Excerpt from foxnews.com
Despite cost overruns, lawsuits, public opposition and a projected
completion date 13 years behind schedule, California Gov. Jerry Brown
broke ground Tuesday on what is to become the most expensive public
works project in U.S. history: the California bullet train.
Over the next 1,000 days, California is estimated to spend roughly $4 million a day on the project.
The high-speed train, set to be finished in 2033, originally was
supposed to deliver passengers from San Francisco to Los Angeles in two
hours and 40 minutes. That was the promise when voters narrowly approved
$10 billion in bonds for the project in 2008. Since then, however, the
estimated trip time has grown considerably, and the train has
encountered persistent problems — as experts uncovered
misrepresentations in the ballot proposition, and opponents sued to stop
the project on environmental and fiscal grounds.
“We’re talking about real money here,” said Kris Vosburgh, executive
director of taxpayer watchdog group Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Association.
“This is money that’s not available for health care or education, for
public safety, or put back in taxpayers’ pockets so they have something
to spend. This is money being drawn out of the system for a program that
is going to serve very few people.”
Much about the project has changed since it was sold to the public.
Voters were told the project would cost just $33 billion. Once
experts crunched the numbers, however, the price tag soared to $98
billion. It was supposed to whoosh riders from Southern California to
the Bay Area in less than three hours, but now it’s more than four hours
due to changing track configurations and route adjustments. The train
was supposed to get people off the freeway and reduce carbon emissions,
but a panel of experts now says any carbon savings will be nominal. (A drive by car takes just over 6 hours. Ed.)
Further, ridership projections have been cut by two-thirds from a
projected 90 million to 30 million a year. Fewer riders means higher
prices. According to a panel of transportation experts hired by the
Reason Foundation, Citizens Against Government Waste and the Howard
Jarvis Taxpayers Association, tickets will exceed $80 — not $50 — and
the system will require annual subsidies of more than $300 million
annually.
“The public has turned sour on this plan but the governor, to
paraphrase Admiral Farragut, has taken a position of ‘damn the people,
full speed ahead’,” Vosburgh said.
Undaunted by critics, Brown broke ground in Fresno on Tuesday on the
first 29-mile segment of the train’s system. Under Brown’s direction,
the California High Speed Rail Authority has gone to court to seek an
exemption from an environmental quality law the state imposes on other
projects but not this one. Brown also convinced the state Legislature to
dedicate an annual revenue stream from the state’s carbon tax, to help
pay for the bullet train.
“It’s a long project, a bold project and one that will transform the
Central Valley,” Brown said Monday as he began his fourth and final term
as governor.
Once construction begins, supporters say it will be harder to stop
the project. Several lawsuits linger, but a bigger question concerns the
money: Where will it come from? If every penny committed to the project
is added up, the project is still more than $30 billion short.
Republicans in Congress are vowing not to commit a dollar more than
President Obama approved in 2012.
“For years now, Governor Brown and the high-speed rail authority have
turned the idea of high-speed rail into a public albatross far beyond
what Californians envisioned or voted for,” House Majority Leader Kevin
McCarthy, R-Calif., said in a statement released Tuesday. “Sadly,
today’s groundbreaking is a political maneuver. Supporters of the
railroad in Sacramento can’t admit their project is deeply flawed, and
they won’t give up on it despite the cost. But these political tricks
are exactly what the American people are tired of and what the new
Republican Congress is committed to ending.”
Supporters don’t see waste. They argue the project will reduce
freeway gridlock, offer competition to air travel and provide an
alternative to trucking freight.
Environmentalists also have opposed the project, suing and claiming
the construction project would harm 11 endangered species and worsen air
quality in the already dirty Central Valley. They lost when a federal
judge ruled the project did not have to adhere to the state
Environmental Quality Act, unlike other projects. Additional legal
challenges remain, but supporters believe once the train leaves the
station and ground is broken, there’s no going back.
“The legacy of the Brown family is that they have been big thinkers,
but also big builders,” said Democratic state Assemblyman Henry Perea.
“I think this is an opportunity for the legislature to step up, support
Governor Brown. ”
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California breaks ground on bullet train project despite opposition, as price tag soars
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