The monumental task of building California's bullet train will require tunneling through the geologically complex mountains north of Los Angeles. State officials say the tunnels will be finished by 2022 — along with 300 miles of track, dozens of bridges or viaducts, high-voltage electrical systems, a maintenance plant and as many as six stations. A Times analysis of project documents suggests however, that deadline and budget targets will almost certainly be missed — and that the state has underestimated the challenges ahead. A confidential 2013 report by the state's main project management contractor, New York-based Parsons Brinckerhoff, estimated that the cost of building the first phase from Burbank to Merced had risen 31%, and the total cost of the project would rise approximately 5%. Bent Flyvbjerg, a University of Oxford business professor and a leading expert on megaproject risk, said the lagging schedule, litigation, growing costs and permit delays arising so early in construction are warning signs that even more delays and higher costs are imminent
This article provides insight into the difficulties of central planning. Specifically, it illustrates the undesirable consequences of having insufficient information necessary for the state to produce the system in an efficient manner.
http://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-bullet-train-cost-final-20151025-story.html
3 comments:
This is a very interesting article which shows a lot of problems for California in the future i believe. If this project shoots over the budget, there could be a possibility that they stop the project halfway and all the money they spent was pointless. Hopefully they come up with a way to stay in the budget because a bullet train would be awesome in California.
I believe that detailed central planning is necessary to get these plans back on track. This geologically complex plan requires a complex solution that should have been put into place years ago. I believe if plans continue to be delayed and costs continue to grow the tunnels will be finished well after 2022.
Will it be worth it in the end? all this time and money spent on something that seems too far fetched. Especially since there could be an 80-90% probability of a cost overrun when it is already costing 68 billion dollars. did the train system in France cost that much? I highly doubt it. And although a train the length of California could be beneficial, there are other means of transportation that are still widely used, like cars and planes and they don't cost 68 billion dollars. They need to get the plan for this train back on track if they want it to be fulfilled, they didn't seem to plan well enough to begin with.
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