One minor correction, LA Metro actually does have some level of master permitting authority when it comes to city streets, but they're voluntarily complying with Beverly Hills's scheduling demands, presumably to avoid rocking the boat.
As an Italian I can't believe my country is being used as an example of efficient public administration but I guess building hsr is the one thing we've managed to not screw up haha
Construction costs DEFINITELY should be itemized by unit price! As a state highway bridge engineer in Massachusetts and a consulting engineer in Louisiana in the past, I found out that highway projects, even for interstate highways, are budgeted by itemized costs using unit prices. This should be MANDATED by Congress for all projects, public and private.
Wonderful to see you include shifting highway funds. With a $68B deficit, we need to make choices, and one of those is to stop building highways, and start building transit.
CALTRANS is a problem. But they are a problem because most voters drive and want to drive on every bigger and larger road systems. We need to change the minds and practices of the voters. This would be a multi-generational long term project, but we have to start somewhere and at sometime, so why not HERE and NOW?
@@kdfox2007Honestly, we don't have time for a long multi-generational shift if we are to hit our climate goals. We also need to hold Caltrans accountable to already on the book laws that they are currently flouting, while strengthening accountability around the agency. It will be very hard to shift voter opinion unless we show, not just tell.
State capacity is a huge problem in the anglosphere. But one thing I'd like to note is that a lot of these issues also apply to highways, it's just that transit projects face much more scrutiny with environmental review etc. in the US especially.
Excellent point! Prime examples are Boston's Big Dig and the Columbia River crossing between Vancouver Washington and Portland Oregon. The Big Dig is a prime example of what happens to projects when everything is handed over to consultants instead of planning, designing, and managing the project in-house as opposed to small projects where only 10% contingencies are necessary and the projects are completed on time and under budget.
Yeah, it's not just the Anglosphere. I don't understand why people keep belaboring this point. Indonesia's HSR was 2x delayed and 2x over budget. India's is more than 2x delayed and more than 2x over budget. Japan's maglev line is 10 years delayed, won't open in full, and is 3x over budget. There are projects that go over budget all over the place. And there are US transit agencies that regularly complete projects on time and on budget. BART is completing their fleet replacement under by a significant amount and it looks like they will be ahead of schedule despite Alstom catching fire and trying to explode mid-contract. SF Muni completed the N line track replacement on time and on budget. This "anglosphere" meme needs to die. It has very little with reality. Just because the French transit agencies tend to not include planning and engineering work in "construction costs" while American projects do, does not mean that US projects go over budget more often. These are institutional and organizational changes more than they are actual differences in success rates.
@@TohaBgood2 the anglosphere thing is a rule of thumb, not a hard and fast dividing line. Also you need to account for the fact that anglosphere budgets tend to be ridiculously oversized in the first place so that claims can be made of coming in under budget. If there's a contingency, it's almost always going to be used. This means that fewer projects get funded at all.
We need an equivalent of the French Société du Grand Paris, a state owned company which is building the Grand Paris Express megaproject for pretty good prices and which will continue with other projects, thus increasing state capacity long term.
Same thing in Montreal where the state-owned CDPQ is building the REM at a cost of CDN$7 billion for 67 miles of automated, grade-separated light railway. The CDPQ has also assumed responsibility for the Quebec City tramway whose cost had ballooned to CDN$8 billion under city transit agency management.
Finally someone makes a video about it with a great and super professional video that puts to shame the main stream media. I've been saying it for a long time. As someone looking at it from outside of the US seeing all the problems those projects it became obvious that the main problem is the fragmentation of government and the people themselves elevating individuality to dangerous levels. It's not than in Europe we don't have individualism but there is more equilibrium between it and the needs of others. We have NYMBYs, we have people that distrust the government, corrupted politicians and greedy companies but it's not as intense. Most people have faith in government (not blind faith but most do believe it can work for us) and respect for the people that work for in it. We will check things, object to things we believe are wrong but we won't automatically object to everything that comes from the government (local or central). The lack of central planing and a clear path to do such projects is the main key for this to work. Such projects can take time, they have a required process, environmental studies and citizen can raise objections and turn to the courts but there is a process to do it and there are limits to it. Yo used to have this in the US. That's how you built the original rail network. The government defined the needs, gave private companies the means to build what was needed (like land and rights) while setting rules and obligations that were regulated (including adapting regulation when it was not effective). Than, when cars became the favorite the federal government set a nationwide plan to built the interstate highways and controlled it through financing 90% of the cost and still controls it through the maintenance funds to bring some order and uniformity in most areas. Nowadays it's basically impossible, even in the state level. I agree that the way forward is to change that but it will be very hard to do, especially with rail. Most people in the US are used to, not to say addicted, to car travel so most automatically support road construction but rail is a different thing that too many think it's redundant and, although there is some change, it's slow. Here most people want and demand more rail services. P:laces with insufficient connectivity demonstrate and demand improvement and more investment so most politicians tend to support it.
The slightly frustrating this is that when it comes to ambitious solutions like cutting down on dependence on consultants, there's so much reticence. But I'm happy about LA being serious about standardization at least
Another thing is do transit boardmembers actually care about solving these problems. Seattle’s boardmembers were told by transit costs project experts exactly what they should and shouldn’t be doing more of nearly a year ago and these boardmembers have arguably made the situation worse. This shows that despite having responsibilities to get these projects finished they actually do not seem to care all that much about delivering
Not hard. Tell the state to write transit funding bills that all board members and directors and above need to ride their own agency 8 times a month or the state will block their funding hext fiscal year. Anyone who can’t muster the interest to rude one round trip per week is clearly neither interested nor qualified to play any role in that agency.
My local county public transit authority recently voted to cancel plans to extend a much-needed bus rapid transit project down a major thoroughfare in my city, simply because a bunch of single-occupancy commuters thought the project would reduce the number of travel lanes and thus voted out our current city councilor and replaced her with one who hates public transit. 😢
Great stuff - I've read a lot about these projects but it's never been visualised and explained so clearly in a verbal sense. I'm glad this research is gaining more attention, thanks to videos like this :)
YES YES YES! Are there any groups already working towards a state wide solution? California needs to lead the way in solving this mess. As noted, as wealthy as we are there is no reason why we can't do this on our own without the help of the federal government. If nothing else, if we can make transit as easy to approve as a freeway widening that would be a huge win.
These big metros need to be consolidated into regional municipalities where the localities are arranged in boroughs like New York City. (Although that town is no paragon of low construction costs)
I recall like theres some movement in (mostly the Bay Area portion) of California to like consolidate transit agencies (e.g. Seamless Bay Area, etc), and some groups that post a lot on smaller-scale issues like electrification, and also like the established groups that are more keen on like alternative transit (e.g. pedestrianizing/biking/bus operations like someone mentioned here, streets for all) There was a bill to do like a study by the legislature (Friedman) of like what to do to keep transit afloat (implemented in the budget) by late 2025, and they got in people who advocate for some of the stuff above e.g. the said consolidation. But I haven't really seen much action on the prospect of project delivery reforms, and crossing my fingers that the legislature study includes stuff on much needed project delivery reforms....
@@edwardmiessner6502 This sounds very ideal, although many of the smaller cities and their politicians don't want to lose their job (or lower the salary of it at least in half). This is a big reason why the LA area is so poorly designed in general, many large civic projects are/have been scrapped over decades because of an involved city objecting to the plans within its city limits. Being mostly built during the vehicle golden age in the 40s-70s, until in the late 70s pollution and previous inflated gas prices is only when masses of Angelenos started to care about public transit at all again.
As one that has followed the build out of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) Metrorail System in National Capital Area sense just after first groundbreaking in 1969. A couple of the points you made about the way thing were done have been changed are proof as to why costs have spiraled out of control. One of the things WMATA did in the mid 1990s as construction was winding down in the original planed 101 mile system was the purging of the internal planning, design and engineering staff that was put in place by the *founding General Manager, and replacing them with consultants for future project when needed in the name of the cutting annual staffing costs. Much of the spiraling cost on expansions projects beyond the original planed 101 mile system and rehabilitation project of the existing system were the result of the loss of institutional knowledge. *Founding General Manager was formally a General in the Army Corps of Engineers.
That, and the lack of dedicated funding, and the fact that the most recent significant expansion was built & financed by the Airport Authority, and that until 2019 none of the state-level governments had an agency dedicated to non-highway transportation.
@@jmchristoph In the case of WMATA, dedicated funding is a different issue, as that issue has always been about the paying the subsidy costs based on the fare box recovery ratio. The Virginia Passenger Rail Authority only encompass intercity and commuter rail within the Commonwealth of Virginia, not local or metropolitan area public transit. The Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project (Silver line branch) was built under the Virginia Public-Private Partnership Act. When one of the two private partners dropped out of the partnership the entire project was taken over by Metropolitan Washington Airport Authority. The other partner had previously worked with WMATA in the building of the original planed 101 mile system, again loss of institutional knowledge.
Brilliant video to succinctly capture the problems with cost in the US and especially CA. Thanks for this massive amount of work. I wholeheartedly agree with the state transit reorganization effort (or to massively reform Caltrans to make then the transit agency they should be, there is a lot of expertise there) to address many of these cost and fiefdom issues. This could also help solve the problem of LA County having rail lines to counties that have only bus lines (like SB and the OC) so that, for example, a rail line from Long Beach to Santa Ana or Anaheim could be planned and built via one agency. And YES to "detailed master planning". I look forward to that episode! This is done in most major cities of the industrialized world. For example, Paris and Madrid have master plans that allow them to build provisions into their projects for planned future expansion even if it is 20 years later, which saves money and time because everyone knows, agrees, and commits from the start that the expansion is coming and the provisions have already been built in (such as tunnel portals, junction pre-work, station boxes, and ROW acquisitions) to facilitate that expansion. The Crenshaw North debacle just illustrates how a lack of foresight sets every stage of a project back to ground zero. It would have been nice if that WeHo spur line were studied as a more logical stand alone rail line (requiring that foresight) further on to the Purple Line or even the Expo Line with provisions further east to Glendale (for example), because that "spur" was not a great stand alone project.
When LAX NIMBYism stopped the Green Line and caused the line to veer to Redondo Beach instead of the Airport, Metro built an extension arm that was obvious that when LAX NIMBYism was temporary left off guard that the Green line would be extended on Aviation Blvd., to reach the LAX people mover. The NIMBYism in Redondo Beach's ROW can be overcomed once the LAX K stations are operational then NIMBYs cannot refused to see the benefit of faster method to get to the airport. It's an incredible situation to realize that two major extension to K Line have to be built in order to get the best cost for the buck for the LAX transportation improvements.
That's what I have been thinking! The West Hollywood spur line that town had asked for would be a much better project if it's built as a shuttle between the B and D or B and E Lines, either as a light railway or a heavy railway.
@@edwardmiessner6502 Exactly! In fact, Metro had already studied a branch of the Purple Line from Santa Monica to the Hollywood Red Line via WeHo which scored very well. For them to study only a spur line when they had the previous study seems like malfeasance to me. That spur line by itself had no chance of being built and didn't make any sense.
I've long-advocated for a Greater Long Beach plan to annex Carson, Lakewood, Signal Hill, etc. to create a political heavyweight in the South Bay and maybe even consolidate it as a its own city-county. There's no future plan for Long Beach rail, and the Blue Line doesn't make the transformative difference except for the few times a year I have to go to DTLA for symphony concerts or the courthouse.
Signal Hill basically only exists to pump oil and since that's stopping in the coming years maybe that's possible for Signal Hill. I dunno if making LB bigger than it already is would help since I feel like the more north you go the more suburban and barely maintained it is compared to closer to the core. But Long Beach is definitely underrated and I wish the LBT had more funding. I feel like with their bike network they're trying to make they could really become more of an urban village if they upzoned more areas and had more transit.
San Gabriel Valley got all the foothill cities allowing the foothill light rail ROW. I dialed into a lot of San Gabriel Valley meeting and didn't hear the NIMBYism as much that the South Bay. When regional cities can combine their requirement then billions of dollars for funding mass transit will follow. The South Bay cities I'm referring to are Lawndale, Redondo Beach and Torrance.
The most disgusting thing about all of this is that the Federal Government has literally unlimited spending power when it comes to infrastructure projects. All of these politicians who say that government has to "live within it's means" have no idea how federal spending works (or they do...keep reading). If you control the issue of your currency and all of your obligations are in that currency, by definition, you can't run out of money. The only way you run into a problem is when too many people have too much money and production can't keep up. This would most certainly NOT apply to transit projects. That the FTA has these contingency add ons is just another example of politicians who don't understand this basic fact. There is a reason this country is falling behind. It is moronic politicians who try to kill government by coming up with excuses that are not valid to starve government of money only to point out how government doesn't work when they are the ones who broke it. Oh, and then, you know, gotta sell off every public asset to the private sector so they can jack up prices. I wish more people understood all this, but, alas...they don't. They just buy into the lie
“If you control the issue of your currency and all of your obligations are in that currency, by definition, you can’t run out of money.” Hold the phone. Let me get this straight - are you under the impression a government can just print more money to pay obligations, consequence free? If you’re under that impression, your comment as a whole has little real world application, because that impression is very, very wrong.
@@SgtMustang In the US, you can. When Congress appropriates money. It is new money. When you pay taxes that doesn't pay for anything. It is currency taken out of circulation. Like I said in the above comment, people having so much money that the means of production can't keep up is the limitation. But, explain how this is not true since you seem to be so certain. I have studied this for years, and have degrees to back it up. I could be more detailed, but when it comes to infrastructure projects, the US federal government (not states) has no monetary constraints to build things people need. The US cannot go broke and infrastructure spending is not inflationary under any imagined circumstance. Bottom line is the US doesn't operate under "budgetary constraints" . It is not your :kitchen table" budget
While the **Feds** print currency (and infinite money glitch is debatable), local governments can’t, and federal rules require local matching funds. The interstate highway system was incredibly generous (90% Feds, 10% local) and transit is nowhere near that. But even if it were, when the costs balloon $1 billion, the local government is on the hook for an additional $100 million which has to come from somewhere.
@@Whatneeds2bsaid Which is why I said it was unfair to burden states when the federal government has the capacity to fund these projects without having to burden states, who, as you correctly noted, can not spend the way the federal government can
Great video as always! I would also recommend covering that the 4 appoited non-LA city Metro board members are chosen by regional COG’s, which is another layer of jurisdiction thrown in this mess. Most COG’s are pro freeway expansion, and Metro often relies on the COG’s for feedback and etc. In my opinion, Metro gives wayyy to much weight to the opinion of these uninformed COG’s, which is why Metro wastes billions on freeway widening as well.
Westside COGs has been VOCAL about extending the D Line and adding more BRT lines to LA's Westside. San Gabriel COG has been planning and pushing for BRT lines too. San Fernando Valley COG has been pushing for the Sepulveda Transit Line and ensuring mixed use stations along the line. I'd agree with you that they're misinformed but they're not necessarily freeway expansion.
@@PASH3227 It's so interesting to hear about this specific part of the process. In the SFValley and Bel Air there's a lot of loud opposition from loonies aged 60+ in HOA's for the Sepulveda project, ranging from "liberal propaganda" to "flying cars will have taken over by 2050", according to a Sherman Oaks HOA member lmao. The only reason why they're relevant is because they (private citizens) have the full power to stop a massive project like this, because of any delusional thinking (or racism) they want to believe. Which has happened several times in Beverly Hills and the South Bay, even though there's substantial local support for both by residents and businesses.
Wonderful video nandert! Your channel is still criminally underrated and if there was any of your videos that needs to go viral it would be this one. As a civil engineering student, I would do anything to work in a state transit “task force” in the future. I dread the thought of working at a private engineering firm knowing that we could have way cheaper projects if we transferred the same talent to public agencies. but like you said, massive reform is also needed at the state level (well, federal too, but i’m not holding my breath for that). i’m willing to dedicate as much free time as i can to this issue. thank you so much for your research
I agree. Massive, massive reform needs to be done not just at the state and federal levels but also the local level. There's no excuse for the L.A. metro to have a thousand local jurisdictions when the whole state of Massachusetts has only 351!
So I’d like to add a comment to this. I work for a consultant doing transit design and engineering. The reason I do so is our local agency doesn’t do it in house at all. I’ve met with the head of our agency to complain about this but nothing has really changed. So for beginning of the career transit engineers, there’s no ability to work for a transit agency and you have to cut your teeth in consulting before you can work for a transit agency 10 years into your career if you want to work on transit projects. For context my experience is in the twin cities area
Great stuff, loved the vid. Was very informative and is a must watch for anyone concerned with the slow pace of transit progress in So Cal. Sound Transit and WSDOT could learn something here too for the Light Rail (ST3) expansion around Seattle.
Love your videos and the addition of interviews! Brilliant stuff. Some small feedback: I think you could do without the background music, or at least lower your music volume. While your voice is nice to listen to, you sometimes rush your sentences, and combined with the music (those cymbals in particular!) it can sound cluttered and more fatiguing to listen to. Especially in your year-end summaries about Metro where you’re talking extra fast to cram in all the material. Do with that feedback what you will…thank you for all your hard work and I look forward to your next video. ❤
To be clear, it is a state-created agency, not a JPA. The reason it doesn't feel that way is because state law gave all the board seats to local politicians (excluding the non-voting CalTrans seat).
I know you're busy snd have a life, but I LOVE your videos and I'm super grateful I didn't have to wait an entire year for your next video lol. Please keep up the amazing content.
I agree that CalTrans should be that agency--the one with the in-house expertise and institutional knowledge, the authority to cut through red tape, and the ability to create master plans that impact regional projects. The fact that CalTrans considers itself mostly just an automobile highway agency is criminal.
At this point CEQA should be abolished. It slows down mass transmit and housing (Berkeley housing case was ABSURD!) yet hasn't stopped freeway expansions and building auto oriented single family neighborhoods in fire prone areas. It just needs to go! Also city of LA city council needs to be consolidated since it's too large to get things done while LA County Board of Supervisors should be expanded to 9 members. The other metro board members should be removed except the mayor of LA.
17:55 I would just like to say that even if the agencies almost always win in court against Citizen Voice, such procedures simply drag out the design phase incredibly until it is finally clarified how the route should run. as long as this is not the case, no specific planning/approval processes can begin. this also contributes significantly to the delay. In my opinion, the issue is not that Citizen Voice-like groups can prevent projects, but that they can seriously delay them.
I don't know it might be useful, but sometimes projects are built by "functional segments" that can be partially activated as soon was they get ready to start ramping up the demand, so in case of P3 contracts you are able to have more accurate prediction of usage end achieve better P3 conditions. Another aspect that is available is to use a dynamic funding agreement between entities where the cost of the project is spread in several stages where costs and funding are balance and split between funding entities, in addition funding entities that have financial slack can pick up expenses from another entity that my have a funding shortfall and, at the end all is rebalanced.
@@denelson83 Well Amtrak has the capability to build new trackage. Engineering has upgraded several sections of track along the NEC to higher speed standards (110-125mph) I think Amtrak will be more than capable to do that for their new services going forward.
@@denelson83 They're already building new track and new viaducts in the Northeast Corridor and are about to embark on a new railway tunnel under the Hudson to New Jersey.
I dont know how we can say that "the US is a very rural country" with a straight face...under 20% of the population lives in rural areas, the rest live in urban, suburban and x-urban areas...all that can gain from transit infrastructure... We just have this false perception when in fact we are a large country and not a rural one...
We are a rural country if you want to talk about getting legislation passed, the US Senate is 2 senators per state. Wyoming gets the same number of votes as California. The US House is a bit more population based, but it is also gives a greater weight to rural voices.
@@billinglendaleca5093 fair point - that is not what they said in the video if memory serves me right though...also, even in a "rural" states like Wyoming, 67% of the people live in urban centers - sure these aren't in NYC, Boston, Chicago, or LA levels of density but sufficiently high to qualify as "urban" by census data, so they too can benefit from transit related investments... but your point is a fair one and is probably a big part of the political calculus in the US even if IMO they are voting against their own interests...A more efficient transit system in urban places frees up highway space and resources for those who just have to use them and it stretches our existing roadway infrastructure capacity for longer...
This was great, not over-simplified analysis of the many problems plaguing transit planning and delivery…except for the entirely unnecessary litany of *insert random left-wing political priority here* comments. If you want to actually fix transit problems, you have to make it appeal a broad supermajority of people, not just the quarter to a third of people who align with your wider political agenda. Few if any of the proposed solutions actually require a left-wing agenda, and the overall goal of making the government work more efficiently and effectively, getting the taxpayers more benefits for less money-that’s practically conservatism 101. None of this needs to be coded left-wing, and artificially imposing left-wing codes onto it will ultimately undermine the prospects of actually fixing the problems.
The really annoying thing with environmental laws is that what typically happens is some law firm on the other side of the country, like Minnesota hears about some project and figures it's a quick way to make a buck so they reach out to locals until they find one who will allow them to sue on their behalf and then they tie projects up in decades of legal battles.
The audio is extremely difficult to parse for me in this video. Your voiceovers are pretty good, but the interviews (especially about elevators around 9:20) are impossible for me to understand
this might be a stretch but wouldn't it be possible to contact the transit friendly state senators, send them this video and help them write the bill? i thought about sending this to hasanabi since he's a pro transit angelino political commentator, but due to his image it isn't exactly helpful to depoliticize transit
The only reason this issue is politicized is because it's a tactic used by the few who generate income from vehicles (ranging from car dealerships to Big Oil, especially Chevron I imagine as they have a large presence in the LA area). With the amount of money even circulating within the State of California, budget should never be a problem, but overspending on projects because of local governance impotency.
Thanks for covering this. I've been trying to explain how our broken beaucracy in the US makes not only improving transit but large infrastructure projects in general infeasible. The cost are just too high, they end up outweighing the benifits, and creating crippling deficits for local and state gov. We need to reduce the red tape and the amount of hands in the cookie jar for the benefit of the country as a whole. P.S. Putting the Trump quote on screen after being corrected for your bias to blame Trump. Was in poor taste. You should realize that you're in a large metro on the west coast, an echo chamber where these political biases are the norm. You'd do well to research a given point before blaming and attacking using facts, not biases.
Most of these academics are full of it. A lot of the costs can be contained by spending more on solid design and engineering. Doing the work upfront saves more $$$ in the long run.
And then you have the problem of corruption and lobbying by big business interests that selfishly see public transit as "unfair competition" and want such projects killed outright, e.g., Big Oil, automakers, airlines, _Elon Musk._
we could probably draft a few separate bills for each different aspect of what you're tryna achieve, reddit is huge and subs like r/losangeles are very pro-transit so we could easily get large amounts of signatures, idk i'm not a politician tho so i have no idea how to convince those who are
Love the video, I'd support all of those changes in a bill. I think we've yet to determine if hydrogen can be useful in transportation, maybe for long distances it could be better than overhead wire. Anything regional or local should be overhead though.
When the first hydrogen locomotive explodes, everyone including the railroad companies that own the railroads will scream, Why didn't the state electrify the railways?
"Generate a detailed master LA transportation plan" they make these all the time and then don't follow them. You know this (go measure HLA) just pointing it out
It is my considered opinion that CaHSR should contract Brightline to take over the management of planning, construction, rolling stock procurement and operation. CaHSR have proven that they are not competent. Brightline have proven that they are competent. At the current rate, Brightline West will be in full commercial service before CaHSR lays track on their initial operating segment.
You forget to understand that most of BL's success is that the FEC was already built and was pretty good to allow for higher-speed rail service. Only around 40-50 miles of new track needed to be laid down, whereas in the case of CAHSR, the rail routes between LA and SF aren't as straight or lack sharp curves, especially the Tehchapi loop and thus require the construction of an entirely new rail line.
@@randomscb-40charger78 They did a lot of work on upgrading the existing corridor, including replacing bridges, double tracking a lot of single track, curve easing (increasing curve radius to allow higher speeds), level crossing upgrades etc., as well as building three new stations and a new maintenance facility.
@@atholmullen Yes but the issue with using existing corridors is that while cheaper to upgrade, you can't really go faster than 110 mph with freight trains according to FRA standards. The level-crossing issue is already well-known at BL, but it's pretty damn bad. I once went on Google Earth and counted 174 level crossings between Miami and West Palm Beach for phase one, that's almost 2.6 level crossings per mile. At least with CAHSR, they are grade separating roads and rail lines for future HSR, something I'm not sure BL could achieve within this decade. BL is great and all even if it's not HSR, but it's not really fair to compare both it and CAHSR when both projects have different goals to achieve and circumstances.
@@randomscb-40charger78 The route the CAHSR Authority picked is ridiculously full of curves when they could have picked a straight shot along the existing San Joaquin Valley railroads or Routes 5, 99, and 580. The only difficulty really is getting through the San Gabriel and Diablo mountain ranges. And with the amount of time they're taking, they should have done everything in-house.
if you are a government contractor, you should be paying everyone using the GS scale and have a maximum profit you can take. americans love to pretend all their problems are new or inherent to being human when they're the only country with them. the americans decided to ship all manufacturing outside the country and then have all its building codes written by sub-contractors and they wonder why it's so expensive to do anything. half the people being paid for any project are just doing paperwork that gets thrown away instead of physically building the thing.
Give up on most construction unions who are selfish. By refusing fed funds, prevailing wage laws do not apply. Hire and train locals, as there is a shortage in general of people who can build and maintain all types of infrastructure. CARB is a dinosaur, virtue signaling and resting on its laurels, where even diesel-electric hybrids using ultra low sulfur fuel cannot be purchased but CNG buses using fracked gas can. Operating and maintenance costs are also far too high compared to peer countries, no more "Cadillac" health plans and seniority rules that discriminate against women of child bearing age.
This is why Californis High Speed rail will never reach LA or SF, even if the Bakersfield to Merced line actually gets finished and runs a couple of highly tax subsidized trips per day. It is not worth $1 trillion to cut 3 or 4 flights from LA to SF per day.
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One minor correction, LA Metro actually does have some level of master permitting authority when it comes to city streets, but they're voluntarily complying with Beverly Hills's scheduling demands, presumably to avoid rocking the boat.
Rock the train - the train rocks.
cahsr from downtown to airport
All the politicians need to see this! And there needs to be more in-house expertise with fewer consultants on all transit projects!
just because the roof is leaking doesn't mean everyone wants it fixed.
someone is making money cleaning up the floor.
This was excellent.
As an Italian I can't believe my country is being used as an example of efficient public administration but I guess building hsr is the one thing we've managed to not screw up haha
Construction costs DEFINITELY should be itemized by unit price! As a state highway bridge engineer in Massachusetts and a consulting engineer in Louisiana in the past, I found out that highway projects, even for interstate highways, are budgeted by itemized costs using unit prices. This should be MANDATED by Congress for all projects, public and private.
This video is worthy of KCET (PBS) airtime. And at 30 minutes, it seems very easily transferable to this outsider.
Seriously!
Wonderful to see you include shifting highway funds. With a $68B deficit, we need to make choices, and one of those is to stop building highways, and start building transit.
CALTRANS is addicted to building highways to enhance sprawl.
CALTRANS is a problem. But they are a problem because most voters drive and want to drive on every bigger and larger road systems. We need to change the minds and practices of the voters. This would be a multi-generational long term project, but we have to start somewhere and at sometime, so why not HERE and NOW?
@@kdfox2007Honestly, we don't have time for a long multi-generational shift if we are to hit our climate goals. We also need to hold Caltrans accountable to already on the book laws that they are currently flouting, while strengthening accountability around the agency. It will be very hard to shift voter opinion unless we show, not just tell.
This is REAL Journalism. What you make, i'll say it again. Your content should be kept/shown in city archives.
State capacity is a huge problem in the anglosphere. But one thing I'd like to note is that a lot of these issues also apply to highways, it's just that transit projects face much more scrutiny with environmental review etc. in the US especially.
This is a GREAT point
Excellent point! Prime examples are Boston's Big Dig and the Columbia River crossing between Vancouver Washington and Portland Oregon. The Big Dig is a prime example of what happens to projects when everything is handed over to consultants instead of planning, designing, and managing the project in-house as opposed to small projects where only 10% contingencies are necessary and the projects are completed on time and under budget.
Yeah, it's not just the Anglosphere. I don't understand why people keep belaboring this point. Indonesia's HSR was 2x delayed and 2x over budget. India's is more than 2x delayed and more than 2x over budget. Japan's maglev line is 10 years delayed, won't open in full, and is 3x over budget.
There are projects that go over budget all over the place. And there are US transit agencies that regularly complete projects on time and on budget. BART is completing their fleet replacement under by a significant amount and it looks like they will be ahead of schedule despite Alstom catching fire and trying to explode mid-contract. SF Muni completed the N line track replacement on time and on budget.
This "anglosphere" meme needs to die. It has very little with reality. Just because the French transit agencies tend to not include planning and engineering work in "construction costs" while American projects do, does not mean that US projects go over budget more often. These are institutional and organizational changes more than they are actual differences in success rates.
@@TohaBgood2 the anglosphere thing is a rule of thumb, not a hard and fast dividing line. Also you need to account for the fact that anglosphere budgets tend to be ridiculously oversized in the first place so that claims can be made of coming in under budget. If there's a contingency, it's almost always going to be used. This means that fewer projects get funded at all.
We need an equivalent of the French Société du Grand Paris, a state owned company which is building the Grand Paris Express megaproject for pretty good prices and which will continue with other projects, thus increasing state capacity long term.
Same thing in Montreal where the state-owned CDPQ is building the REM at a cost of CDN$7 billion for 67 miles of automated, grade-separated light railway. The CDPQ has also assumed responsibility for the Quebec City tramway whose cost had ballooned to CDN$8 billion under city transit agency management.
Finally someone makes a video about it with a great and super professional video that puts to shame the main stream media.
I've been saying it for a long time. As someone looking at it from outside of the US seeing all the problems those projects it became obvious that the main problem is the fragmentation of government and the people themselves elevating individuality to dangerous levels. It's not than in Europe we don't have individualism but there is more equilibrium between it and the needs of others. We have NYMBYs, we have people that distrust the government, corrupted politicians and greedy companies but it's not as intense. Most people have faith in government (not blind faith but most do believe it can work for us) and respect for the people that work for in it. We will check things, object to things we believe are wrong but we won't automatically object to everything that comes from the government (local or central). The lack of central planing and a clear path to do such projects is the main key for this to work. Such projects can take time, they have a required process, environmental studies and citizen can raise objections and turn to the courts but there is a process to do it and there are limits to it.
Yo used to have this in the US. That's how you built the original rail network. The government defined the needs, gave private companies the means to build what was needed (like land and rights) while setting rules and obligations that were regulated (including adapting regulation when it was not effective). Than, when cars became the favorite the federal government set a nationwide plan to built the interstate highways and controlled it through financing 90% of the cost and still controls it through the maintenance funds to bring some order and uniformity in most areas.
Nowadays it's basically impossible, even in the state level. I agree that the way forward is to change that but it will be very hard to do, especially with rail. Most people in the US are used to, not to say addicted, to car travel so most automatically support road construction but rail is a different thing that too many think it's redundant and, although there is some change, it's slow.
Here most people want and demand more rail services. P:laces with insufficient connectivity demonstrate and demand improvement and more investment so most politicians tend to support it.
we have been blessed with yet another banger of an upload
The slightly frustrating this is that when it comes to ambitious solutions like cutting down on dependence on consultants, there's so much reticence. But I'm happy about LA being serious about standardization at least
State capacity is the opponent of special interests and their profit
I will watch this later cuz I gotta go to work right now but already know this is GONNA BE BANGER! 🔥
Another thing is do transit boardmembers actually care about solving these problems.
Seattle’s boardmembers were told by transit costs project experts exactly what they should and shouldn’t be doing more of nearly a year ago and these boardmembers have arguably made the situation worse.
This shows that despite having responsibilities to get these projects finished they actually do not seem to care all that much about delivering
Not hard. Tell the state to write transit funding bills that all board members and directors and above need to ride their own agency 8 times a month or the state will block their funding hext fiscal year.
Anyone who can’t muster the interest to rude one round trip per week is clearly neither interested nor qualified to play any role in that agency.
@@fatviscount6562One round trip per week is generously low
My local county public transit authority recently voted to cancel plans to extend a much-needed bus rapid transit project down a major thoroughfare in my city, simply because a bunch of single-occupancy commuters thought the project would reduce the number of travel lanes and thus voted out our current city councilor and replaced her with one who hates public transit. 😢
Great stuff - I've read a lot about these projects but it's never been visualised and explained so clearly in a verbal sense. I'm glad this research is gaining more attention, thanks to videos like this :)
christmas came early with this video
YES YES YES! Are there any groups already working towards a state wide solution? California needs to lead the way in solving this mess. As noted, as wealthy as we are there is no reason why we can't do this on our own without the help of the federal government. If nothing else, if we can make transit as easy to approve as a freeway widening that would be a huge win.
I know of none :/ Most of the groups I'm aware of are focused on relatively small/local issues and not an overhaul of Metro.
These big metros need to be consolidated into regional municipalities where the localities are arranged in boroughs like New York City. (Although that town is no paragon of low construction costs)
Yeah probbaly Streets For All
I recall like theres some movement in (mostly the Bay Area portion) of California to like consolidate transit agencies (e.g. Seamless Bay Area, etc), and some groups that post a lot on smaller-scale issues like electrification, and also like the established groups that are more keen on like alternative transit (e.g. pedestrianizing/biking/bus operations like someone mentioned here, streets for all)
There was a bill to do like a study by the legislature (Friedman) of like what to do to keep transit afloat (implemented in the budget) by late 2025, and they got in people who advocate for some of the stuff above e.g. the said consolidation.
But I haven't really seen much action on the prospect of project delivery reforms, and crossing my fingers that the legislature study includes stuff on much needed project delivery reforms....
@@edwardmiessner6502 This sounds very ideal, although many of the smaller cities and their politicians don't want to lose their job (or lower the salary of it at least in half). This is a big reason why the LA area is so poorly designed in general, many large civic projects are/have been scrapped over decades because of an involved city objecting to the plans within its city limits. Being mostly built during the vehicle golden age in the 40s-70s, until in the late 70s pollution and previous inflated gas prices is only when masses of Angelenos started to care about public transit at all again.
As one that has followed the build out of the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) Metrorail System in National Capital Area sense just after first groundbreaking in 1969. A couple of the points you made about the way thing were done have been changed are proof as to why costs have spiraled out of control.
One of the things WMATA did in the mid 1990s as construction was winding down in the original planed 101 mile system was the purging of the internal planning, design and engineering staff that was put in place by the *founding General Manager, and replacing them with consultants for future project when needed in the name of the cutting annual staffing costs.
Much of the spiraling cost on expansions projects beyond the original planed 101 mile system and rehabilitation project of the existing system were the result of the loss of institutional knowledge.
*Founding General Manager was formally a General in the Army Corps of Engineers.
That, and the lack of dedicated funding, and the fact that the most recent significant expansion was built & financed by the Airport Authority, and that until 2019 none of the state-level governments had an agency dedicated to non-highway transportation.
@@jmchristoph In the case of WMATA, dedicated funding is a different issue, as that issue has always been about the paying the subsidy costs based on the fare box recovery ratio.
The Virginia Passenger Rail Authority only encompass intercity and commuter rail within the Commonwealth of Virginia, not local or metropolitan area public transit.
The Dulles Corridor Metrorail Project (Silver line branch) was built under the Virginia Public-Private Partnership Act.
When one of the two private partners dropped out of the partnership the entire project was taken over by Metropolitan Washington Airport Authority.
The other partner had previously worked with WMATA in the building of the original planed 101 mile system, again loss of institutional knowledge.
Brilliant video to succinctly capture the problems with cost in the US and especially CA. Thanks for this massive amount of work.
I wholeheartedly agree with the state transit reorganization effort (or to massively reform Caltrans to make then the transit agency they should be, there is a lot of expertise there) to address many of these cost and fiefdom issues. This could also help solve the problem of LA County having rail lines to counties that have only bus lines (like SB and the OC) so that, for example, a rail line from Long Beach to Santa Ana or Anaheim could be planned and built via one agency.
And YES to "detailed master planning". I look forward to that episode! This is done in most major cities of the industrialized world. For example, Paris and Madrid have master plans that allow them to build provisions into their projects for planned future expansion even if it is 20 years later, which saves money and time because everyone knows, agrees, and commits from the start that the expansion is coming and the provisions have already been built in (such as tunnel portals, junction pre-work, station boxes, and ROW acquisitions) to facilitate that expansion. The Crenshaw North debacle just illustrates how a lack of foresight sets every stage of a project back to ground zero. It would have been nice if that WeHo spur line were studied as a more logical stand alone rail line (requiring that foresight) further on to the Purple Line or even the Expo Line with provisions further east to Glendale (for example), because that "spur" was not a great stand alone project.
When LAX NIMBYism stopped the Green Line and caused the line to veer to Redondo Beach instead of the Airport, Metro built an extension arm that was obvious that when LAX NIMBYism was temporary left off guard that the Green line would be extended on Aviation Blvd., to reach the LAX people mover. The NIMBYism in Redondo Beach's ROW can be overcomed once the LAX K stations are operational then NIMBYs cannot refused to see the benefit of faster method to get to the airport. It's an incredible situation to realize that two major extension to K Line have to be built in order to get the best cost for the buck for the LAX transportation improvements.
That's what I have been thinking! The West Hollywood spur line that town had asked for would be a much better project if it's built as a shuttle between the B and D or B and E Lines, either as a light railway or a heavy railway.
@@edwardmiessner6502 Exactly! In fact, Metro had already studied a branch of the Purple Line from Santa Monica to the Hollywood Red Line via WeHo which scored very well. For them to study only a spur line when they had the previous study seems like malfeasance to me. That spur line by itself had no chance of being built and didn't make any sense.
I've long-advocated for a Greater Long Beach plan to annex Carson, Lakewood, Signal Hill, etc. to create a political heavyweight in the South Bay and maybe even consolidate it as a its own city-county. There's no future plan for Long Beach rail, and the Blue Line doesn't make the transformative difference except for the few times a year I have to go to DTLA for symphony concerts or the courthouse.
Long Beach should be greater than it is, so much potential.
Signal Hill basically only exists to pump oil and since that's stopping in the coming years maybe that's possible for Signal Hill. I dunno if making LB bigger than it already is would help since I feel like the more north you go the more suburban and barely maintained it is compared to closer to the core. But Long Beach is definitely underrated and I wish the LBT had more funding. I feel like with their bike network they're trying to make they could really become more of an urban village if they upzoned more areas and had more transit.
San Gabriel Valley got all the foothill cities allowing the foothill light rail ROW. I dialed into a lot of San Gabriel Valley meeting and didn't hear the NIMBYism as much that the South Bay. When regional cities can combine their requirement then billions of dollars for funding mass transit will follow. The South Bay cities I'm referring to are Lawndale, Redondo Beach and Torrance.
We need to show this to everyone running next year. Hopefully we can find out who wants to help improve our transit.
The most disgusting thing about all of this is that the Federal Government has literally unlimited spending power when it comes to infrastructure projects. All of these politicians who say that government has to "live within it's means" have no idea how federal spending works (or they do...keep reading). If you control the issue of your currency and all of your obligations are in that currency, by definition, you can't run out of money. The only way you run into a problem is when too many people have too much money and production can't keep up. This would most certainly NOT apply to transit projects. That the FTA has these contingency add ons is just another example of politicians who don't understand this basic fact. There is a reason this country is falling behind. It is moronic politicians who try to kill government by coming up with excuses that are not valid to starve government of money only to point out how government doesn't work when they are the ones who broke it. Oh, and then, you know, gotta sell off every public asset to the private sector so they can jack up prices. I wish more people understood all this, but, alas...they don't. They just buy into the lie
“If you control the issue of your currency and all of your obligations are in that currency, by definition, you can’t run out of money.”
Hold the phone. Let me get this straight - are you under the impression a government can just print more money to pay obligations, consequence free?
If you’re under that impression, your comment as a whole has little real world application, because that impression is very, very wrong.
@@SgtMustang In the US, you can. When Congress appropriates money. It is new money. When you pay taxes that doesn't pay for anything. It is currency taken out of circulation. Like I said in the above comment, people having so much money that the means of production can't keep up is the limitation. But, explain how this is not true since you seem to be so certain. I have studied this for years, and have degrees to back it up. I could be more detailed, but when it comes to infrastructure projects, the US federal government (not states) has no monetary constraints to build things people need. The US cannot go broke and infrastructure spending is not inflationary under any imagined circumstance.
Bottom line is the US doesn't operate under "budgetary constraints" . It is not your :kitchen table" budget
While the **Feds** print currency (and infinite money glitch is debatable), local governments can’t, and federal rules require local matching funds. The interstate highway system was incredibly generous (90% Feds, 10% local) and transit is nowhere near that. But even if it were, when the costs balloon $1 billion, the local government is on the hook for an additional $100 million which has to come from somewhere.
@@Whatneeds2bsaid Which is why I said it was unfair to burden states when the federal government has the capacity to fund these projects without having to burden states, who, as you correctly noted, can not spend the way the federal government can
Great video as always! I would also recommend covering that the 4 appoited non-LA city Metro board members are chosen by regional COG’s, which is another layer of jurisdiction thrown in this mess. Most COG’s are pro freeway expansion, and Metro often relies on the COG’s for feedback and etc. In my opinion, Metro gives wayyy to much weight to the opinion of these uninformed COG’s, which is why Metro wastes billions on freeway widening as well.
Westside COGs has been VOCAL about extending the D Line and adding more BRT lines to LA's Westside. San Gabriel COG has been planning and pushing for BRT lines too. San Fernando Valley COG has been pushing for the Sepulveda Transit Line and ensuring mixed use stations along the line. I'd agree with you that they're misinformed but they're not necessarily freeway expansion.
@@PASH3227 It's so interesting to hear about this specific part of the process. In the SFValley and Bel Air there's a lot of loud opposition from loonies aged 60+ in HOA's for the Sepulveda project, ranging from "liberal propaganda" to "flying cars will have taken over by 2050", according to a Sherman Oaks HOA member lmao. The only reason why they're relevant is because they (private citizens) have the full power to stop a massive project like this, because of any delusional thinking (or racism) they want to believe. Which has happened several times in Beverly Hills and the South Bay, even though there's substantial local support for both by residents and businesses.
Wonderful video nandert! Your channel is still criminally underrated and if there was any of your videos that needs to go viral it would be this one.
As a civil engineering student, I would do anything to work in a state transit “task force” in the future. I dread the thought of working at a private engineering firm knowing that we could have way cheaper projects if we transferred the same talent to public agencies.
but like you said, massive reform is also needed at the state level (well, federal too, but i’m not holding my breath for that). i’m willing to dedicate as much free time as i can to this issue. thank you so much for your research
Civil engineering has a long history in nations like China, try to visit
I agree. Massive, massive reform needs to be done not just at the state and federal levels but also the local level. There's no excuse for the L.A. metro to have a thousand local jurisdictions when the whole state of Massachusetts has only 351!
So I’d like to add a comment to this. I work for a consultant doing transit design and engineering. The reason I do so is our local agency doesn’t do it in house at all. I’ve met with the head of our agency to complain about this but nothing has really changed. So for beginning of the career transit engineers, there’s no ability to work for a transit agency and you have to cut your teeth in consulting before you can work for a transit agency 10 years into your career if you want to work on transit projects. For context my experience is in the twin cities area
Christmas came early this year with a new Nandert video! Keep up the amazing work.
Great stuff, loved the vid. Was very informative and is a must watch for anyone concerned with the slow pace of transit progress in So Cal. Sound Transit and WSDOT could learn something here too for the Light Rail (ST3) expansion around Seattle.
Love your videos and the addition of interviews! Brilliant stuff.
Some small feedback: I think you could do without the background music, or at least lower your music volume. While your voice is nice to listen to, you sometimes rush your sentences, and combined with the music (those cymbals in particular!) it can sound cluttered and more fatiguing to listen to. Especially in your year-end summaries about Metro where you’re talking extra fast to cram in all the material.
Do with that feedback what you will…thank you for all your hard work and I look forward to your next video. ❤
This was FANTASTIC! Thanks for helping me to understand this question!
sometimes i wish LA Metro was its own sovereign agency and not a joint powers authority that has to bend to the whims of regional politicians.
To be clear, it is a state-created agency, not a JPA. The reason it doesn't feel that way is because state law gave all the board seats to local politicians (excluding the non-voting CalTrans seat).
I know you're busy snd have a life, but I LOVE your videos and I'm super grateful I didn't have to wait an entire year for your next video lol. Please keep up the amazing content.
Yoo local resident of the North East San Fernando Valley speaking... I'm convinced, how I can help get this coalition started!!!!
Simple. Become a lawyer.
@@denelson83 lol, but then you got to pay off those student loans by working for BigLaw or government. ;)
Get rid of all the bureaucracy, corruption, and red tape. You'll start to see these projects get done fast.
The last thing we need is another agency, we just need to re work cal trans
I agree that CalTrans should be that agency--the one with the in-house expertise and institutional knowledge, the authority to cut through red tape, and the ability to create master plans that impact regional projects. The fact that CalTrans considers itself mostly just an automobile highway agency is criminal.
Amazing video, thank you for putting this together. :)
How dare you upload this mere hours before my final exam. This is just evil :(
(JK great job, I assume, I'll watch it later)
Wow love this breakdown! And half the length I was expecting for thid topic! 😂
At this point CEQA should be abolished. It slows down mass transmit and housing (Berkeley housing case was ABSURD!) yet hasn't stopped freeway expansions and building auto oriented single family neighborhoods in fire prone areas. It just needs to go!
Also city of LA city council needs to be consolidated since it's too large to get things done while LA County Board of Supervisors should be expanded to 9 members. The other metro board members should be removed except the mayor of LA.
17:55 I would just like to say that even if the agencies almost always win in court against Citizen Voice, such procedures simply drag out the design phase incredibly until it is finally clarified how the route should run. as long as this is not the case, no specific planning/approval processes can begin. this also contributes significantly to the delay. In my opinion, the issue is not that Citizen Voice-like groups can prevent projects, but that they can seriously delay them.
When you release a video roughly on schedule.... "What have you done with the real Nandert!?!" 😂
I don't know it might be useful, but sometimes projects are built by "functional segments" that can be partially activated as soon was they get ready to start ramping up the demand, so in case of P3 contracts you are able to have more accurate prediction of usage end achieve better P3 conditions.
Another aspect that is available is to use a dynamic funding agreement between entities where the cost of the project is spread in several stages where costs and funding are balance and split between funding entities, in addition funding entities that have financial slack can pick up expenses from another entity that my have a funding shortfall and, at the end all is rebalanced.
Amtrak is already doing this. They are trying to build up their in house teams.
ooo interesting! source? i would love to learn more
But they cannot build any new track.
@@denelson83 Well Amtrak has the capability to build new trackage. Engineering has upgraded several sections of track along the NEC to higher speed standards (110-125mph) I think Amtrak will be more than capable to do that for their new services going forward.
@@thetrainguy1 Where are they going to put it? Any alignment they consider will be chock-full of private property and NIMBYs.
@@denelson83 They're already building new track and new viaducts in the Northeast Corridor and are about to embark on a new railway tunnel under the Hudson to New Jersey.
Happy to see an add for the JR Tokaido Shinkansen before this vid
WOAH. What a body of work!
I dont know how we can say that "the US is a very rural country" with a straight face...under 20% of the population lives in rural areas, the rest live in urban, suburban and x-urban areas...all that can gain from transit infrastructure...
We just have this false perception when in fact we are a large country and not a rural one...
We are a rural country if you want to talk about getting legislation passed, the US Senate is 2 senators per state. Wyoming gets the same number of votes as California. The US House is a bit more population based, but it is also gives a greater weight to rural voices.
@@billinglendaleca5093 fair point - that is not what they said in the video if memory serves me right though...also, even in a "rural" states like Wyoming, 67% of the people live in urban centers - sure these aren't in NYC, Boston, Chicago, or LA levels of density but sufficiently high to qualify as "urban" by census data, so they too can benefit from transit related investments...
but your point is a fair one and is probably a big part of the political calculus in the US even if IMO they are voting against their own interests...A more efficient transit system in urban places frees up highway space and resources for those who just have to use them and it stretches our existing roadway infrastructure capacity for longer...
This was great, not over-simplified analysis of the many problems plaguing transit planning and delivery…except for the entirely unnecessary litany of *insert random left-wing political priority here* comments. If you want to actually fix transit problems, you have to make it appeal a broad supermajority of people, not just the quarter to a third of people who align with your wider political agenda.
Few if any of the proposed solutions actually require a left-wing agenda, and the overall goal of making the government work more efficiently and effectively, getting the taxpayers more benefits for less money-that’s practically conservatism 101. None of this needs to be coded left-wing, and artificially imposing left-wing codes onto it will ultimately undermine the prospects of actually fixing the problems.
tbf leftists are the ones who are the strongest advocates of this but you are right this should be apolitical because we all benefit from it.
Happy birthday to me!!
The really annoying thing with environmental laws is that what typically happens is some law firm on the other side of the country, like Minnesota hears about some project and figures it's a quick way to make a buck so they reach out to locals until they find one who will allow them to sue on their behalf and then they tie projects up in decades of legal battles.
Alright, where do I sign up to get this massive bill passed?
The audio is extremely difficult to parse for me in this video. Your voiceovers are pretty good, but the interviews (especially about elevators around 9:20) are impossible for me to understand
this might be a stretch but wouldn't it be possible to contact the transit friendly state senators, send them this video and help them write the bill? i thought about sending this to hasanabi since he's a pro transit angelino political commentator, but due to his image it isn't exactly helpful to depoliticize transit
Please pass along to hasanabi, he would love this❤️❤️❤️
It's a great overview but if you want real change you'd probably want a coalition with very clear and direct asks.
The only reason this issue is politicized is because it's a tactic used by the few who generate income from vehicles (ranging from car dealerships to Big Oil, especially Chevron I imagine as they have a large presence in the LA area). With the amount of money even circulating within the State of California, budget should never be a problem, but overspending on projects because of local governance impotency.
Great video!
This is amazing thank you
Thanks for covering this. I've been trying to explain how our broken beaucracy in the US makes not only improving transit but large infrastructure projects in general infeasible. The cost are just too high, they end up outweighing the benifits, and creating crippling deficits for local and state gov. We need to reduce the red tape and the amount of hands in the cookie jar for the benefit of the country as a whole. P.S. Putting the Trump quote on screen after being corrected for your bias to blame Trump. Was in poor taste. You should realize that you're in a large metro on the west coast, an echo chamber where these political biases are the norm. You'd do well to research a given point before blaming and attacking using facts, not biases.
WOO! Catholics vs Convicts! Nice work on that one!
Most of these academics are full of it. A lot of the costs can be contained by spending more on solid design and engineering. Doing the work upfront saves more $$$ in the long run.
And then you have the problem of corruption and lobbying by big business interests that selfishly see public transit as "unfair competition" and want such projects killed outright, e.g., Big Oil, automakers, airlines, _Elon Musk._
we could probably draft a few separate bills for each different aspect of what you're tryna achieve, reddit is huge and subs like r/losangeles are very pro-transit so we could easily get large amounts of signatures, idk i'm not a politician tho so i have no idea how to convince those who are
That's the dream though. I'd love to see that.
Love the video, I'd support all of those changes in a bill.
I think we've yet to determine if hydrogen can be useful in transportation, maybe for long distances it could be better than overhead wire. Anything regional or local should be overhead though.
When the first hydrogen locomotive explodes, everyone including the railroad companies that own the railroads will scream, Why didn't the state electrify the railways?
Please let’s stick to direct electrification for our railroads. No hydrogen, phase out coal and diesel electrics, and stop flirting with batteries.
CAFR
Murica needs to look at Delhi Metro Rail Corporation.
They became the master consultant for other state agencies.
"Generate a detailed master LA transportation plan" they make these all the time and then don't follow them. You know this (go measure HLA) just pointing it out
It is my considered opinion that CaHSR should contract Brightline to take over the management of planning, construction, rolling stock procurement and operation.
CaHSR have proven that they are not competent. Brightline have proven that they are competent. At the current rate, Brightline West will be in full commercial service before CaHSR lays track on their initial operating segment.
You forget to understand that most of BL's success is that the FEC was already built and was pretty good to allow for higher-speed rail service. Only around 40-50 miles of new track needed to be laid down, whereas in the case of CAHSR, the rail routes between LA and SF aren't as straight or lack sharp curves, especially the Tehchapi loop and thus require the construction of an entirely new rail line.
@@randomscb-40charger78 They did a lot of work on upgrading the existing corridor, including replacing bridges, double tracking a lot of single track, curve easing (increasing curve radius to allow higher speeds), level crossing upgrades etc., as well as building three new stations and a new maintenance facility.
@@atholmullen Yes but the issue with using existing corridors is that while cheaper to upgrade, you can't really go faster than 110 mph with freight trains according to FRA standards. The level-crossing issue is already well-known at BL, but it's pretty damn bad. I once went on Google Earth and counted 174 level crossings between Miami and West Palm Beach for phase one, that's almost 2.6 level crossings per mile. At least with CAHSR, they are grade separating roads and rail lines for future HSR, something I'm not sure BL could achieve within this decade.
BL is great and all even if it's not HSR, but it's not really fair to compare both it and CAHSR when both projects have different goals to achieve and circumstances.
BL has a business model it has intentions that not obvious to the public. Wes Edens doesn't build RR just cause he love trains.@@randomscb-40charger78
@@randomscb-40charger78 The route the CAHSR Authority picked is ridiculously full of curves when they could have picked a straight shot along the existing San Joaquin Valley railroads or Routes 5, 99, and 580. The only difficulty really is getting through the San Gabriel and Diablo mountain ranges. And with the amount of time they're taking, they should have done everything in-house.
24:19
if you are a government contractor, you should be paying everyone using the GS scale and have a maximum profit you can take.
americans love to pretend all their problems are new or inherent to being human when they're the only country with them.
the americans decided to ship all manufacturing outside the country and then have all its building codes written by sub-contractors and they wonder why it's so expensive to do anything. half the people being paid for any project are just doing paperwork that gets thrown away instead of physically building the thing.
Im the union stick figure
Hello, What type of organization you're?
greed
Give up on most construction unions who are selfish. By refusing fed funds, prevailing wage laws do not apply. Hire and train locals, as there is a shortage in general of people who can build and maintain all types of infrastructure. CARB is a dinosaur, virtue signaling and resting on its laurels, where even diesel-electric hybrids using ultra low sulfur fuel cannot be purchased but CNG buses using fracked gas can. Operating and maintenance costs are also far too high compared to peer countries, no more "Cadillac" health plans and seniority rules that discriminate against women of child bearing age.
This is why Californis High Speed rail will never reach LA or SF, even if the Bakersfield to Merced line actually gets finished and runs a couple of highly tax subsidized trips per day. It is not worth $1 trillion to cut 3 or 4 flights from LA to SF per day.
9:11 bro tried to blame trump, got rekt 🤣
It would be a good video if you didn't throw the TDS in there. Kinda of not professional.
Thanks @theflyingmooseca for the video recc!