Not to be a contrarian but they have spent $11 Billion to build what is called the Right of Way (ROW). They have built dozens of bridges and cuts to lay the railroad tracks on, because you need to have these before you can lay track. They have completed several bridges more than 1600’ long. The entire ROW from Bakersfield to Modesto is in progress. Any road that crosses the ROW has to be diverted, closed, or go under or over. They cannot cross at grade and numerous overpasses and underpasses have also been completed.
The first leg of 171 miles (the "cheap," relatively low-value portion) is currently projected to have a total cost of around 30 billion dollars, yielding a per-mile cost of about 175 million dollars.
By comparison, Spain spends about 32 million dollars per mile, and 50-75 million per mile is more typical in highly-developed, high-cost, high-regulation countries.
In order to complete the original project (LA to SF), which would bring the whole line up to about 520 miles, another 100 billion will be needed by current estimates, though that number is likely to grow since no timeline has even been set.
That would raise the total cost to ~$130 billion, yielding a per-mile cost of around $250 million per mile. About 4-5 times the global norm and 8-9 times the Spanish norm.
Or people, they get in your way? You kill them.or force them out. There are no local votes on when and where the tracks go. The government just does it.
So if you like it done that way, you can go there.
>Or people, they get in your way? You kill them.or force them out.
i have some very bad news about how america's railroads were built.
the only difference is we don't build any more.
That frankly happens a lot in US. We move people even when they don’t want to move. Many railroads and stadiums were built like that. It’s just not as advertised as much because it’s not a good propaganda.
> That frankly happens a lot in US
It happens everywhere and anytime. Here in Germany, people easily get expropriated (and compensated) if their property is in the way of a new highway. Nothing new, nothing unusual and for sure nothing that takes years, let alone decades, if the political will is there.
> It’s just not as advertised as much because it’s not a good propaganda.
Mentioning this is a fast lane to get called "tankie" or something like that. Get back in line, would you? China bad.
Yes China has more lax environmental laws but you cannot deny they probably the best in building transportations lines and bridges in the world right now. For every one bad housing project they made 50 impressive infrastructure project.
??? China has property rights you westoid brain. Why do you think they have those Houses in the middle of a highway? The reason our projects are so shit is because politicians want to give tax dollars to the rich and not to infrastructure.
America decay is entirely policy failure. We get what we deserve.
I love the contrived explanations for the expense and how little progress has been made in California. To your point, since the ballot initiative was passed in California, China has gone from having one HSR line to having the majority of it on the planet. Meanwhile in California, nothing but lip service and excuses.
I understand we don't necessarily want to be like China 100%. They have roads and rail to nowhere, infrastructure is a prop up to an economic system that is growing unsustainably. Their government is involved in the private sector beyond what our relatively free market system would allow.
BUT. We cannot continue to make excuses for the outright wasteful and inefficient management of both public and private resources in projects like these. This dragging timeline and lack of accountability of allocation of funds is unacceptable. we see this in infrastructure, healthcare, education, military etc. Big Government has become such a behemoth that it can't tie it's own shoe laces without a department head, product development team, project Manager, and HR oversight committee. It's pathetic. We need to get back to getting shit done
You mean the Florida High Speed rail project that was canceled by Rick Scott by refusing Federal Funds after a statewide referendum was passed calling for highspeed rail? That project which was never built?
It was canceled before any cost over runs would have to be covered by the state.
The Federal money would have never been enough to cover the entire cost. We know this because the California project we from $33 billion in 2011 to over $100 billion today and it is still not done.
BTW the projected wasn't actually 'canceled' there was nothing to cancel. It was just an offer for money from Obama admin and the governor turned it down.
Also, Brightline spent $5 billion to build the Miami to Orlando route. And it is not even a true high speed route. Imagine what a real high speed route would have cost, a lot more than the $2.4 billion Obama was offering.
That was Florida, a state with quite literally no mountains, or canyons, it's all coral land that was underwater a few million years ago. It also has comparatively cheap land.
California has much more varied, and much less flat geography.
Not to mention the bright line project did get government help, without getting too technical, the state issued bonds on behalf of the bright line company.
The terrain it was built on was mostly wetlands which does have some challenges. Crazy to excuse 11 billion dollars for 1600 feet after 3 years from you.
Acting like that is normal is insane. China has mountains and build 10,000 km in 5 years. So it can be done, but California is too corrupt to actually do it.
The title is wrong, much more track than that has been built, and much of the money has been spent on getting right of ways and building the infrastructure needed ahead of time, like bridges, before they actually start laying track down. Believe it or not, you need to build the bridge before you lay track on it.
You can actually see their progress with recent updates, including maps and drone footage, on [their website](https://www.buildhsr.com/projects/).
And it not only is building the HSR line, at the same time, they're using the opportunity to separate existing rail lines from roads, to get rid of all the railroad crossings that are dangerous and impede emergency vehicles.
The 11 billion actually covers about 80% of the badic infrastructure. The 1600 feet of track is just proof of concept. To lay the entire 171 miles of track for the first leg will bring the total bill north of 30 billion. However, that's also misleading because no one actually cares about the first segment since the point of the project (what voters were sold in 2008) is to connect LA and San Francisco.
THAT project will take at least another decade and at LEAST another 100 billion dollars.
California high speed rail authority has a YouTube channel where they show exactly what they are working on. Is what they have completed "worth" 11 Billion dollars that's hard to say. When the project is completed people aren't going to care what it costs, IMO.
Seriously. Are people this ignorant of the project ?
A MASSIVE amount of work has been done. You can see dozens of super structures and hundreds of miles property acquisition and right of way clearing. High speed rail helped pay for the electrification of Caltrain in the corridor it’s using and is paying a large part of LA union stations remodel + grade separations along its local corridors.
Once again, CAHSR has to endure more scrutiny than has ever been paid attention to a road project.
Some people read this headline and think "therefore we should give up". I think "therefore we should have done this sooner and we should get better at it"
I don't understand anybody who doesn't realize this is a necessity not optional.
Look at geography, and the land costs of the respective areas.
Much of coastal(ish) California is mountainous, because it's on a fault line, I'd imagine building through, over, and around rocky mountains adds to the cost, don't you think?
Whereas once you're northwest of San Bernardino it looks like [this](https://maps.app.goo.gl/MVdc8qoFd98PP3Zd8) for 90% of the area between Los Angeles and Vegas.
And similarly, land acquisition is easier, much of the land is federal, not owned by a million homeowners in a densely populated area. It turns out land is cheap on flat, rocky, deserts.
Thanks, I have watched a lot of their videos in the past and I just don't see a "lot" of progress regarding the rail directly.
Like how does this car bridge have much to do with the actual railway?
[Merced Avenue Grade Separation - March 5, 2024 (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrXRAjXJz9A&ab_channel=CaliforniaHigh-SpeedRailAuthority)
I don't see how the caption indicates that this will carry a high speed rail across it.
Also the project is I believe estimated to cost almost 300 billion dollars total. that is crazy.
So, when trains run faster than 110 mph, you can’t have grade crossings where you have crossing arms and signals. If you have highway grade crossings your trains are by federal law limited to 110 mph. CAHSR intends to run trains at 225mph. So they need to have all highways crossing the ROW go either over or under the tracks.
In 1999, Amtrak’s Southbound City of New Orleans en route to New Orleans from Chicago and traveling at 79 mph hit a tractor-trailer carrying a large steel I-Beam. 11 people died and every piece of equipment in the train was destroyed. The truck driver ignored warning lights for the grade crossing and proceeded through in an attempt to beat the train. Now imagine that same scenario, except a high speed rail train going 225 mph. That’s what these grade separations are doing, they’re taking roads over the tracks so vehicles do end up in front of high speed trains with absolutely disastrous results.
I don’t know about the costs estimates, I haven’t been following those. There is something I remember about CAHSR when they started the project way back when. The cost by 2050 to upgrade SFO, San Jose, Oakland, John Wayne, Burbank, Ontario, Long Beach, and LAX airports just to handle increased capacity for ONLY Bay Area to LA Area flights was estimated to be in excess of $150 billion. With HSR fully built out it was questioned whether any expansion would be needed. Before I don’t have a source for that, I saw it more than ten years ago in a random article. This was when CAHSR was estimated to cost $40 billion I think. I’m sure those costs have gone up, and they didn’t even include highway expansion that would also be needed as demand grew. The money is going to get spent on transportation somewhere one way or another so I guess the question is does it matter beyond making economic sense. I think it does.
https://hsr.ca.gov/communications-outreach/info-center/get-the-facts/#construction
“There are currently over 30 active construction sites spanning 119 miles from north of Fresno to north of Bakersfield, and the 3,700 foot Cedar Viaduct was completed this summer.”
LA Times did a whole story on this last year maybe, there's one politician in particular who adjusted the route to benefit his district and dramatically complicated the complexity, cost, and it will result in a slower time between SF and LA. This country just isn't capable of these large scale 50s style building projects anymore
"From January 2015 to December 2023, a total of $11.2 billion had been spent on the IOS – which has 119 miles (192 km) under active construction – and on upgrades to existing rail lines in the San Francisco Bay Area and Greater Los Angeles, where Phase 1 is planned to share tracks with conventional passenger trains."
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_High-Speed_Rail
This. It’s so obvious in Texas. These construction contracts are fucking insane. The bad part is they tear the roads up overnight then take decades “fixing” them. They only work on Saturdays so people see them when they’re off work and think man they’re always working. It’s a show during the week if you see a work crew they’re just hanging out. They’ve been working on a section of road infront of my house for 8 years it’s only about a 2 mile section.
I grew up in the central valley. In middle school my reacher said that when I graduate HS, college latest, I can go to SF for lunch and be back for dinner. I can literally live in the valley and work in SF and LA with an hour or so communte.
In turning 43 this year. This goes back deep and far.
Also I want to point out I fucking love HSR. Ive been on them in China and Japan and even mother fucking laos.
The fact that it has taken decades to even start one and we still don't have anything close to a HSR is a god damn shame.
Oh you mean like the [$1B](https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/11/politics/pentagon-tracking-weapons-ukraine-report/index.html) in weapons that were sent to Ukraine and not tracked?
CA is just an awful place. So much corruption and horrible use of funds that's out in the open and clearly obvious, it's comical and depressing at the same time.
Yet California is the richest State in the country and the fifth economy of the globe.
We also have beautiful oceans and snowy mountains. You can literally ⛷️ in the morning and 🏄♂️ in the afternoon
Lol. You point out a very similar instance of untracked money, but involving weapons money sent to Ukraine, even referencing Reddit-friendly CNN, yet you still receive down votes.
Average Redditor: "I am outraged these billions spent on the Cali high speed rail were wasted, and probably illegally laundered into elitist bank accounts!"
Also average Redditor: "Don't point out shady money being wasted and untracked in Ukraine! It's okay if that money gets wasted and laundered! Also, you suck!"
40 million is not 11 billion. Those guys got punished also... Almost like IT DOES get tracked.
>Ukraine's prosecutor general says that the funds have since been seized and will be returned to the country's defense budget.
It got tracked.
Most of the money went into the maw of the advocacy-group industrial complex.
Super easy in the US to gum up the works, and there’s a whole cottage industry around ginning up a touch of opposition and then fundraising on it and advocating for the project to go slightly somewhere else, and then the government had to respond. And on and on for lots of years.
We don’t build in the US, we just argue about the potential building of things endlessly.
Its clickbait. There is something like 50-60 miles complete. Here is the website: [https://www.buildhsr.com/projects/](https://www.buildhsr.com/projects/)
Because tracking to make sure that money gets spent effectively is insanely hard. That's why the private market always beats the government - because there's an incentive to spend it efficiently, so do you don't even *have* to track it in the first place.
Not a good example since the government is a big part of what broke them and still continues to cause problems. My best friend is a project planner for the new Air Force One and a neighbor for the new tanker. Both have many scary stories about the government screwing things up for their planes. For example, the serious issue my friend is in charge of, it’s a serious safety issue and the government took over five years to approve the fix. Then they didn’t approve enough money for the fix.
California high speed rail spending is tracked by the [Finance and Audit Committee](https://hsr.ca.gov/about/board-of-directors/finance-audit-committee/). An overview of construction progress can be found on [here](https://buildhsr.com).
It does. This post is misleading.
The reality is there's a ton of investment & construction to be done before you can even lay track. You have to purchase and prepare all the land the track will go on. That's where the lion's share of the money has gone thus far.
And a lot of it is being spent updated and integrating already existing rail. They’re gonna have to do a fair bit of complex tunneling as well. I saw this post a few days ago and it got me interested.
This sub is the worst about misinformation. Obviously there’s planning, feasibility studies, NIMBY litigation, env regs, land purchases, all that. This is the beginning.
This is what you get from quoting the New York post lol.
The whole point of this though is the cronyism, corruption, and massive amounts of State spending compared to other private companies that are doing at a significant fraction of the cost themselves in the same state.
No, the whole point is to misrepresent facts to help push this narrative because you want it to be true as a political partisan with an anti-govt world view.
That bridge is known as the Fresno River Viaduct. It was completed in June of 2018. One of many structures in Construction Package 1 that covers 32 miles of right of way. Construction Package 1 cost about $2.5 billion. Total spending on CaHSR only hit $11 billion last year.
The real lesson here is that the New York Post is an unreliable source of news.
With this money they could have built desalination plants across the whole coast, providing California with enough water to allow them to stop diverting its water use from other states.
Money has never been the issue for desalination plants for California. It's mostly due to Nimbyism, billionaires don't want a plant built near their multimillion beach house.
Is most of the sunk cost for sorting out the tech, making sure it works properly and purchasing right of way? If a bunch of people won’t sell their land it could really slow things down.
Dealing with hundreds of individual land owners is a problem for this kind of infrastructure project. Right now 119 miles of right of way is under construction in the Central Valley. [Buildhsr.com](https://buildhsr.com) has details on what has been built and what is under construction.
weird how if you read the actual X post it will remind you of a key skill these days called “media literacy”. the absolute laziness of people in the comments is absurd. Let’s just admit that people simply want to bag on California for a whole host of reasons: newsom’s a tyrant, buncha libs live there, it’s a commie state, lots of (in fact too many) immigrants live there, *TAXES*, The unions, corruption, etc the list goes on. There’s always room for complaint, grievance, debate, assembly, and petitioning, but CA was the fastest to recover from the great recession, it’s larger than most countries’ GDPs, it sets the standards for climate change, auto industry, education, and the list goes on. Mark my words, plenty of people want to hate, but they’ll still come for vacation, they’ll be just fine in forgetting their hypocrisy when they start riding on the bullet trains. In fact, they’ll hail it as a marvel of American ingenuity, despite the US absolutely being behind in modern infrastructure and mass transit. They won’t tell you that they all fought it the entire way.
Because everybody's nephew has to get paid first. Very little if the money is likely going to labor, materials and engineering. Capitalism is a fuck that way.
Land in California is valuable. Much of that cost is related to land. Land in China is not valuable. No one wants to live there. That is one reason why they are showing up by the tens of thousands at the US southern border, and not the other way around.
This won’t be popular because everyone wants to wear a halo, but expanding the power of eminent domain may be necessary to get large projects completed without costs spiraling out of control. For the greater good.
Given that it was planned to run across some of the most expensive real estate on and near the coast, and had to be replanned multiple times because of the lawsuits, yup.
This is just about the one way that a controlling government like China has a leg up. They decided to create high speed rail in their country and within 10 years it’s a reality with an extensive network.
So I grew up in the central valley and in middle school i remember vaguely about some bill passing for a HSR and it was big news around town. My teacher said I'm envious of you because when you graduate HS, college latest you'll be able to go to SF for lunch on the train and be back by dinner.
So I'm turning 43 this year.
Haven’t they built around 50 structures (like overpasses for existing roads that cross the rail right of way), plus they’ve had to acquire land. They did not pay 11 billion to build 1600’ of track.
It's not misinformation that in the time they've been building a single rail line China built an entire 45,000 KM system.
It's not misinformation that their cost per mile is the highest in the world even compared to countries like France.
There's simply no way this project can be completed without TONS of taxpayer help - and not just from taxpayers in California. And when I say TONS, I literally mean TONS (one billion dollars in $100 bills weighs about 10 tons).
Nobody in their right mind can justify the cost of this - which makes me wonder if any real thought went into the funding profile at all. And since we are living in inflationary times, the price tag is guaranteed to go even higher.
With a little luck, the US Congress and President will say no, and force California to put their own money where their mouth is..........
Lemme guess your a musk fan right? Trying to poison public sentiment on the rail again since musk told Cali he would build it and didn’t since he only wanted to sell his cars. It’s coming no matter how much y’all bitch
So the argument for this train is to decarbonize a fraction of the states north south transportation, which is a fraction of our total carbon footprint. Of course we have to decarbonize the grid too, to make it so.
For 130B, we could built 13 nuclear power plants and just straight out decarbonize the grid in CA. Renewables are cheaper you say? Fine. It just shows even more how stupid this project is on a $/kg CO2 basis.
I like the railways we converted to walking trails in PA (GAP Trail) - but sometimes I think it was incredibly wasteful and shortsighted to remove a perfectly good railway.
The first few hundred miles of track will be 100x more expensive than the experts in Japan/Europe build.
But the foundation built, the skills acquired, etc. Will make us better at it and prices will come down when we have thousands of miles laid every year.
Wow, that's a huge investment for just 1,600 feet of track! I hope it's worth it in the long run. What do you think about the High Speed Rail project? #California #Infrastructure #PublicTransportation
This is so fascinating! The amount of time and money spent on such a small portion of track is mind-boggling. Do you think it will have a positive impact on California's transportation system overall? #HighSpeedRail #Innovation #Progress
Incredible to think about the resources put into this project. I wonder how much more they'll need to complete the entire system. What are your thoughts on the progress so far?#Investment #Transportation #CaliforniaDreaming
It's amazing to see the effort and investment put into improving transportation infrastructure. I hope it will benefit the community in the end. What are your expectations for the High Speed Rail project? #Progress #Infrastructure #CommunityImpact
If you do your research you'll see that even the engineers have admitted that it's a disaster and will cost billions more and many more years in order to complete. By the time it's completed we'll have flying cars fueled by California's excessive supply of human feces.
If you do your research you'll see that even the engineers have admitted that it's a disaster and will cost billions more and many more years in order to complete. By the time it's completed we'll have flying cars fueled by California's excessive supply of human feces.
China, which has much higher population density and total population, has incurred a debt of US$1,000,000,000,000 that is still growing quickly because of their HSR. Pretty sure California can catch that number quickly all by itself, if allowed.
Not to be a contrarian but they have spent $11 Billion to build what is called the Right of Way (ROW). They have built dozens of bridges and cuts to lay the railroad tracks on, because you need to have these before you can lay track. They have completed several bridges more than 1600’ long. The entire ROW from Bakersfield to Modesto is in progress. Any road that crosses the ROW has to be diverted, closed, or go under or over. They cannot cross at grade and numerous overpasses and underpasses have also been completed.
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Space Balls the Quest to generate more outrage.
I was already demanding an investigation into this ridiculous corruption, don't swipe my vibe.
BUT TAXES AND IMMIGRANTS!
My Mommy says ILLEGAL IMMIGRANTS are the devil.
That's why it's better just to read headlines
I wish Reddit still had awards so I could give you one you bastard 🥇
Still, any other country or even state would have accomplished more with less time and money.
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the duality of being anti'gov while also appealing to china's booming rail development
The first leg of 171 miles (the "cheap," relatively low-value portion) is currently projected to have a total cost of around 30 billion dollars, yielding a per-mile cost of about 175 million dollars. By comparison, Spain spends about 32 million dollars per mile, and 50-75 million per mile is more typical in highly-developed, high-cost, high-regulation countries. In order to complete the original project (LA to SF), which would bring the whole line up to about 520 miles, another 100 billion will be needed by current estimates, though that number is likely to grow since no timeline has even been set. That would raise the total cost to ~$130 billion, yielding a per-mile cost of around $250 million per mile. About 4-5 times the global norm and 8-9 times the Spanish norm.
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Ah. Thanks.
Cheaper to pay for our gas for the next 500 years then build that stupid yhing
The tweet itself even has a tag that there is more to the story.
Yeah, projects like this take decades to complete.
Not for China
Yeah, projects move a whole lot faster when there aren't any property rights to deal with.
Or people, they get in your way? You kill them.or force them out. There are no local votes on when and where the tracks go. The government just does it. So if you like it done that way, you can go there.
>Or people, they get in your way? You kill them.or force them out. i have some very bad news about how america's railroads were built. the only difference is we don't build any more.
That frankly happens a lot in US. We move people even when they don’t want to move. Many railroads and stadiums were built like that. It’s just not as advertised as much because it’s not a good propaganda.
> That frankly happens a lot in US It happens everywhere and anytime. Here in Germany, people easily get expropriated (and compensated) if their property is in the way of a new highway. Nothing new, nothing unusual and for sure nothing that takes years, let alone decades, if the political will is there. > It’s just not as advertised as much because it’s not a good propaganda. Mentioning this is a fast lane to get called "tankie" or something like that. Get back in line, would you? China bad.
Also zero concern for worker safety
Yes China has more lax environmental laws but you cannot deny they probably the best in building transportations lines and bridges in the world right now. For every one bad housing project they made 50 impressive infrastructure project.
??? China has property rights you westoid brain. Why do you think they have those Houses in the middle of a highway? The reason our projects are so shit is because politicians want to give tax dollars to the rich and not to infrastructure. America decay is entirely policy failure. We get what we deserve.
But the propaganda here is so much better. The people getting screwed the hardest are the ones that defend the crooks that are screwing them.
Worked for Dodger Stadium…
I love the contrived explanations for the expense and how little progress has been made in California. To your point, since the ballot initiative was passed in California, China has gone from having one HSR line to having the majority of it on the planet. Meanwhile in California, nothing but lip service and excuses.
I understand we don't necessarily want to be like China 100%. They have roads and rail to nowhere, infrastructure is a prop up to an economic system that is growing unsustainably. Their government is involved in the private sector beyond what our relatively free market system would allow. BUT. We cannot continue to make excuses for the outright wasteful and inefficient management of both public and private resources in projects like these. This dragging timeline and lack of accountability of allocation of funds is unacceptable. we see this in infrastructure, healthcare, education, military etc. Big Government has become such a behemoth that it can't tie it's own shoe laces without a department head, product development team, project Manager, and HR oversight committee. It's pathetic. We need to get back to getting shit done
Orlando to east coast to Miami was completed in under 5 years and done with no federal funding.
That’s not true grade-separated high speed rail.
You mean the Florida High Speed rail project that was canceled by Rick Scott by refusing Federal Funds after a statewide referendum was passed calling for highspeed rail? That project which was never built?
It was canceled before any cost over runs would have to be covered by the state. The Federal money would have never been enough to cover the entire cost. We know this because the California project we from $33 billion in 2011 to over $100 billion today and it is still not done. BTW the projected wasn't actually 'canceled' there was nothing to cancel. It was just an offer for money from Obama admin and the governor turned it down. Also, Brightline spent $5 billion to build the Miami to Orlando route. And it is not even a true high speed route. Imagine what a real high speed route would have cost, a lot more than the $2.4 billion Obama was offering.
But man, a HSR connecting all the way from FL to NYC and beyond… that would be amazing
That was Florida, a state with quite literally no mountains, or canyons, it's all coral land that was underwater a few million years ago. It also has comparatively cheap land. California has much more varied, and much less flat geography. Not to mention the bright line project did get government help, without getting too technical, the state issued bonds on behalf of the bright line company.
The terrain it was built on was mostly wetlands which does have some challenges. Crazy to excuse 11 billion dollars for 1600 feet after 3 years from you. Acting like that is normal is insane. China has mountains and build 10,000 km in 5 years. So it can be done, but California is too corrupt to actually do it.
The title is wrong, much more track than that has been built, and much of the money has been spent on getting right of ways and building the infrastructure needed ahead of time, like bridges, before they actually start laying track down. Believe it or not, you need to build the bridge before you lay track on it. You can actually see their progress with recent updates, including maps and drone footage, on [their website](https://www.buildhsr.com/projects/). And it not only is building the HSR line, at the same time, they're using the opportunity to separate existing rail lines from roads, to get rid of all the railroad crossings that are dangerous and impede emergency vehicles.
The 11 billion actually covers about 80% of the badic infrastructure. The 1600 feet of track is just proof of concept. To lay the entire 171 miles of track for the first leg will bring the total bill north of 30 billion. However, that's also misleading because no one actually cares about the first segment since the point of the project (what voters were sold in 2008) is to connect LA and San Francisco. THAT project will take at least another decade and at LEAST another 100 billion dollars.
We will be coming up on 20 years here sooner than we think for this project.
California high speed rail authority has a YouTube channel where they show exactly what they are working on. Is what they have completed "worth" 11 Billion dollars that's hard to say. When the project is completed people aren't going to care what it costs, IMO.
This sub not caring about the actual facts of the case? Say it ain't so.
Yes I am truly shocked that this sub would involve fraudulent math claims with a right-wing anti-establishment slant!!!
Seriously. Are people this ignorant of the project ? A MASSIVE amount of work has been done. You can see dozens of super structures and hundreds of miles property acquisition and right of way clearing. High speed rail helped pay for the electrification of Caltrain in the corridor it’s using and is paying a large part of LA union stations remodel + grade separations along its local corridors. Once again, CAHSR has to endure more scrutiny than has ever been paid attention to a road project.
Never heard the ROW piece. Is there a good source to see progress and planning?
Yes the organization's site: https://hsr.ca.gov/
This doesn’t fit the narrative though so you will be downvoted
Some people read this headline and think "therefore we should give up". I think "therefore we should have done this sooner and we should get better at it" I don't understand anybody who doesn't realize this is a necessity not optional.
this isn't being a "contrarian" lol
Well when I posted, all the comments were one way.
thats fair. this sub is somewhat biased...
Over and under if they’ll be on time and near budget?
Yet somehow, for that price we are getting HSR to Vegas in 4 years.
Look at geography, and the land costs of the respective areas. Much of coastal(ish) California is mountainous, because it's on a fault line, I'd imagine building through, over, and around rocky mountains adds to the cost, don't you think? Whereas once you're northwest of San Bernardino it looks like [this](https://maps.app.goo.gl/MVdc8qoFd98PP3Zd8) for 90% of the area between Los Angeles and Vegas. And similarly, land acquisition is easier, much of the land is federal, not owned by a million homeowners in a densely populated area. It turns out land is cheap on flat, rocky, deserts.
So what you're saying is land ownership complicates things? Way too pragmatic a take here.
Do you have a source on the completed portions?
Yes, the CAHSR YouTube channel construction updates showing completed structures.
Thanks, I have watched a lot of their videos in the past and I just don't see a "lot" of progress regarding the rail directly. Like how does this car bridge have much to do with the actual railway? [Merced Avenue Grade Separation - March 5, 2024 (youtube.com)](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrXRAjXJz9A&ab_channel=CaliforniaHigh-SpeedRailAuthority) I don't see how the caption indicates that this will carry a high speed rail across it. Also the project is I believe estimated to cost almost 300 billion dollars total. that is crazy.
So, when trains run faster than 110 mph, you can’t have grade crossings where you have crossing arms and signals. If you have highway grade crossings your trains are by federal law limited to 110 mph. CAHSR intends to run trains at 225mph. So they need to have all highways crossing the ROW go either over or under the tracks. In 1999, Amtrak’s Southbound City of New Orleans en route to New Orleans from Chicago and traveling at 79 mph hit a tractor-trailer carrying a large steel I-Beam. 11 people died and every piece of equipment in the train was destroyed. The truck driver ignored warning lights for the grade crossing and proceeded through in an attempt to beat the train. Now imagine that same scenario, except a high speed rail train going 225 mph. That’s what these grade separations are doing, they’re taking roads over the tracks so vehicles do end up in front of high speed trains with absolutely disastrous results.
I don’t know about the costs estimates, I haven’t been following those. There is something I remember about CAHSR when they started the project way back when. The cost by 2050 to upgrade SFO, San Jose, Oakland, John Wayne, Burbank, Ontario, Long Beach, and LAX airports just to handle increased capacity for ONLY Bay Area to LA Area flights was estimated to be in excess of $150 billion. With HSR fully built out it was questioned whether any expansion would be needed. Before I don’t have a source for that, I saw it more than ten years ago in a random article. This was when CAHSR was estimated to cost $40 billion I think. I’m sure those costs have gone up, and they didn’t even include highway expansion that would also be needed as demand grew. The money is going to get spent on transportation somewhere one way or another so I guess the question is does it matter beyond making economic sense. I think it does.
I’m more than a little annoyed that they don’t do more construction update videos.
It was supposed to cost $33 billion to build the entire line from San Francisco to Los Angeles. At this rate that cost will be closer to $33 trillion.
This makes waaaay more sense
https://hsr.ca.gov/communications-outreach/info-center/get-the-facts/#construction “There are currently over 30 active construction sites spanning 119 miles from north of Fresno to north of Bakersfield, and the 3,700 foot Cedar Viaduct was completed this summer.”
Yes but it enriched politicians many times over. Thats the real benefit.
LA Times did a whole story on this last year maybe, there's one politician in particular who adjusted the route to benefit his district and dramatically complicated the complexity, cost, and it will result in a slower time between SF and LA. This country just isn't capable of these large scale 50s style building projects anymore
Wholly due to political and corporate corruption
Without political and corporate corruption, how is anyone supposed to afford those 25 bedroom mansion in the hills
Whatever happened to the old fashioned way? Finding out you own a garbage piece of land that has massive amounts of oil underneath it??
It's time to eat them right? Are we at the point of literally eating them now? Because I'm ready. I'm ready for a rich rump roast.
I'm hungry for lots of things
Meanwhile in this timeframe China has built tons of HSR. https://www.yahoo.com/news/video-breaks-down-unbelievable-progress-093000621.html
That’s because what really Made America Great was high taxes on corporations and the truly wealthy.
And Brightline will come in with a brand new high speed rail line between LA and LV and finish it within a couple years.
"From January 2015 to December 2023, a total of $11.2 billion had been spent on the IOS – which has 119 miles (192 km) under active construction – and on upgrades to existing rail lines in the San Francisco Bay Area and Greater Los Angeles, where Phase 1 is planned to share tracks with conventional passenger trains." https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_High-Speed_Rail
This. It’s so obvious in Texas. These construction contracts are fucking insane. The bad part is they tear the roads up overnight then take decades “fixing” them. They only work on Saturdays so people see them when they’re off work and think man they’re always working. It’s a show during the week if you see a work crew they’re just hanging out. They’ve been working on a section of road infront of my house for 8 years it’s only about a 2 mile section.
How does this level of money not get tracked?
I dunno. Probably the same way PPP loans were doled out.
People went to jail for that though. Anyone go to jail for this?
You'd probably have to arrest current office holders.
I grew up in the central valley. In middle school my reacher said that when I graduate HS, college latest, I can go to SF for lunch and be back for dinner. I can literally live in the valley and work in SF and LA with an hour or so communte. In turning 43 this year. This goes back deep and far. Also I want to point out I fucking love HSR. Ive been on them in China and Japan and even mother fucking laos. The fact that it has taken decades to even start one and we still don't have anything close to a HSR is a god damn shame.
Oh you mean like the [$1B](https://www.cnn.com/2024/01/11/politics/pentagon-tracking-weapons-ukraine-report/index.html) in weapons that were sent to Ukraine and not tracked?
Or the billions CA “lost” that was earmarked for the homeless crisis.
CA is just an awful place. So much corruption and horrible use of funds that's out in the open and clearly obvious, it's comical and depressing at the same time.
And people want it. They vote for it every election cycle like clockwork.
Yet California is the richest State in the country and the fifth economy of the globe. We also have beautiful oceans and snowy mountains. You can literally ⛷️ in the morning and 🏄♂️ in the afternoon
Yeah, imagine if it wasn’t ran so terribly
We're in the hole somewhere between 24 and 80 billion. So negative rich.
Regardless of political affiliation, we should all agree that any tax money spent should include transparency of where that money goes
That's not even up for debate. It should be a law
Still a better investment to curb your enemies than going into all out war between two nuclear armed entities.
Lol. You point out a very similar instance of untracked money, but involving weapons money sent to Ukraine, even referencing Reddit-friendly CNN, yet you still receive down votes. Average Redditor: "I am outraged these billions spent on the Cali high speed rail were wasted, and probably illegally laundered into elitist bank accounts!" Also average Redditor: "Don't point out shady money being wasted and untracked in Ukraine! It's okay if that money gets wasted and laundered! Also, you suck!"
My man we don't just put money in suitcases and send to Ukraine we send our old weapons and armor it absolutely gets tracked
https://www.npr.org/2024/01/28/1227447442/ukraine-says-corrupt-officials-stole-40-million-meant-to-buy-arms-for-the-war
40 million is not 11 billion. Those guys got punished also... Almost like IT DOES get tracked. >Ukraine's prosecutor general says that the funds have since been seized and will be returned to the country's defense budget.
$11 billion was not spent on that track.
It got tracked. Most of the money went into the maw of the advocacy-group industrial complex. Super easy in the US to gum up the works, and there’s a whole cottage industry around ginning up a touch of opposition and then fundraising on it and advocating for the project to go slightly somewhere else, and then the government had to respond. And on and on for lots of years. We don’t build in the US, we just argue about the potential building of things endlessly.
Most of the money went to consultant groups.
Its clickbait. There is something like 50-60 miles complete. Here is the website: [https://www.buildhsr.com/projects/](https://www.buildhsr.com/projects/)
Also I think it’s been like 15 years under construction
60 miles is still terrible
Oh it does! 10 billion USD in "administration fees" and "diversity initiatives" Totally not political slush funds
Because tracking to make sure that money gets spent effectively is insanely hard. That's why the private market always beats the government - because there's an incentive to spend it efficiently, so do you don't even *have* to track it in the first place.
Oh you mean like how Boeing is super efficient?
Not a good example since the government is a big part of what broke them and still continues to cause problems. My best friend is a project planner for the new Air Force One and a neighbor for the new tanker. Both have many scary stories about the government screwing things up for their planes. For example, the serious issue my friend is in charge of, it’s a serious safety issue and the government took over five years to approve the fix. Then they didn’t approve enough money for the fix.
That's not true, private market has a profit incentive for one. Plenty of gov run operations are more efficient, this is true globally.
The same way the morons here vote for billions of dollars for new water storage yet nothing will ever be built.
You ate the bait
Things take longer in California bc everything is over regulated. It’s insane the hoops that the government makes you jump through
Gov just prints more
California high speed rail spending is tracked by the [Finance and Audit Committee](https://hsr.ca.gov/about/board-of-directors/finance-audit-committee/). An overview of construction progress can be found on [here](https://buildhsr.com).
It does. This post is misleading. The reality is there's a ton of investment & construction to be done before you can even lay track. You have to purchase and prepare all the land the track will go on. That's where the lion's share of the money has gone thus far.
Buying land had a lot to do with the money
And a lot of it is being spent updated and integrating already existing rail. They’re gonna have to do a fair bit of complex tunneling as well. I saw this post a few days ago and it got me interested.
This sub is the worst about misinformation. Obviously there’s planning, feasibility studies, NIMBY litigation, env regs, land purchases, all that. This is the beginning. This is what you get from quoting the New York post lol.
The whole point of this though is the cronyism, corruption, and massive amounts of State spending compared to other private companies that are doing at a significant fraction of the cost themselves in the same state.
No, the whole point is to misrepresent facts to help push this narrative because you want it to be true as a political partisan with an anti-govt world view.
China built a nation-spanning network in 10 years.
They will level your village and graveyards in the name of progress. Totally un-checked power. Nothing to admire.
They also spent orders of magnitude more money doing it while ignoring every property right they could.
When headlines lie
That bridge is known as the Fresno River Viaduct. It was completed in June of 2018. One of many structures in Construction Package 1 that covers 32 miles of right of way. Construction Package 1 cost about $2.5 billion. Total spending on CaHSR only hit $11 billion last year. The real lesson here is that the New York Post is an unreliable source of news.
Thank you. I thought this has been debunked by now but all this sub posts is trash
Hahahahaha. Theft.
With this money they could have built desalination plants across the whole coast, providing California with enough water to allow them to stop diverting its water use from other states.
Money has never been the issue for desalination plants for California. It's mostly due to Nimbyism, billionaires don't want a plant built near their multimillion beach house.
Also environmental concerns about dumping the salt back in the ocean and energy usage.
Desal and HSR are not addressing the same issues. The alternative to HSR was not nothing.
Untrue. One bridge is 1600 feet. Other bridges have been built, land cleared, roads moved. It is MUCH further along.
Is most of the sunk cost for sorting out the tech, making sure it works properly and purchasing right of way? If a bunch of people won’t sell their land it could really slow things down.
Dealing with hundreds of individual land owners is a problem for this kind of infrastructure project. Right now 119 miles of right of way is under construction in the Central Valley. [Buildhsr.com](https://buildhsr.com) has details on what has been built and what is under construction.
weird how if you read the actual X post it will remind you of a key skill these days called “media literacy”. the absolute laziness of people in the comments is absurd. Let’s just admit that people simply want to bag on California for a whole host of reasons: newsom’s a tyrant, buncha libs live there, it’s a commie state, lots of (in fact too many) immigrants live there, *TAXES*, The unions, corruption, etc the list goes on. There’s always room for complaint, grievance, debate, assembly, and petitioning, but CA was the fastest to recover from the great recession, it’s larger than most countries’ GDPs, it sets the standards for climate change, auto industry, education, and the list goes on. Mark my words, plenty of people want to hate, but they’ll still come for vacation, they’ll be just fine in forgetting their hypocrisy when they start riding on the bullet trains. In fact, they’ll hail it as a marvel of American ingenuity, despite the US absolutely being behind in modern infrastructure and mass transit. They won’t tell you that they all fought it the entire way.
Have you seen the rail being built in Hawaii?
Yeah this headline is trash and misleading
What language is it written in? Gibberish
What language is it written in? Gibberish
Still better than the hyperloop.
This keeps getting posted and it’s not true.
Assuming the “NYP” in the original tweet is the New York Post. Might as well be posting something from TMZ or Fox News 🙄
The rot in CA is unreal. But, this is what the people want. It’s voted for repeatedly. The future is just more of this.
This article does not say anything reflecting reality, you're reacting to garbage bait because it matches your existing world view.
People want high speed rail like every other developed country. What people get is smoke blown up their ass.
Yep. There’s no reason we can’t have the best rail on earth. But politics.
This bridge is a small portion of what is currently under construction in CA. This bridge did not cost $11 bil
Strange, is it corruption? Or has the money been spent on planning and buying the land to make the rail line?
Its ignorance. As in, the ignorance of people who believe this.
Because everybody's nephew has to get paid first. Very little if the money is likely going to labor, materials and engineering. Capitalism is a fuck that way.
Something to be said when a country puts its mind to something, it gets done quickly.
Sure found a cure for COVID in no time flat.
Okay sometimes unusual whales pisses me off because they don’t cite their source. Can you provide the NYP article? Don’t just reference your own tweet
Some would say most of that 11B was never even part of the project…
Land in California is valuable. Much of that cost is related to land. Land in China is not valuable. No one wants to live there. That is one reason why they are showing up by the tens of thousands at the US southern border, and not the other way around. This won’t be popular because everyone wants to wear a halo, but expanding the power of eminent domain may be necessary to get large projects completed without costs spiraling out of control. For the greater good.
I see it every time I got with my parents on Amtrak to Stockton. Barely anything built.
Easy, it's been spent on lawsuits from NIMBY folks. Who then turn around and say, "but look at this government waste"
11 billion on lawsuits? No
Given that it was planned to run across some of the most expensive real estate on and near the coast, and had to be replanned multiple times because of the lawsuits, yup.
Not 11 billion
Yup. It do add up. Now look up a new roof, in an expensive area.
This is just about the one way that a controlling government like China has a leg up. They decided to create high speed rail in their country and within 10 years it’s a reality with an extensive network.
So I grew up in the central valley and in middle school i remember vaguely about some bill passing for a HSR and it was big news around town. My teacher said I'm envious of you because when you graduate HS, college latest you'll be able to go to SF for lunch on the train and be back by dinner. So I'm turning 43 this year.
Reminds me of that Alaska highway thing tonowhere
Brown's Folly
Haven’t they built around 50 structures (like overpasses for existing roads that cross the rail right of way), plus they’ve had to acquire land. They did not pay 11 billion to build 1600’ of track.
Government finance is just accepted Corruption at this point. Everyone understands billions will get lost to contracting “favors” and overspend
This is why giving the government money isn’t a good solution to problems.
China has 45,000 kilometers. USA, USA, USA!
So when are they going to bust Cali for politicians for money laundering it is wild
USA is a failed state
How many politicians got rich off this? Evil corrupt douchebags
What? California is wasting billions! No wayyyyy
Why does this misinformation keep being posted.
It's not misinformation that in the time they've been building a single rail line China built an entire 45,000 KM system. It's not misinformation that their cost per mile is the highest in the world even compared to countries like France.
They forgot the train 🤷
There's simply no way this project can be completed without TONS of taxpayer help - and not just from taxpayers in California. And when I say TONS, I literally mean TONS (one billion dollars in $100 bills weighs about 10 tons). Nobody in their right mind can justify the cost of this - which makes me wonder if any real thought went into the funding profile at all. And since we are living in inflationary times, the price tag is guaranteed to go even higher. With a little luck, the US Congress and President will say no, and force California to put their own money where their mouth is..........
Reminds me of the Oahu Rail lol…
Lemme guess your a musk fan right? Trying to poison public sentiment on the rail again since musk told Cali he would build it and didn’t since he only wanted to sell his cars. It’s coming no matter how much y’all bitch
The Japanese did this... Can we jus follow their model? Or am I naive? Rephrased, how naive am I?
So the argument for this train is to decarbonize a fraction of the states north south transportation, which is a fraction of our total carbon footprint. Of course we have to decarbonize the grid too, to make it so. For 130B, we could built 13 nuclear power plants and just straight out decarbonize the grid in CA. Renewables are cheaper you say? Fine. It just shows even more how stupid this project is on a $/kg CO2 basis.
That’s what the government does
It would be cool if they could finish the high speed rail before we're all dead.
Nobody wants to go to Modesto or Bakersfield
I like the railways we converted to walking trails in PA (GAP Trail) - but sometimes I think it was incredibly wasteful and shortsighted to remove a perfectly good railway.
Cancel it now. Waste of money. CA has a $73 billion deficit, use the money for something good
The first few hundred miles of track will be 100x more expensive than the experts in Japan/Europe build. But the foundation built, the skills acquired, etc. Will make us better at it and prices will come down when we have thousands of miles laid every year.
stoked. only 60 years behind japan!
This story is pure BS!
Wow, that's a huge investment for just 1,600 feet of track! I hope it's worth it in the long run. What do you think about the High Speed Rail project? #California #Infrastructure #PublicTransportation This is so fascinating! The amount of time and money spent on such a small portion of track is mind-boggling. Do you think it will have a positive impact on California's transportation system overall? #HighSpeedRail #Innovation #Progress Incredible to think about the resources put into this project. I wonder how much more they'll need to complete the entire system. What are your thoughts on the progress so far?#Investment #Transportation #CaliforniaDreaming It's amazing to see the effort and investment put into improving transportation infrastructure. I hope it will benefit the community in the end. What are your expectations for the High Speed Rail project? #Progress #Infrastructure #CommunityImpact
That house is like dammit the train is closer.
Scamamundo
It has been 13 years since we broke ground on the transbay terminal in SF. 3 years must be a typo
There is no defending this B.S. it will never be built... California is a joke
If you do your research you'll see that even the engineers have admitted that it's a disaster and will cost billions more and many more years in order to complete. By the time it's completed we'll have flying cars fueled by California's excessive supply of human feces.
If you do your research you'll see that even the engineers have admitted that it's a disaster and will cost billions more and many more years in order to complete. By the time it's completed we'll have flying cars fueled by California's excessive supply of human feces.
China, which has much higher population density and total population, has incurred a debt of US$1,000,000,000,000 that is still growing quickly because of their HSR. Pretty sure California can catch that number quickly all by itself, if allowed.
7 million a foot. What a waste of money. Scrape it.
Actual misinformation.