so looking at the california hsr, would a state building hsr through force account be built faster since you don't have to contract everything out?
Using force account (i.e, direct hiring) would be faster than contracting, but the most significant difference would likely be that it would be much cheaper (which has an impact on speed, because cost overruns and underfinancing has been an issue for building out the California HSR system) than contracting.
However, my understanding is that the two biggest issues that have been responsible for slowing down the build-out of the California HSR system is:
the difficulty of acquiring the land and right-of-ways needed for the route, due in no small part to opposition from the Union Pacific railroad and local landowners.
extensive litigation from self-described environmentalist anti-development groups abusing the CEQA process to block/death-by-a-thousand-cuts a green project aimed at reducing C02 emissions from automobiles and by encouraging sustainable transit-oriented development over suburban sprawl.
So force account would help, but it would not be a panacea for the difficulties that CAHSR has had to labor under lo these many years.
