierra Booster Newspaper
PO Box 8
Loyalton, CA 96118
Phone: 530-993-4379
Fax: 844-272-8583
Email: jbuck@psln.com

Website Privacy Policy​
Picture
Local Weather
©Copyright Sierra Booster - Sierra County News - Editorial
Website by Chamber Nation