What Went Wrong With California's High-Speed Railway

[Music] if you live in san francisco and you want to get to l.a you kind of only have two options a six-hour drive or a journey out of the city to the airport followed by the journey through the airport to a plane followed by a 90-minute flight then a journey through a la airport and then a drive to wherever you're headed it's not exactly easy that's where the incredibly sensible plan for a high-speed rail line comes in it would better connect cities boost the economy cut emissions and help bring the world's only superpower into the high-speed club that's currently dominated by china [Music] but more than 20 years after it was first put forward work on the lines been nowhere near as fast and efficient as the trains it one day hopes to run plagued by difficulties and battling america's cultural preference for flying and driving the massive building project hasn't delivered much at all and some now think it may never be fully completed this is a look inside california's long tumultuous and somewhat unbelievable struggle to build america's first high-speed rail line america doesn't really build high-speed railways its current fastest line between washington dc and boston runs trains at 150 miles an hour but many would argue that's not high speed instead the country is plain and car travel centric home some of the world's busiest and most congested roads and airports that's what makes california's plan for a 220 mile per hour high-speed rail line stand out and feel almost revolutionary the plan is to link the regions of southern california san joaquin valley and san francisco bay providing a faster and cleaner way travel between them boosting the local economy and limiting the disruption to agricultural and protected lands along the route getting between these areas has always been a headache and it's always meant either a flight or a long car journey it's a problem that originally sparked elon musk's idea for hyperloop though that system's journey to becoming reality is a whole other video and the first system is now likely to become operational in the 2030s outside of the us the project's being led by the state-run california high-speed rail authority and though that was set up in 1996 it wasn't until 2008 that the plan for the high speed network proposition 1a was approved by voters then almost 10 billion dollars in bonds were issued for the planning and construction of the network which is said to extend over 800 miles phase 1 involves building that line from san francisco to la via the central valley which then carries on to anaheim phase 2 will go from la to san diego with another offshoot running from merced to sacramento construction's currently underway on the midway section a 119 mile corridor linking madera to bakersfield with 35 different sites currently active one recent piece of news is the completion of the san joaquin river viaduct superstructure it's a bridge on the border of fresno and moderna county that lacked as a new gateway into the central valley but while there's been some progress it doesn't exactly make up for the countless setbacks that continue to force delays and push-up costs originally priced at 33 billion us dollars in 2008 with services due to start in 2020 the final figures now estimated at over a hundred billion us dollars and it won't be ready until at least 2029 and that's just the first section in the middle [Music] like so many things in life it all comes down to money that 10 billion bond was never meant to cover the whole project the rest was due to come from private investors and the federal government but those dollars have been hard to come by and many potential backers have been unconvinced that americans would choose to stop flying between the two cities and take the train instead keeping hold of the cash has also been a battle in 2019 the trump administration withdrew almost a billion dollars in federal funding due to the lack of progress being made now with a new government in place and with joe biden being famously trained friendly the california high-speed rail authority is pushing to get this hefty chunk of funding back into its bank account land acquisition's also been a total nightmare there are still hundreds of parcels of land needed to secure a 65-mile section in king's county near fresco that's after construction has begun on the routes which isn't exactly ideal even once the central valley line is finished they'll represent just a fraction of the full system the crucial connections to la and san francisco are not even close to starting those segments are currently stuck in the dreaded environmental review stage and there's no real indication of how long that process will take or whether it will even lead to full approval and then if the green light is eventually given there's the small issue of raising all that extra cash to make it happen it's led some to label the projects are trained nowhere a system that ends up only serving the central valley where work is actually being done even california governor gavin newsom criticized plans for the overall project in 2019 saying it would cost too much and take too long blaming a lack of oversight and transparency he said right now there isn't a path to get from sacramento to san diego let alone from san francisco to l.a i wish there were the decision to appoint certain contractors has been called into question as well according to the los angeles times one firm that promised 300 million dollars in savings by altering designs for the kings county section ended up costing the project 800 million dollars in overruns and those proposed changes have now been largely scrapped despite all this and with progress being closer to the pace of a snail than a bullet train it's hard to ignore the benefits this project would bring if it's eventually finished it's not just about speed and efficiency getting people out of their cars will be crucial to the us achieving the climate change target set out by the biden administration with the passing of a two trillion dollar infrastructure plan that has around 20 billion dollars earmarked for intercity rail there's now cautious optimism about the future of high-speed projects across the us although california's was the first to get going it's not the only high-speed route as planned and it might not even be the first to finish a high speed line between dallas and houston could be up and running by 2026 there's also brightline west a fast connection between victorville and las vegas which is due to break ground in 2021 and would eventually join up with the californian network and private investors are also eyeing up potential projects in florida and maryland whichever comes first and even if there are no further delays america's first high-speed rail line is still years away a stark contrast to what's happening in competing nations like china albeit in a very different culture and political system two-thirds of the world's combined high-speed rail network can now be found here and the europeans aren't too bad at building it either outside of the uk while the us may have little hope of catching the others in this particular race the completion of california's high speed line in whatever form it takes would at least set the wheels in motion [Music] if you enjoyed this video and you want to get more from the definitive video channel for construction make sure you subscribe to the b1m you

Channel: The B1M

Views: 1,193,589

Keywords: B1M, TheB1M, Construction, architecture, engineering, The B1M, Fred Mills, building, california, california high-speed rail, high-speed rail, san francisco, los angeles, transport, trains, bullet trains, infrastructure, us infrastructure, joe biden, trump administration, us infrastructure plan, sacramento, gavin newsom, china

Id: p__teJLmY3k

Length: 8min 13sec (493 seconds)

Published: Wed Jun 02 2021

Reddit Comments

[u/traal]

The final figure is now estimated at over 100 billion U.S. dollars.

Actually, it's $82.4 to $83.8 billion. The writer reads too much Vartabedian!

[u/combuchan]

This video is a bunch of clickbait baloney.

The construction difficulties with CAHSR have nothing to do with consumer preference. It is a long complicated story with premature designs put out to bid without the right of way even fully owned by the HSR authority.

The producer is completely wrong saying the $100 billion cost is just for that first section in the middle.

The fact of the matter is the project never had a budget, it had rough estimates that have been refined over time as engineering has progressed. People think the initial bond was enough to build it and that's never been the case.

The producer is also wrong because the private investors haven't come across because since the bonds the project never had a dedicated source of funding. Again, it has nothing to do with consumer preference.

And it's Fresno, not Fresco.

And wtf, the crucial connections around SF and LA have not even started? UTTER BULLSHIT.

Caltrain has hundreds of millions of dollars in HSR electrification, Metrolink is in a similar expansion phase. Even if you want to take that literally, the engineering and design between the mountainous bookends has been going on for years.

The producer has no idea about what's going in California and it shows.

[u/ATORKAA]

I'm not from Cali but it's common knowledge these contractors are buddy-buddy with a lot of local politicians. Sucks for you but good for the developers. They do the same w/ homeless housing.