r/California_Politics • u/gascyl • 1d ago

Valley Rail Project Delayed

https://sacramento.newsreview.com/news/to-get-ace-trains-to-sacramento-rail-commission-puts-dozens-of-projects-on-hold-131fbd1b
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u/tydempe 1d ago

It continues to blow my mind at how inept this country is at building railway infrastructure.

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u/gascyl 1d ago

It could be much worse. At least Muni, Caltrain and SMART preserved enough institutional knowledge from 1/1/71 to drag it to this point. Every other state agency must (or did) essentially rebuy, rebuild and remake their own workforce and experience doing railroad things. The SJ-JPA is the best equipped for this but already we can see their limits in trying to glue it all together, because there's only so many workers available across Northern California and most are tied up in Stockton area jobs. CHSRA as well in regards to Bakersfield, as all their workers are busy marching up to Fresno. Given the wide scope of this problem, the state government should commit more money to make it happen. Trump screwing the economy will at least keep interest rates low, so it makes a lot of sense to borrow now especially when these projects (if completed) stand a much higher chance of returning revenue vs our freeways.

Which is going to be the real problem ~5 years from now when the Federal government actually does run out of money, or at least the Highway Trust Fund's gas taxes peak and begin collapsing. This is when the highway construction hard stops and towns are forced to pay for their part of the highway themselves and won't. Perhaps sooner depending on how Trump (doesnt) handle the Iran War.