What's The Latest News On High Speed Rail?

[Hobby]

Last time I was in Fresno not much progress on the high-speed rail. Just how much is the high-speed rail that won't be high speed costing California now?

[Tuscano]

Hahaha! A joke in my famiglia. My nephew is an engineer. We were all so happy when, following graduation, he was hired by Caltrans! The train to nowhere in hurry! a lifetime of full employment!

[Danno]

the one they are building in Florida goes 85mph. what joke, amtrac goes faster than that

[rooftop]

Lots of jokes one can tell about HSR.  Am interested in what it takes to perform a mercy killing of the project.  There are fewer than 200 construction workers making big union prevailing wage rates.  Assuming we could take out all the contractors (although they provide campaign contributions) we could reach a settlement with each construction union.  The settlement would give the key unions a combined amount to cover the 200 employees.  The unions could dole the money out any way they want.  200 workers at 120,000 per year per union worker is 24,000,000 in union wages.  Let's double the number of workers and double the annual salary to $240,000 and we increase the annual payment to the unions to 96 million dollars a year.  We could pay the unions for the next twenty years for $2 billion.  The HSR project is projected to cost $5-$10 billion a year for the next ten years.  And we have no guarantee they will ever finish anything meaningful or double that budget with cost over-runs and reduced functionality and features. 
So if we kill the project now, pay off the unions with $2 billion we can all move on with your tax payer lives.  There will be plenty of other boondoggles for which we can make jokes.  Stopping the project will also free demand for concrete to help lower construction costs for residential and commercial facilities statewide. 

[Hobby]

The High-Speed Rail is the biggest money pit in California history and we can thank the Democrats. Anytime the government gets involved in construction the cost is going to be 3 or 4 times more than what they said it would be. By the time the first passenger travels on the HSR, the HSR will be obsolete replace by electric helicopters that can carry a busload of people and land at terminal stations.

[Romanticlover]

Why would I take a four hour train ride when I can fly to LA in one hour?

HSR is a waste of money, they could buy hundreds of Greyhound style buses for less money and use the existing infrastructure(freeways, highways, etc).

[Hobby]

Why would I take a four hour train ride when I can fly to LA in one hour?

HSR is a waste of money, they could buy hundreds of Greyhound style buses for less money and use the existing infrastructure(freeways, highways, etc).

flying time is 1 hour but time to get to the airport, check in will be another hour or 2

[Romanticlover]

The same will be so for a train ride and you will still need someone to pick you up at the train station.
Back in the 80's they were talking about HSR from LA to Vegas, still hasn't happened.

[eldritch]

I really wish this dream could become a reality. But Ugh, they've left downtown Fresno a mess and still haven't fixed the streets they cut off. The university even says go for HSR jobs for a secure career, even if it doesn't get fixed. They don't even hide that the aim is only to complete the test track. Of course yet again the Simpsons prediction comes true...