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@ kepford
2025-05-07 15:06:11
The California Bullet Train Is a Good Lesson in Political Deception
https://mises.org/mises-wire/california-bullet-train-good-lesson-political-deception
I was born and raised in this part of California and I drive by the construction sites for this rail line every week. I have watched them slowly progress for the last 15+ years. I know people that have worked on them and are working on them. It is wild how many people see the failure before their eyes. I'm not sure most are learning any valuable lessons from it though.
> Much has been written about the proposed (and proposed really is an understatement) project, which is supposed to run entirely by electricity created from renewable resources. In 2008, California voters approved a bond issue of $9.9 billion to determine the feasibility of the proposed high-speed railroad that would link San Francisco and Los Angeles with a then-$33 billion price tag.
> Understand that no private firm would build a railroad like this because it could never recoup its original costs. The current projected outlay of $135 billion almost surely will grow, as the project continues to miss its goals and run into more difficulties. It will be mathematically impossible for the rail line ever to turn a profit, even if it ever is completed—which is highly doubtful.
I fully agree with this statement.
> But, even given the flat terrain, much of the Bakersfield-Merced line will have to run on huge concrete viaducts that are extremely costly and will take years to complete. To put it another way, if the lowest-hanging fruit for a rail line has been extremely costly, think what will be the case if they ever try to carve a path around and through the mountains that surround Los Angeles.
I and most of the people I speak to in my area believe this project will never be completed.
But for all the criticism of the cost over-runs and timeline shifting and goal changing the most obvious thing is the lack of demand for this line in the first place.
> ... the Central Valley already has passenger rail courtesy of Amtrak and if what we saw on our trip with near-empty cars is an indication of the Amtrak ridership of that area, one seriously doubts that high-speed rail—while a curiosity—will make a difference for people in that valley. The local political rhetoric notwithstanding, even if this monstrosity is completed, it won’t be a “game changer” but rather a conversation piece at best.
If this section of the line is actually completed there is no way it will ever pay itself off let alone be sustaining. There just isn't the demand for it let alone the demand needed to make this economically feasible.
Meanwhile the highways and roads in our area have been poorly maintained and are not sufficient to support the population. A faction of the money wasted on this project could have been used to improve transportation.
> The longevity of this failed project is a testament both to political inertia and to the love affair that progressives have with both central government economic planning and especially the high-speed rail. It is a massive malinvestment that is saddling California with huge debts that its taxpayers—most of whom will gain no benefit from the bullet train—will have to shoulder in the future. Those politicians and politically-connected contractors most responsible for this boondoggle will gain the benefits (and get to ride for free), while the victims will have to pay.
I would add that this whole en-devour has demonstrated to me the folly of the population when it comes to democracy and voting on central planning projects. The masses are not qualified to do vote on doing things like this. The fact that the project continues is an indictment on the idea of democracy.
originally posted at https://stacker.news/items/973907