high speed rail fail

enki

enki

Well-known member
Anybody else review the audit? Brown’s Folly is crashing and burning. Will Newsom kill it? Note that it faces a $3 billion payback to the feds if it doesn’t meet a looming deadline.
 

Attachments

  • 9AB18D0A-0C3D-4FFD-AB58-541F7B45B1C4.jpg
    9AB18D0A-0C3D-4FFD-AB58-541F7B45B1C4.jpg
    98.1 KB · Views: 89
M

mlm

Contrarian
Maybe a link to the audit? All the picture shows is that things are behind schedule, and UNDER budget
 
Yakoo752

Yakoo752

USN
Report Summary said:
Our audit of the California High‑Speed Rail Authority and its contracting and cost control practices highlighted the following:
» Although the Authority has secured and identified funding of over $28 billion that it expects will be sufficient to complete initial segments that funding will not be enough to connect those segments, or finish the rest of the system—estimated to cost over $77 billion.
​
» It has incrementally modified its plans for a fully dedicated high-speed rail system since 2012 and now intends to share—blend—existing transit infrastructure wherever feasible. Although blending is less costly, it subjects high-speed trains to lower speed limits and may require sharing time on the tracks with other rail operators.
​
» The fact that it has now exhausted all feasible options to use existing infrastructure raises concerns about its ability to mitigate future cost increases.
​
» The risk of additional cost increases is high. Costs to date have been significantly greater than originally projected because the Authority moved forward before it completed many critical tasks such as purchasing land, planning how to relocate utility systems, or obtaining agreements with external stakeholders.
​
◦ This risk contributed to $600 million in changes to construction contracts.​
◦ The Authority estimates that finishing the construction that is currently underway will require another $1.6 billion.
​
◦ If the Authority does not complete construction by the federal government's December 2022 deadline, it may need to repay $3.5 billion.
​
» It needs to improve its contract management to control soaring costs—it currently has 56 contract managers throughout its organization, but these individuals generally do not serve in contract management roles full time. Moreover, it has placed portions of its oversight of large contracts into the hands of outside consultants.
​
◦ In reviewing nine planning, engineering, and consulting contracts, few contract managers could provide evidence of reviewing each monthly invoice for accuracy, none maintained tracking logs of deliverables, and most were unable to demonstrate how they ensured the quantity and quality of the work for which the Authority paid.​
» Although it has estimated the environmental impacts of its current construction, it has not comprehensively evaluated its performance against those estimates.
​
Click to expand...
.
 
Last edited:
enki

enki

Well-known member
Other highlights of the audit:

-- The rail authority routinely paid invoices from vendors without checking if the expenses/work were completed. :wow

--Although voters approved a plan for a 220 mph train, major sections will share tracks (they call it "blending") with other trains systems. This will reduce speed to ~ 110 mph from SF to Gilroy. So the 4-hour trip to LA envisioned in the referendum...?

-- Construction fuckup at Avenue 12 in Madera County, where pilings for a Highway 99 overpass were not done correctly, forcing a teardown and rebuild of the entire overpass. While this was on the contractor, according to the audit, the rail authority decided to eat the cost.

-- Rail authority launched the Merced to Fresno section without doing advance work on cost of land purchases and not considering the cost of moving underground pipes, electrical conduits and other infrastructure.

Newsom has big plans to throw a lot of $$ at education and health care, so it's going to be interesting to see if he opts to throw a buncha money at this clusterfuck.
 
Last edited:
Entoptic

Entoptic

Red Power!
Wow Jerry fucked it up? Would have never guessed that someone who is famous for robbing Peter to pay Paul could do such a thing.
 
easter bunny

easter bunny

Amateur Hour
Yakoo752 said:
Costs to date have been significantly greater than originally projected because the Authority moved forward before it completed many critical tasks such as purchasing land, planning how to relocate utility systems, or obtaining agreements with external stakeholders.
Click to expand...
Those people should be prosecuted for fiscal malfeasance, misuse of public funds, and/or abuse of public office.
 
wazzuFreddo

wazzuFreddo

WuTang is 4 the children
It was always going to share SF to Gilroy with Caltrain :dunno

But otherwise, fail at project management 101
 
Johndicezx9

Johndicezx9

Rolls with it...
If they gave passenger trains priority over freight trains our system could work better and be more convenient... maybe...
 
Climber

Climber

Well-known member
enki said:
Other highlights of the audit:

-- The rail authority routinely paid invoices from vendors without checking if the expenses/work were completed. :wow

--Although voters approved a plan for a 220 mph train, major sections will share tracks (they call it "blending") with other trains systems. This will reduce speed to ~ 110 mph from SF to Gilroy. So the 4-hour trip to LA envisioned in the referendum...?

-- Construction fuckup at Avenue 12 in Madera County, where pilings for a Highway 99 overpass were not done correctly, forcing a teardown and rebuild of the entire overpass. While this was on the contractor, according to the audit, the rail authority decided to eat the cost.

-- Rail authority launched the Merced to Fresno section without doing advance work on cost of land purchases and not considering the cost of moving underground pipes, electrical conduits and other infrastructure.

Newsom has big plans to throw a lot of $$ at education and health care, so it's going to be interesting to see if he opts to throw a buncha money at this clusterfuck.
Click to expand...
Red flag there on Rail Authority eating cost when contractor fucked up. Contractor should have eaten the cost, this is a clear sign of kick-backs if it was the contractor fuck-up.

The problem with these huge projects is that there is so much money involved that kick-backs are common and assure that the people involved get rich and the taxpayers get fucked.
 
M

mlm

Contrarian
enki said:
well
Click to expand...

There's no shortage of reservations about HSR (I've posted many complaints in the past), but you seem to be picking the least significant of them. The speed reduction between Gilroy and San Jose doesn't amount to that much time since it only covers about 40 miles...my guess would be less than 15 minutes (average speed won't be reduced as much as max speed)

Fact is, large infrastructure projects of ALL types run into these types of problems. The spending is insane until you contrast it with other projects, and weigh in the indirect effects on the local economy. I can say I feel better about the money spent on this than the multi-billion dollar defense program I used to work on.

edit: I agree the trains per hour COULD be a significant limitation, although it is difficult to quantify the actual impact without knowing regional transportation capacity (what I think is the biggest problem with transportation)
 
Last edited:
M

mlm

Contrarian
Bowling4Bikes said:
I can't see them stopping this project. If the T got finished in Boston, they'll finish this clusterF too.
Click to expand...

Exactly. And I'd love to hear examples of large infrastructure projects that have run smoothly. I think people have unrealistic expectations
 
AbsolutEnduser

AbsolutEnduser

Throttle Pusher
mlm said:
Why? Can't say I understand the criteria placed on political -vs non-political content. Or at least the lack of any consistency in how it is applied.
Click to expand...

I'm not saying I "like the criteria", I just wanna be understanding how anything that's particularly connected to a specific Guv AND to the state is not political???

"Wow Jerry fucked it up? Would have never guessed that someone who is famous for robbing Peter to pay Paul could do such a thing. "

It's kinda like dogfooding the political topics, yanno?
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top