Nowthat the California legislature has approved a $4.5 billion bond issue in orderto claim $3.2 billion from federal taxpayers toward construction of a promisedhigh speed rail link between Los Angeles and San Francisco, details of thedifficulties faced in actually building the railroad tracks for these bullettrains are beginning to be released for public consumption. Here are just a fewnotes from detailed analysis of the proposed routing for the first 130 milesegment from Madera to Fresno, to be built at a cost of $2.6 billion out of thetotal budget of $68.4 billion for the entire project:
TheCalifornia Department of Transportation anticipates it will cost $226 millionand take three years to relocate a short stretch of highway 99 through Fresnowhere the roadway now nestles right up against the Union Pacific rail yards betweenAshlan and Clinton Avenues. In order to make room for the bullet train tracks, 2.5miles of the road will have to be torn up and replaced about 100 feet to thewest, a frontage road will be built, along with 3 new Route 99 interchanges,and 50 private properties will be condemned and purchased by the state,displacing an assisted living facility, a mobile home park, a truck stop, an RVdealership, several motels, and two self storage facilities. The bullet trainproject budget will have to bear the cost of relocating all of thesebusinesses.
Accordingto plans of the high speed rail authority, 30% of the construction work on theproject must be performed by small business subcontractors, and the authorityis considering an additional requirement that one third of that goal, or 10% ofthe entire project budget, must be spent on work performed by minority andwomen owned businesses. In Chicago area government construction projects, theusual contract requirement is for 30% of the work to go to MBE/WBE tradesubcontractors. It remains a puzzlement why California’s goals fordisadvantaged business participation are so much lower.
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