The LA-SF I-5 Grapevine route is certainly something I would support. But who wouldn’t support it? The rest of the state. Like it or not, this project is contingent on broad political support. Look at the voting for Prop 1A. With the exception of Orange County, every county with a phase 1 station voted yes on the bond measure. Perhaps having the Inland-Empire, San Diego and Sacramento in phase 2 caused them to vote no in lesser numbers than they would have.

In either case, the CHSRA can’t just propose a route that benefits the Bay Area and LA. The rest of the state is going to tell them to piss off and both areas can’t fund it alone. Like it or lump it, the process that is happening now is likely the only way it’ll happen in California.

I have no doubt that you and many others will be submitting comments to the EIR, explaining why the Board is misguided and should choose Altamont. Those letters will be summarized, analyzed, and categorically shot down in the EIR’s analysis. The only thing that could save you is if they don’t do their jobs well enough and miss an aspect of a letter.

There are other, more constructive ways to help provide citizen oversight and accountability that the CHSRA, as with any other arm of government, needs. I’m not supportive of everything the CHSRA says or does, but I am willing to both provide feedback and constructive criticism when warranted, but also work with them to build a project this state desperately needs.

Do you have any other plan to build HSR in California? Any other strategy for winning federal funding? Since it looks as if you do not, you’re merely falling into the trap of assuming there’s nothing wrong with the status quo, that we don’t actually have to build HSR right now, that we can wait another 30 years until a project comes along that meets every single one of your purist standards.

Saying that you want a high speed rail system built in California without the involvement of politicians, be they hacks or no, is like saying you want a unicorn that farts rainbows and poops diamonds. Sounds lovely. But the people of California have voted, and want this project to move forward, and shouldn´t have to wait for your idealized notions of how things should be done.

Lord knows not having Pleasanton (pop: ~63,000) and Livermore (pop: ~73,000) and Tracy (pop: ~82,000) on board in phase 1 is going to break this project. Follow the lights, indeed, no matter how dim they are. Even the suburbs of Anaheim and Norwak have higher population densities than all three by a wide margin.

I’m not particularly happy about Gilroy having a station and I think LA-San Diego would make a better starter line. I better call my attorney before this HSR destroys the country and we are all eating Bic Macs with chopsticks.

We are, however, opponents of the HSRA. The HSRA will never be able to deliver a viable system. We are more than convinced that hack politicians cannot be trusted to make decisions that are in the public interest. Their consultants are not objective–their work just supports whatever decisions the politicians have made.

As far as I can tell, your standard for objectivity is: If Quentin said it, it must be true!

Robert Cruickshank, lapdog to the powerful