"It's also worth noting that private sector contractors in CA know how to game the bidding process and often politicians or their families have stock or personal relations with the contractors."

This is something that only occurs in California?

FLORIDA CONTRACTS GO TO COMPANIES THAT FLOODED RON DESANTIS CAMPAIGN FUND

https://theintercept.com/2022/09/27/florida-ron-desantis-cam...

you're right that labor is only a part of it. but part of the reason why the CA project saw huge rises in costs is because of project planning and scope increases in the planning -- both of which are politically driven.

part of the politically driven issues stem from NIMBY-ism but the other (arguably more heinous) part is how the cities can force the plan to be re-routed [1]. not only do costs rise and opening dates delay, the hypothetical "high speed" nature no longer rings true.

[1] https://youtu.be/S0dSm_ClcSw?t=129

I don’t understand, was there ever an option not to put a stop in Palmdale? Skipping Palmdale would honestly be a huge lack of vision. There are like 3-400,000 people that live in the Palmdale / Lancaster area that would be in a nice transit distance from that station. The current Antelope Valley metrolink linke services like 6000 daily commuters even though it takes like 2 hours. Shortening this distance to like 20-30 minutes will surely increase this number by a lot.

This is also the logical location for a connecting station to a future train to Las Vegas.

Also this station will have passing tracks, so not every train will stop there. Even if only 2-3 of every 10 trains stop there, it will be a huge improvement to so many people. Honestly, if they were to skip it, they would probably realize that mistake and add it as an infill station, which would be even more expensive.

I think the Palmdale station is kind of a non issue if you compare it to true cost drivers, such as UP and the city of Hanford, both of which have forced giant mega structures to the project, structures that didn’t need to be that large, but were made to be just so that existing infrastructure didn’t need to be relocated with temporary disruptions.

if the goal is having high speed transportation while minimizing cost burden to the taxpayer, palmdale and other similar cities would have been skipped.

likewise, i'm not going to stop using LAX because it's in Inglewood and not koreatown; i'll figure out how to make the commute.

if CA really wanted to build this right without succumbing to the pork granted to all these towns, CA should have probably taken a more incremental approach (eg. first build the cheapest, shortest-distance, and most environmentally-friendly path. then, build secondary rail systems that go through areas with high population density.)

I think CAHSR has been pretty explicit in what the goals of the project are, and it includes servicing under-served communities with jobs and high quality infrastructure. So you might be attacking a straw-man here, as minimizing cost and the speed of travel is only one of many goals here.

But OK lets say that speed and cost was their only goals, I’m actually not sure that the I-5 alignment straight to Bakersfield would be any cheaper. In fact it might be more expensive, as you would probably need to tunnel under most of the Tejon pass. Such a long tunnel is much more challenging—and hence expensive—then two shorter tunnels under the San Gabriel mountains and the Tehachapi. Now if you evaluate this with the benefits of a Palmdale station, this becomes a no brainier.

Bear in mind that a similar situation arises in the north, where there is an option of doing a very long and expensive tunnel under the Pacheco pass, or take a slight detour to do a cheaper Altamont tunnel. Here CAHSR decided with the expensive option. Part of the decision is probably because Altamont is already serviced with good transit options, while areas south of San José, don’t. Also note that a Tejon Pass tunnel would probably be even longer and much deeper then the Pacheco Pass tunnels.

> likewise, i'm not going to stop using LAX because it's in Inglewood and not koreatown; i'll figure out how to make the commute.

I don’t think this is comparable at all. If the CAHSR would skip Palmdale, then people in the Antelope Valley would be forced to go to either Burbank or Bakerfield. For Burbank they can take the Metrolink, but it is extremely slow and has limited runs. For Bakersfield no mass transit option exists, you have to take a bus, and it is also like 2 hours. Going from downtown LA to Inglewood is simply not the same.

> CA should have probably taken a more incremental approach

So we’ve moved the goalpost here a bit, but OK. I think CAHSR actually agrees with you here. The first portion with CASHR funding to open is going to be the Caltrain electrification and modernization from San José to San Francisco. This is the cheapest, shortest distance, most environmentally-friendly path between two very large densely populated urban centers. The only rivaling corridor is probably LA to San Diego, but CAHSR probably realized the impossibility to get funding for that in the Obama era (as the Surfliner already exists; and the extensive tunneling required would be really expensive). After that the central valley is the easiest segment, so that is where they began after Calmod.

The California project didn't have to be sold the way it was - but that was the whole point, get the boondoggle started.

They could have spend a fraction of the money on improving the capital corridor and the Santa Barbara - San Diego corridor instead, but that wasn't sexy enough.

A lot of posters are saying politics. Doesn’t that imply it did have to be sold in certain ways in order to get passed?

i.e. A modest version with a negligible risk of boondoggle would likely never have gotten enough attention in Sacramento to make it out of committee.

It got sold that way because of CA's slightly weird proposition system.

There's no real political willpower for transit in California as a state; it's all located in some of the cities, which are plodding along relatively slowly but consistently (the San Diego Trolley is miles more than it was 20 years ago).