by Bob Walsh
Elaine Howell is the State Auditor in the formerly great state of California and as state bureaucrats go she is both honest and competent. A recent review of funding for Jerry's Toy Train, known more formally as the Not-Quite-High-Speed-Rail Authority, has poured about $1 billion down the crapper by starting to build before they had plans or a right-of-way. It is kind of like starting to film Waterworld before they had a script and after having gone thru their fourth chief writer.
The state stands to lose $3.5 billion in federal grant money if the first segment is not completed by December of 2022. The auditor says they will have to crank up actual building by 100% if they are going to make it.
The cost has already risen from the original projection of $32 billion to $77 billion. The trains will NOT run as fast as was promised (a promise written into the ballot proposition that created the Not-So-High-Speed-Rail Authority) not quite ten years ago when the voters bought into this bullshit.
Actual construction of the first segment, between North Buttcrack and South Buttcrack (actually Madera to Bakersfield, which is pretty much the same thing) began in 2015, before they actually had acquired much of the right-of-way they needed.
Gavin Newsom, the Governor-Elect, is quite luke-warm on Jerry's pet project. He is much more interested in getting the portion from the central valley into SF completed than the line from Sacramento to Los Angeles.
There is currently a serious push underway to run a BART feeder from Modesto and Stockton into the BART system in Pleasanton, or Livermore if they ever build the station there. Unfortunately the actual BART trains can not climb the Altamont Pass so there will be some sort of transfer involved.
The BART system is also talking seriously about putting a second trans-bay tube in place between Oakland and San Francisco as the system is approaching its absolutely capacity without it. They are looking at ten years down the road on that. .
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