11/29/2023 0 Comments California gridlock ticketMore than $4.8 billion in construction contracts were awarded to a myriad of Central Valley private contractors. As of June 2020, 4,000 construction workers, 73 percent of whom are from the Central Valley, were employed at 32 separate active construction sites operating simultaneously along a 117-mile stretch of the MB line. It has been especially good at creating jobs for Central Valley construction workers and private contractors. Originally pitched as an environmentally friendly alternative form of transportation, the CHSRA line is no different than any other pork-barrel project. Thus far, the only speed record this train has set is the unprecedented rate at which it has burned through state and federal tax dollars. However, a lack of state oversight coupled with ad hoc financing pushed costs for the MB line well past the initial estimates. The MB line’s original projected cost made up one-fifth of the entire high-speed rail’s total cost. Gavin Newsom (D) took office in January 2019, he ignored his initial misgivings to shut down the Bakersfield Merced (MB) portion of the project and decided to move full steam ahead with construction, promising to deliver an operational line by 2029. Jerry Brown’s dream of uniting California’s coastal metropolises and parts of the Central Valley has transformed into a disjointed, mismanaged fiscal nightmare with rising costs every single year following its inception. The $100 billion cost is 23 percent greater than the highest estimated cost of $81.4 billion that Citizens Against Government Waste projected in an extensive September 2008 joint report with the Reason Foundation and the Howard Jarvis Taxpayers Foundation. Initially budgeted at $35 billion, former California Gov. After 12 years of delays, mismanagement, and political gridlock, the total cost estimate for the California High-Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) has reached $100 billion.
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