November 13, 2018

In Shocking Surprise, Cost of California Bullet Train Goes Up Again

California High-Speed Rail Authority

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You all know that the ballooning cost of the LA-San Francisco bullet train is one of my hobbyhorses. Well, it’s ballooned again:

The cost of constructing the Southern California section of the state bullet train could jump by as much as $11 billion over estimates released earlier this year…Over the three sections, the potential costs amount to a 50% surge from the business plan estimates released in February….The project has undergone a series of cost increases over the last decade from an original estimate of $33 billion to the current $77 billion.

….Civil engineering experts said they were astounded by the differences in the estimates, which they said they had never seen in other projects. “I can’t understand why they have cost estimates that are so different,” said William Ibbs, a UC Berkeley civil engineering professor who has consulted on high speed rail projects around the world….James Moore, director of USC’s transportation engineering program, was similarly skeptical about the rationale for the differences. “We are talking about the same project,” Moore said. “The differences should not be that large. It is an attempt to normalize the numbers and get them into the public discourse.”

That’s an $11 billion increase since February. The rail authority folks have a bunch of excuses for this. My favorite is that this isn’t so much a higher estimate as merely a different estimate.

I’m curious. Have any bullet train supporters dropped their support as costs have skyrocketed over the past few years? Nobody comes to mind. I guess they just don’t care. The train is a good idea, full stop, no matter how much it costs. And I hardly need to tell you that $77 billion is hardly the last overrun we’ll get. After all, we’ve barely even begun building the thing.

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WHO DOESN’T LOVE A POSITIVE STORY—OR TWO?

“Great journalism really does make a difference in this world: it can even save kids.”

That’s what a civil rights lawyer wrote to Julia Lurie, the day after her major investigation into a psychiatric hospital chain that uses foster children as “cash cows” published, letting her know he was using her findings that same day in a hearing to keep a child out of one of the facilities we investigated.

That’s awesome. As is the fact that Julia, who spent a full year reporting this challenging story, promptly heard from a Senate committee that will use her work in their own investigation of Universal Health Services. There’s no doubt her revelations will continue to have a big impact in the months and years to come.

Like another story about Mother Jones’ real-world impact.

This one, a multiyear investigation, published in 2021, exposed conditions in sugar work camps in the Dominican Republic owned by Central Romana—the conglomerate behind brands like C&H and Domino, whose product ends up in our Hershey bars and other sweets. A year ago, the Biden administration banned sugar imports from Central Romana. And just recently, we learned of a previously undisclosed investigation from the Department of Homeland Security, looking into working conditions at Central Romana. How big of a deal is this?

“This could be the first time a corporation would be held criminally liable for forced labor in their own supply chains,” according to a retired special agent we talked to.

Wow.

And it is only because Mother Jones is funded primarily by donations from readers that we can mount ambitious, yearlong—or more—investigations like these two stories that are making waves.

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