The liberals $43 billion train to no where...

[NikolaeVarius]

I have a silly question. Why do these big projects cost us so much more to do these days? We built the Federal Interstate System, a project that took 35 years to complete, runs almost 48,000 miles and adjusted to 2006 dollars cost a total of $425B. Just for fun lets round it up and say that in 2015 dollars it cost an even half trillion dollars.

Also for comparison.

The initial cost estimate for the system was $25 billion over 12 years; it ended up costing $114 billion (adjusted for inflation, $425 billion in 2006 dollars[4]) and took 35 years.

 

[theeedude]

4x over estimate? Such a boondoggle.

 

[K1052]

And I have yet to see a project come in under cost or a new revenue stream(tax) exceed expectations.

Off the top of my head the new I-35 bridge design/build bids came in substantially lower than expected and the project was completed ahead of schedule and on budget.

The CA HSR design/build bids are coming in well under budget thus far.

 

[Pneumothorax]

Off the top of my head the new I-35 bridge design/build bids came in substantially lower than expected and the project was completed ahead of schedule and on budget.

The CA HSR design/build bids are coming in well under budget thus far.

Of course, when you're building on mostly uninhabited FLAT farmland, it's still cheap. Wait until they have to drill/blast run through mountains and through densely populated areas is when it's going to skyrocket.

 

[glenn1]

Of course, when you're building on mostly uninhabited FLAT farmland, it's still cheap. Wait until they have to drill/blast run through mountains and through densely populated areas is when it's going to skyrocket.

You and others are making economic and cost/benefit arguments against people who don't care about them. Grunts of "Economic stimulus!" and "Infrastructure good!" are their main arguments. Even those who support HSR in theory but question its suitability here are waved away with "you conservatives have nothing to offer America." They're determined to get their choo-choo and will worry later about how to pay for it and why it only carries a handful of well-off business travelers (but not wealthy enough to have their own private jets) and tourists while the lower and middle class who will never ride it pay for subsidizing their tickets.

 

[bshole]

It's just a trend that I see nationwide with new projects. Using the Interstate system as a baseline for what infrastructure should generally cost, new stuff seems to cost WAY more after adjusting for inflation.

Well I think it depends on if land has to be bought or not. The most worthless land in Wisconsin can fetch around $3k/acre. If you are running a new choo-choo train in California, you are going to have to buy 10 of thousands of acres. Assuming a modest cost of $100k/acre and 1,000,000 acres to buy, the cost is going to be $100b for the land alone. The cost of land has gone up exponentially since the 1950's, far outpacing inflation.

 

[theeedude]

You and others are making economic and cost/benefit arguments against people who don't care about them. Grunts of "Economic stimulus!" and "Infrastructure good!" are their main arguments. Even those who support HSR in theory but question its suitability here are waved away with "you conservatives have nothing to offer America." They're determined to get their choo-choo and will worry later about how to pay for it and why it only carries a handful of well-off business travelers (but not wealthy enough to have their own private jets) and tourists while the lower and middle class who will never ride it pay for subsidizing their tickets.

What do you have to offer America? Lead, follow, or get out of the way. We have labor market slack. Your proposals to put it to a good use? Start a couple unnecessary wars?

 

[glenn1]

What do you have to offer America? Lead, follow, or get out of the way.

I'm the one who suggested putting those resources into autonomous vehicles a few pages ago. I guess you'd prefer the tried and true 19th century technology over the emerging one and any model that's centralized over distributed. Why not spend a few more billions putting in telegraph lines while you're at it, since they run point-to-point the same way; after all stimulus is always a good thing and "infrastructure is infrastructure," right?

Or are you one of the same folks who support throwing billions into light rail over buses because "rail lines give a sense of more permanance" or whatever nonsense you use you justify the grossly uneconomic costs of the former?

 

[K1052]

Of course, when you're building on mostly uninhabited FLAT farmland, it's still cheap. Wait until they have to drill/blast run through mountains and through densely populated areas is when it's going to skyrocket.

That's going to be rock tunneling and viaduct work through terrain with pretty well known costs. It will be by it's nature more expensive but that's in the budget.

They're connecting the HSR in San Jose to an upgraded Calrtain system (electrification, passing track, crossing upgrades, etc) so they don't have to construct new ROW.

 

[K1052]

You and others are making economic and cost/benefit arguments against people who don't care about them. Grunts of "Economic stimulus!" and "Infrastructure good!" are their main arguments. Even those who support HSR in theory but question its suitability here are waved away with "you conservatives have nothing to offer America." They're determined to get their choo-choo and will worry later about how to pay for it and why it only carries a handful of well-off business travelers (but not wealthy enough to have their own private jets) and tourists while the lower and middle class who will never ride it pay for subsidizing their tickets.

The conservative concern for the poor never ceases to touch my withered "liberal" heart.

The market for SF-LA travel is about 8-10M trips per year at present, a figure that is forecast to rise. Add in the intermediate Central Valley stops and the line could easily exceed ridership that the NEC has (which is operationally profitable btw). I fail to see how additional physical mobility will lead to reduced economic mobility for the middle and lower classes.

 

[Screech]

What do you have to offer America? Lead, follow, or get out of the way. We have labor market slack. Your proposals to put it to a good use? Start a couple unnecessary wars?

My vote for infrastructure would be to build a bunch of solar power plants (or hydroelectric but I'm not sure we have a lot of good places for such), improve our grid (that should probably be first actually), maybe even hook some of those up to H2 producing stations in cities on the off chance that a fuel cell car ever becomes viable

further freeway construction in areas that need it

Better connections to airports (SFO and OAK have decent BART connections, but in LA its a mess--would be nice to have subway or similar connections from union station/downtown to LAX and Burbank)

only half serious: Nuke south pasadena and push the 710 all the way through

I'm also a fan of investments in universities and or university endowments but that's not really infrastructure

 

[glenn1]

The conservative concern for the poor never ceases to touch my withered "liberal" heart.

The market for SF-LA travel is about 8-10M trips per year at present, a figure that is forecast to rise. Add in the intermediate Central Valley stops and the line could easily exceed ridership that the NEC has (which is operationally profitable btw). I fail to see how additional physical mobility will lead to reduced economic mobility for the middle and lower classes.

Sure, build some steamships while you're at it. Or maybe mule drawn barge up the coast. Meanwhile ignore sensible, cheap, and long overdue systemic changes to transportation (like switching to GPS next generation air traffic control), autonomous vehicles, mandated telework, and other options that would not only address the biggest part of the problem but do it for far less cost and without the drawbacks of a static route system.

Enjoy your mostly empty money pit trains.

 

[theeedude]

I'm the one who suggested putting those resources into autonomous vehicles a few pages ago. I guess you'd prefer the tried and true 19th century technology over the emerging one and any model that's centralized over distributed. Why not spend a few more billions putting in telegraph lines while you're at it, since they run point-to-point the same way; after all stimulus is always a good thing and "infrastructure is infrastructure," right?

Or are you one of the same folks who support throwing billions into light rail over buses because "rail lines give a sense of more permanance" or whatever nonsense you use you justify the grossly uneconomic costs of the former?

So which Republican politicians are proposing "putting those resources into autonomous vehicles," whatever that even means. Seems like "repeal and replace" BS, as usual, no replacement proposed, no leadership, no following, but no getting out of the way either from the GOP. Airplanes are last century technology too. Let's not build infrastructure anymore, it's so last century.

 

[K1052]

Sure, build some steamships while you're at it. Or maybe mule drawn barge up the coast. Meanwhile ignore sensible, cheap, and long overdue systemic changes to transportation (like switching to GPS next generation air traffic control), autonomous vehicles, mandated telework, and other options that would not only address the biggest part of the problem but do it for far less cost and without the drawbacks of a static route system.

Do you have anything that isn't a logical fallacy to offer?

NextGen should be completed regardless of HSR construction for myriad other reasons. The airlines don't have an economic interest in taking SF-LA flights to every 30-45 minutes from the hourly they are now at. It's a waste of their resources.

Nobody is going to step into an autonomous vehicle in SF and say "Take me to LA". Not only would such a trip probably be really expensive it would take longer than the alternatives.

Mandated Telework? lol. Are you serious? Mandated by who?

 

[theeedude]

My vote for infrastructure would be to build a bunch of solar power plants (or hydroelectric but I'm not sure we have a lot of good places for such), improve our grid (that should probably be first actually), maybe even hook some of those up to H2 producing stations in cities on the off chance that a fuel cell car ever becomes viable

further freeway construction in areas that need it

Better connections to airports (SFO and OAK have decent BART connections, but in LA its a mess--would be nice to have subway or similar connections from union station/downtown to LAX and Burbank)

only half serious: Nuke south pasadena and push the 710 all the way through

I'm also a fan of investments in universities and or university endowments but that's not really infrastructure

Can't have solar power, haven't you heard of Solyndra?
Freeways are so 20th century, so are airports.
And universities are 17th century technology.

 

[K1052]

Better connections to airports (SFO and OAK have decent BART connections, but in LA its a mess--would be nice to have subway or similar connections from union station/downtown to LAX and Burbank)

LAX recently released their plan to build a Consolidated rental car facility (finally), inter-modal transportation center, and connections to Metro Rail all tied to the terminals by an automated people mover (a la SFO AirTrain).

 

[piasabird]

220 miles per hour is not that fast. The Bullet Train in South Korea that went through multiple mountain tunnels and over rice patties and rivers can reach a speed of over 300 miles per hour. They engineered the train to be larger and carry more passengers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fkE93gRx7c

This video is long but it explains the difficulty in building high-speed rail.

 

[K1052]

220 miles per hour is not that fast. The Bullet Train in South Korea that went through multiple mountain tunnels and over rice patties and rivers can reach a speed of over 300 miles per hour. They engineered the train to be larger and carry more passengers.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8fkE93gRx7c

This video is long but it explains the difficulty in building high-speed rail.

The KTX has a max speed of 190mph. The next generation prototype Korean EMU train will have a max service speed of 230mph. Only the French have managed to crack 300mph on special sections of track using very short trains with the running voltage cranked way up...not suitable for service conditions.

Edit: It looks like the Chinese also have managed it a few years back, got to 303. Regardless these aren't service speeds.

 

[chowderhead]

The conservative concern for the poor never ceases to touch my withered "liberal" heart.

The market for SF-LA travel is about 8-10M trips per year at present, a figure that is forecast to rise. Add in the intermediate Central Valley stops and the line could easily exceed ridership that the NEC has (which is operationally profitable btw). I fail to see how additional physical mobility will lead to reduced economic mobility for the middle and lower classes.

I am not a conservative but I am not for this HSR system. I say give Elon Musk and his group 10 billion dollars to develop the hyperloop.
They can probably do it on budget and on time.
http://www.wired.com/2014/12/jumpstartfund-hyperloop-elon-musk/

Use the rest of the 30 billion on LOCAL transit projects that is much more needed in the Bay Area and Southern California.

Or, get the casinos to spend 10 billion dollars and connect Las Vegas with Los Angeles. There is huge demand there and people will probably take that HSR to and from Las Vegas.

 

[glenn1]

Or, get the casinos to spend 10 billion dollars and connect Las Vegas with Los Angeles. There is huge demand there and people will probably take that HSR to and from Las Vegas.

Unlike SF-LA routes that doesn't personally benefit K1052 so he probably isn't interested since it will only mean other people get the taxpayer subsidies and reduced need to interact with TSA agents on business trips.

 

[K1052]

I am not a conservative but I am not for this HSR system. I say give Elon Musk and his group 10 billion dollars to develop the hyperloop.
They can probably do it on budget and on time.
http://www.wired.com/2014/12/jumpstartfund-hyperloop-elon-musk/

Use the rest of the 30 billion on LOCAL transit projects that is much more needed in the Bay Area and Southern California.

Or, get the casinos to spend 10 billion dollars and connect Las Vegas with Los Angeles. There is huge demand there and people will probably take that HSR to and from Las Vegas.

Musk's hyperloop is highly speculative. Since he can't be bothered to push it forward I don't really take it seriously and many of the experts say it will end up costing a hell of a lot more than he said. I generally have respect for his achievements with Tesla and SpaceX but this is vaporware.

The money cannot be used on local transit. If CA gives up on HSR the money goes away.

There has been interest for many years to connect LA with Vegas via HSR. The most current plan moving forward planned a terminus in Victorville but now it is probable that it will extend to Palmdale to connect with HSR directly. Funding is of course the hurdle here as well. Cost is supposed to be in the neighborhood of $6B with $1-2B coming from private sources and the rest FRA loans. The application for loans was put on hold as they have to meet Buy American requirements. Thinking is that they'll be back after CAHSR or Amtrak starts placing orders for trainsets.

 

[K1052]

Unlike SF-LA routes that doesn't personally benefit K1052 so he probably isn't interested since it will only mean other people get the taxpayer subsidies and reduced need to interact with TSA agents on business trips.

There is a plan for connecting Vegas (as I mention above). If CA/NV could work together on scrounging up funding it it would move faster as well. Given the low overall cost, high ridership potential, and great relief on regional airports it would have it's a no-brainer.

 

[marincounty]

I'm the one who suggested putting those resources into autonomous vehicles a few pages ago. I guess you'd prefer the tried and true 19th century technology over the emerging one and any model that's centralized over distributed. Why not spend a few more billions putting in telegraph lines while you're at it, since they run point-to-point the same way; after all stimulus is always a good thing and "infrastructure is infrastructure," right?

Or are you one of the same folks who support throwing billions into light rail over buses because "rail lines give a sense of more permanance" or whatever nonsense you use you justify the grossly uneconomic costs of the former?

yeah, those backward chinese are building high speed rail, you know the country that is expanding it's economy and selling us everything.
Let's do nothing for our infrastructure and fall further behind.
But our military is the greatest. Who should we invade next?

 

[werepossum]

Well I think it depends on if land has to be bought or not. The most worthless land in Wisconsin can fetch around $3k/acre. If you are running a new choo-choo train in California, you are going to have to buy 10 of thousands of acres. Assuming a modest cost of $100k/acre and 1,000,000 acres to buy, the cost is going to be $100b for the land alone. The cost of land has gone up exponentially since the 1950's, far outpacing inflation.

Excellent point.

 

[fskimospy]

There is a plan for connecting Vegas (as I mention above). If CA/NV could work together on scrounging up funding it it would move faster as well. Given the low overall cost, high ridership potential, and great relief on regional airports it would have it's a no-brainer.

Holy crap would that train be great. First, a good portion of that trip is through desert wasteland so I would think (hope!) the land would be cheap. Second, the traffic on the 15 between LA and Vegas is absolutely apocalyptic on Fridays and Sundays.

One major hurdle does come to mind though, the fact that the train would have extremely high demand on Friday-Sunday and probably quite low demand on Monday-Thursday. Not sure what that would do to the viability.