Why California's high speed rail was always going to blow out
The Indicator from Planet Money
NPR
4.7 • 9.5K Ratings
🗓️ 6 June 2024
⏱️ 11 minutes
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Summary
Bent Flyvbjerg and Dan Gardner's book on megaprojects is How Big Things Get Done: The Surprising Factors that Determine the Fate of Every Project, from Home Renovations to Space Exploration and Everything In Between.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | NPR. |
| 0:03.0 | In |
| 0:05.0 | In the |
| 0:08.0 | In 2011. |
| 0:12.0 | In 2011, Dan Richard got a call from California's governor at the time, Jerry Brown. |
| 0:18.1 | And Jerry Brown had a job offer for him that Dad actually turned down. But they kept talking and eventually they got to this other idea that had been around for decades. |
| 0:28.0 | California high speed rail, a super fast train that would take passengers from LA to San Francisco in just two and a half hours. |
| 0:36.0 | Nothing like this had ever been done before in the US. |
| 0:39.0 | And at this time it was more than a dream. |
| 0:41.0 | It had a budget, $33 billion when it went to voters a few years prior. |
| 0:46.5 | It had a completion date, 2020. It also had a board. So Dan, a veteran transport executive, said I could help there. |
| 0:55.0 | And I believe I literally said the words to him, you know, how hard could that be? |
| 0:59.0 | So, uh, famous last word. |
| 1:01.0 | He gave me an opportunity to find out. |
| 1:04.1 | How hard could it be? |
| 1:06.3 | Well, Dan soon learned that California high-speed rail was victim to what often plagues |
| 1:12.4 | mega projects. En cost overruns, and delays. |
| 1:17.0 | Today on the show How to Build Big. From California High Speed Rail to the Sydney Opera House, We will learn that do-s and don'ts on |
| 1:24.4 | leading ambitious projects. |
| 1:28.2 | Support for this podcast and the following message come from Wise, the app that makes managing your money |
| 1:34.6 | in different currencies easy. |
| 1:36.7 | With Wise, you can send and spend money internationally at the mid-market exchange rate, |
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