Walker
The KLD / Downtown
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Rail, bus projects likely to be lower ODOT priority
Monday, May 9, 2011 09:43 PM
BY ROBERT VITALE
The Columbus Dispatch
The Ohio Department of Transportation has erased talk of an "integrated network" of roads, rails and other modes of travel in the Kasich administration's first rewrite of policies that guide state-funding decisions.
johnwirtz
Evanston, IL
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Walker wrote >>
Rail, bus projects likely to be lower ODOT priority
Monday, May 9, 2011 09:43 PM
BY ROBERT VITALE
The Columbus Dispatch
The Ohio Department of Transportation has erased talk of an "integrated network" of roads, rails and other modes of travel in the Kasich administration's first rewrite of policies that guide state-funding decisions.
READ MORE: http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2011/05/09/ODOT-rail-bus-projects-funding-priority.html?sid=101
Nothing stimulates economic development like citizens spending most of their paychecks on petroleum and the rest on taxes to pay for excess infrastructure per capita.
Walker
The KLD / Downtown
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Ohio won't ask feds to reimburse money for dead 3-C rail plan
Thursday, June 16, 2011
Associated Press
Ohio has decided not to press for federal reimbursement of $1.3 million the state spent on a high-speed rail project that has been abandoned.
hugh59
Aboard the ultimate power in Olde Towne East
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Maybe we were lucky to refuse taking the $400 million from the Feds.
MSNBC Report on High Speed Rail Initiative
According to the report, California was to get $2 billion in Federal money to start on their high speed rail project. The projected total cost was originally to be $33 billion and the project was to be completed in 2020. Now the projected total cost is $98.5 billion and it is to be completed in 2033.
This is like the the bike shelters but on a much grander scale: it costs a lot and you do not get as much as you thought you would.
johnwirtz
Evanston, IL
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hugh59 said:
Maybe we were lucky to refuse taking the $400 million from the Feds.MSNBC Report on High Speed Rail Initiative
According to the report, California was to get $2 billion in Federal money to start on their high speed rail project. The projected total cost was originally to be $33 billion and the project was to be completed in 2020. Now the projected total cost is $98.5 billion and it is to be completed in 2033.
This is like the the bike shelters but on a much grander scale: it costs a lot and you do not get as much as you thought you would.
Inflation and a longer construction timeline has a lot to do with the higher cost. There's some added scope too. See more here:
http://pedestrianobservations.wordpress.com/2011/11/01/the-cahsr-bombshell/
hugh59
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johnwirtz said:
Inflation and a longer construction timeline has a lot to do with the higher cost. There's some added scope too. See more here:
http://pedestrianobservations.wordpress.com/2011/11/01/the-cahsr-bombshell/
Thanks for the info. The report you cite to notes that it would me more accurate to ignore the effects of inflation and the longer build time and use a figure of $65 billion. A factor of 2 increase is not much better than a factor of 3 increase. The project is increasing in size; that is what frequently happens with big government orojects these days. Just look at Boston and the big dig there. The cost became incredible.
Walker
The KLD / Downtown
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hugh59 said:
Maybe we were lucky to refuse taking the $400 million from the Feds.MSNBC Report on High Speed Rail Initiative
According to the report, California was to get $2 billion in Federal money to start on their high speed rail project. The projected total cost was originally to be $33 billion and the project was to be completed in 2020. Now the projected total cost is $98.5 billion and it is to be completed in 2033.
More context, here: http://www.columbusunderground.com/forums/topic/the-other-rail-corridors-getting-federal-stimulus/page/21
johnwirtz
Evanston, IL
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hugh59 said:
Thanks for the info. The report you cite to notes that it would me more accurate to ignore the effects of inflation and the longer build time and use a figure of $65 billion. A factor of 2 increase is not much better than a factor of 3 increase. The project is increasing in size; that is what frequently happens with big government orojects these days. Just look at Boston and the big dig there. The cost became incredible.
Agree, 2x higher is bad. However, like you said, it's not because the costs were estimated wrong. Mostly, they just keep adding stuff, much of which they may not need. It sounds like the electrification costs are also way out of line compared to other countries. But US construction costs are pretty much always too high for some reason.
As for 3C, I'm not sure it's reasonable to assume the scope and cost of 3C would have doubled just because that's what happened with CAHSR. The 3C was much less complex. I would think they had a better handle on the necessary work. But who knows? Kind of a moot point for now.
hugh59
Aboard the ultimate power in Olde Towne East
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Whether it is $300K for ten bike shelters or $400M to start adjustments to tracks for the 3C Corridor, I wonder what the price would have been if the responsible agencies were not going all "business as usual" on us.
johnwirtz
Evanston, IL
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hugh59 said:
Whether it is $300K for ten bike shelters or $400M to start adjustments to tracks for the 3C Corridor, I wonder what the price would have been if the responsible agencies were not going all "business as usual" on us.
I don't know what you mean by business as usual.
hugh59
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johnwirtz said:
I don't know what you mean by business as usual.
By "business as usual" I mean that the executives in large entities (government agencies and large corporations) are often not concerned about how much certain projects cost. In some cases, they want a project to cost more because it justifies increasing their salaries and the number of people who report to them.
For example, if a project has a budget of $10,000, the executive in charge is going to be limited as to how much he can ask for compensation. But if a project is $1 million, that executive can ask for much more. I saw this first hand during the early 80s. I was an intern at the an public relations company that had the Wendy's account (back when it was just a regional fast food chain). They were producing commercials that were just as good as the national commercials (produced in Hollywood) for $50,000. The national commercials cost over 10 times as much ($700,000 or more). In my film production class, we watched a documentary about the production of a 7-Up commercial...we were amazed at all the waste and inefficiency.
Mercurius
First Avenue
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ehill27
Short North
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May 5, 1962 | Use of ‘Beeliner’ spells end to city rail service
By Gerald Tebben FOR THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH
Saturday May 5, 2012 5:13 AM
The New York Central Railroad was “ringing the death knell of north-south railroad service through Columbus,” Columbus Utilities Director Howard Johnson told The Dispatch on May 5, 1962.
arenn
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To respond to an old post, one reason that national commercials cost so much more is the contracts with the unions. My brother is an actor in Chicago and it's amazing what they get if they are on a national SAG production. Literally one national commercial could pay for a struggling actor to live for a year. Getting in one of these things is like hitting the lottery.
johnwirtz
Evanston, IL
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^Yes, the railroads wanted out of the passenger business. Passenger operations either lost money or made less money than freight business, but the railroads were required to provide passenger service by federal regulations. So they stopped investing in the passenger service, let conditions fall into disrepair, which decreased demand for the service. Once ridership droppsed, the railroad could go to the regulators and say, "Look, nobody rides it."
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