It's been six months since we posted about the on-going delays and spiraling budget of the high-cost rail system that is burning through roughly $46 million per month in the Central Valley. Most Bay Area people I speak with think either a) "hasn't this thing been killed already?"or b) "it will never get to the Peninsula" or c) "it will die of its own accord when the money runs out and we'll have an archaeological monument in Fresno". If you only read the SF Chronicle, then aside from other problems you have, you would think HSR is basically on-track to become a cost-effective commuter line into SF. They can even get ostensibly legit train people to write editorials to that effect.
So we have to rely on the LA Times for real reporting on what is going on with our money and it ain't pretty. In a piece this week titled California bullet train officials say they were told to suppress bad news and ‘shut up’ a couple of named whistle blowers and a number of supporting anonymous sources paint a disturbing picture
When Mark Styles was hired in October 2018 to help oversee Central Valley scheduling for the California bullet train, he soon learned he had walked into a mess. A core problem was the project’s operating culture, in which managers for WSP, the bullet train’s lead consultant, threatened to punish or terminate employees if they failed to toe the company line, Styles said. “I was told to shut up and not say anything,” said Styles, a career construction manager who was hired as WSP’s senior supervisory scheduler in the project’s Fresno office.
..Other ex-WSP employees in the Fresno office, including engineer Vera Lovejoy and project controls coordinator Todd Bilstein, say they were also discouraged from sharing bad news with bosses. Bilstein also left in 2019 after a nine-month tenure. “If I was to give a talk at a construction conference, I would say they were not following generally accepted project management principles,” he said.
Some of the details of the slippages that are going to cost several bundles include
To install track by 2022 would normally require all of the bridges, viaducts, trenches and other structures to be completed beforehand. As a stopgap measure, the rail authority now plans to install track in five-mile discontinuous segments, which the Federal Railroad Administration has criticized as illogical.
Today, the rail authority is short by 497 of the 2,042 parcels it needs, according to its most recent progress report. In December, the authority acquired only five parcels.
But the kicker comes from an anonymous source
“They have all these people in top jobs with no technical background,” said a top executive at a major European engineering firm, who worked on the project. “They are politicians. They never disclose the full cost. They give you incremental truth. They believe that is a successful business model. They should cancel the contracts and start over.”
I'm not sure I agree with the conclusion, but his problem statement sounds accurate. Imagine if we took a tiny sliver of what we are burning in the Valley and did the ten or fifteen key grade separations on the Peninsula, got the Caltrain electrification back on schedule and upped the frequency of service? Ah, it's nice to dream small.
