Friday, May 29, 2020

SEMI-SORT-OF USED-TO-BE HIGH SPEED RAIL GETTING TRIMMED

by Bob Walsh

The California High Speed Rail Authority has been a spectacular and expensive failure almost since its inception.  It is kind of like a horizontal money pit.  

The Gavin administration has just informed them they need to cut 88 private sector consultant positions from their budget.  (What the hell were they doing with 88 private sector consulting positions in the first place?)  These jobs would be turned into 70 state civil service jobs with a total saving of about $16 million.  

When the initiative was passed to create a high-speed train from NorCal to SoCal the bill was $40 billion.  That has now doubled, and the performance expectations have decreased, even though the performance characteristics were written into the law just so this shit wouldn't happen.  Newsom still wants to complete a section between Merced and Bakersfield (just where you need a high speed passenger train I guess) mostly in order to not have to kick millions back to the feds.

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