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Exactly what I was thinking
It like those highspeed rail projects that are finally getting going in the US, they're over budget because a lot of people now have to be trained on how to work on such a project due to either lost knowledge or new stuff they're learning during the process
Another factor in the trains, at least for California, is that the project was put on hold for a while because of the hyper loop crap. Now they need to resume buying land for the track and prices are where they are
Honestly they should just specify the project as a public works project, would give them eminent domain rights and skip the whole 9 yards of land pricing. It would force it to be done based off fair market price instead of the inflated BS all land is currently at. Least if I understand eminent domain right.
I don't know for certain but I expect they used eminent domain.
I think you're right. I'm from Canada, so laws might be different, but AFAIK, eminent domain means the owner can't say, "No, I'm not selling" to the government, not that the government has total control over the price. Landowners can also argue that losing that portion of land will negatively affect the remaining property and argue in court to be compensated.
And since California has Prop 13, i wonder if landowners can sue for the future tax increases for the replacement property? Afterall, that is a direct consequence of the forced sale of the land.
"You are increasing my property taxes forever. So you should be responsible for that increase... forever."
Good Point!
Site Note: A family member who lives in California recently explained how their property taxes are calculated, and that system is crazy! That system encourages people to never move, which probably contributes to housing issues because seniors are dis-incentivized from down-sizing, etc.
Yep.
We used to have the problem of senior citizens having their property taxes jacked up every year to the point that the taxes are almost as high as the original purchase price. Bunch of seniors were ending up losing their houses.
Prop 13 was designed to fix that; and it did, but it also caused a bunch of 'unintended consequences'.
Eminent domain is subjected to legal challenges. Both to the authority (there must be a purpose) and also to the FMV assessment. Which costs money. And time.
If it was as easy as snapping their fingers, it would've happened.
Nah they are over budget because there is no incentive to keep under budget, it was sub contracted out so much that there is either no communication/miscommunication/or willfully not listening, sales pretended they were engineers, and bad engineers were promoted to project management.
I work in infrastructure.
Me three weeks ago on email to main contractor: hello, your spec is calling for some parts that are no longer manufactured which means we will have to buy used. Leading to more money now and higher replacement part costs in the future for the government. Plus these parts are on the border of safe.
This morning: your exception list was rejected, follow spec.
So a small city in California is getting a brand new system made of used parts. No this isn't a direct quote this is a summary.
can the maintenance department who will be eventually responsible start working on fabricating those so you'll have new-made even if not off the shelf? rapid prototyping and small runs....
Nah. I deal with the electronics and city maintenance departments arent going to sit there and clone a touch screen from the late 90s. Even if they somehow could it wouldn't matter because the spec calls for products by brand name.
This is why there are cost overruns. It's crap like this.
It's a big job to train all those train trainers.
The paying to train is one thing. The bigger problem is people who aren't super experienced in these projects doing estimates and costings.
You're always going to have some overruns, and if you're lucky, some underruns too. But if your estimates are out of wack... well. Good luck. Combine that with Parkinson's law and you are in for a world of hurt.