The California bullet train authority is moving ahead in issuing a 30-year-long contract to install bullet train track, set up high-voltage electrical lines, create a digital signaling system, build a heavy maintenance train garage, and obligate future maintenance of the equipment and track.
The project would cover future track from San Jose to Bakersfield, more than half the proposed Los Angeles-to-San Francisco system. According to the article, this would lock the state into a maintenance contract on segments it doesn’t have money to build.
Rail authority Chief Executive Brain Kelly defended the plan as "fulfilling the mission to build an electrified high-speed rail system." However, the Federal Road Administration warned the state not to move forward with the project due to concern over a lack of funding, and the state’s slow work pace, the report stated.
The article reports that the U.S. Department of Transportation terminated a 2010 grant for $929 million of the $3.5 billion that state obtained during the Obama administration, making it difficult to fund the line. In addition, if the state fails to speed up installation, all civil work may not be completed by 2022.
A state-appointed peer-review panel said in a letter it “is not convinced that the Authority has acquired the staff, process changes, controls and resources to take on such a massive contracting challenge. In addition, large and complex contracts are often protested, and the time schedule to meet the [grant] requirements would be immediately threatened by such a protest.”
Source: The Los Angeles Times & The Sacramento Bee
