Infrastructure Plan

President Biden’s plan for infrastructure will expand federal government control and inefficiencies. If you just look at California State inefficiencies, you can see that California is a failure at large projects. The most recent projects have turned into boondoggles at the expense of the taxpayers.

The San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge (Eastern span replacement) went from a $250 million to $6.5 billion overrun. It was 6 years behind schedule and five times over budget. The maintenance for the bridge cost $100 million from 2016-2017.

The High-Speed Rail or bullet train has broken dozens of its promises and is 10 years behind schedule and $4.6 billion in overrun in 2018. It’s been 13 years since voters narrowly approved a $9.95 billion in bond seed money. The HSR system has shrunk to a 171 miles link between Bakersfield to Merced. At the same time, the Rail Authority continues to downplay the problems, as change-orders and eminent domain continue to raise the cost of a project that is not financially feasible.

Former President Donald Trump said the HSR was a disaster and pulled funding for project. President Joe Biden is in favor of the HSR and wants to spend good money on bad.

Gov. Gavin Newsom who has a pitiful performance as a Governor, continues to keep the HSR project alive with a shrunken 171mile link between Bakersfield and Merced.

So why is Gov. Newsom continuing to raise money for a boondoggle project in which money can be spent more effectively on issues that are more important to California population? Gov. Newsom would rather have a HSR when there is already a train that serves the same purpose. Where are the Governor’s priorities when it comes to the homelessness, school shutdowns, increase in crime, and destructive wildfires and global warming?

The Governor is straddling a fence when he unlawfully changed the project to Bakersfield to Merced. The thing working against the Governor is geography, low population density, competition from electric cars and planes that are more efficient, convenient, faster, and relatively cheap by world standards. California voters were sold a bill of goods back in 2008 as the H.S.R. is an expensive, outdated solution, looking for a problem. John Winkler

San Pedro