Newsbusters:
The estimated cost of the initial segment of California’s bullet train, Golden State Governor Jerry Brown’s pet project, has (excuse the pun) just shot up from $6.19 billion to $7.13 billion. If this is the only overrun encountered in this opening phase, which would be atypical, and if the California High Speed Rail Authority has similar experiences on the remainder of the project, assuming it’s ever completed, its cost will rise from a currently estimated $68 billion to about $78 billion.
Obviously a big cost overrun is news. But normally, evidence of an attempted government coverup of such an overrun is even bigger news. But not at the Los Angeles Times. The paper’s Ralph Vartabedian kept it out of his headline and waited until his story’s ninth paragraph to note it. Even then, his description was needlessly vague. Excerpts follow the jump (bolds are mine throughout this post):
Estimated cost of key bullet train segment rises $1 billion
The estimated cost of building a key Central Valley segment of the California bullet train has increased by nearly $1 billion from the original estimate, based on figures in an environmental impact statement approved by the rail agency Wednesday.
The estimate, prepared for the state by a team led by San Francisco-based engineering firm URS Corp., includes higher costs for tracks, structures, land purchases, signals and electrical systems in a segment that would run from Fresno to Bakersfield.
The lowest cost estimate for the 114-mile segment in a 2011 environmental report was $6.19 billion. The comparable figure increased 15% to $7.13 billion in the new report.
The California High Speed Rail Authority said in a statement that it believes the cost will be lower than URS is projecting. In a March report to the Legislature, the authority’s budget showed smaller increases totaling $222 million for the section, although that estimate included a different set of assumptions.
The authority still forecasts that the entire Los Angeles-to-San Francisco line can be built for about $68 billion. Some critics and experts noted that the prospect of higher costs is arising before construction has begun.
That final sentence is just plain dumb. You don’t have to be a “critic” or “expert” to observe “that the prospect of higher costs is arising before construction has begun.” All you need is a pair of eyes.
Continuing, while moving to Paragraph 9:
Cost estimates for the Fresno-to-Bakersfield segment have been the subject a dispute between URS and state officials, records show. In a March progress report to the rail authority, the consulting firm complained that it had been “instructed” by the authority to hold cost estimates for the project’s business plan at a “baseline” that was set in 2012. URS wrote that “in its professional opinion” the authority was incorrectly assigning projected cost increases to a contingency account.
URS appeared to be taking a strong stand. Under the state’s code of conduct for licensed professionals, engineers can “only express professional opinions that have a basis in fact or experience or accepted engineering principles.”
“The URS statement that uses the words ‘in our professional opinion’ is not a casual remark,” Ibbs said.
UBS is “taking a strong stand” because the authority attempted to intimidate the firm into producing a report not in accordance with their professional opinion. This is what corrupt government bodies routinely attempt to do upon encountering bad news which would outrage taxpayers.
CA is very deep in the hole financially.
Underfunded pensions are over $200 Billion in the red there.
Covering up that fact is almost a full-time job for Brown and his leftist media.
One of the commentors at the NB site points out that the laying fallow of so much farm land in CA’s central valley helps lower the prices of high-speed rail land purchases there.
Using a minnow as an excuse to ruin CA’s breadbasket-to-the-world so a rail can be laid cheap…..Sheesh, only in CA would they cut off their noses to spite their faces in this way.