Why is it the Central Florida commuter rail plan is so expensive (1.2 bil), when its still diesel powered? The new Northstar in Minnesota is almost the same length, for almost 1/4 the price. Railrunner in NM is 100 miles, for a little under 400 mil.
At least I am assuming its diesel powered, as their website graphic shows, but it is nearly impossible to find info on that site. Also, is that maybe including the planned light rail line?

While comfortable, spoiled nibmys in anaheim and palo alto are trying to kill a project they personally don’t think they need, out in the valley the towns are pulling each others hair and trying to snatch the hsr line and stations from each other…

HSR wins supporteres wherever it goes! Although I would like to say that NIMBY’s are no concern… their efforts point out deficiencies. Not all points are accurate, but …

Let me just say that when Robert writes that at least half of the audience at the Palo Alto meeting was pro HSR, he should be more specific and identify at least 90% of those who were pro HSR, and in the audience, were from various trade unions, who put on a real effort to attend and speak to their problems in un-employment in the construction sector.

They certainly have the right to be their and express their views, but this kind of display only stands to show that the HSR project has really now morphed into a jobs project.

Robert surely will want to chew on the article from influential writer Dan Walters.

Dan Walters: California high-speed rail project’s flaws publicized

http://www.sanluisobispo.com/opinion/story/1001539.html

The first episode of a new network television series, “Human Target,” is set aboard the maiden run of a high-speed train from San Francisco to Los Angeles. The story involves a plot to kill its designer, financial chicanery by its contractor, and a fatal flaw in its braking system.

The show concludes with the runaway train demolishing itself, which could be an omen.

By happenstance, the episode premiered last week just before state senators delved into the real – or perhaps fictional – California high-speed rail project.

They examined a report from the Legislature’s budget office that’s highly critical of the High-Speed Rail Authority’s much-touted business plan and a legislative staff report that echoes the criticism and adds grave doubts of its own.

The twin reports provide potent ammunition for project critics, especially those from the San Francisco Peninsula who oppose running 200-mile-per-hour trains through their bucolic, affluent neighborhoods.

Peninsula residents, many of them experienced managers and financial analysts, lined up to denounce the business plan’s shaky – even outlandish – assumptions about ridership, fares, construction costs and operational margins.

Curt Pringle, the Anaheim mayor who chairs the rail authority, found himself on the defensive as senators used the staff reports to sharply question aspects of the project, especially its suppositions and what legislative budget analyst Eric Thornson said is the agency’s “wholly inadequate” consideration of downside financial risks.

Sen. Alan Lowenthal, D-Long Beach, pressed Pringle on the assumption that the federal government would pick up half the system’s $40 billion projected cost. “Is that a wish?” Lowenthal asked. “It’s a hope,” Pringle replied.

Even the pro-high-speed-rail California Rail Foundation found the project lacking, with its representative telling senators, “We can’t believe any of the numbers presented in the business plan.”

At one point in the “Human Target” episode, its hero, a personal bodyguard named Christopher Chance, is told that the train cost $80 billion and complains about his taxes paying for it.

One suspects that the TV show’s $80 billion is more realistic than the $40 billion projected by the rail authority, given the immense delays and cost overruns on other major public works projects in California, such as the still-unfinished overhaul of the Bay Bridge or any number of half-baked state government computer projects.

The gaping holes in the business plan must be filled with hard facts and reliable numbers – if they can be filled – before we begin selling and spending the $9.95 billion in state bonds.

It would be better to derail now rather than plunge California into a bottomless money pit that would once again make it a global laughingstock.

He is not..just another mouthpiece for MediaNewsGroup and boo hoo that a large amount of pro HSR support showed up..that little event was pushed by the nimbys to show how ‘horrible’ HSR is and it backfired on them..since it was open and not just a city function who cares if union people show up and far more support this project VS the nimby crowed that normally show up in these little events in PA

Since Californians for High Speed Rail is up and running with outreach etc, I do hope they realize the need to and benefit of working closely with labor on an organized, grass roots push back to the nimby’s and the wealthy (party of “no” we’ve got ours screw you”) crowd at every turn.

Jim, guess you haven’t been paying attention. They already showed this is precisely their strategy – coordinated a “big” labor union show at the Senate meeting in Palo Alto this week. For what its worth the unions’ message was ‘JOBS AT ANY COST, NOW’. Interesting tactic.

First, CHSRA’s plan won’t create California jobs now, in fact won’t create jobs in California for at least a couple years, if at all (since their plan right now is unfunded, and the miniscule funding they are pinning their hopes on is illegal under ab3034), but most of the first several years worth of ARRA money will be going to foreign rail experts anyway.

But the real flaw in the ‘JOBS AT ALL COST’ argument is that jobs can be created whether the thing is tunneled, whether it runs down I5, whether its elevated down 101, whether it runs from LA to Vegas, or whether its scrapped alltogether for water projects, electricity projects, levy projects, bridges, roads, or any other project. Heck, in fact if the highway lobbiests walked up to the Unions today and said MORE JOBS and FASTER are created by fixing and creating highways – they’d drop HSR like a hot potato and get to work on highways. They don’t care about HSR for HSR’s sake, they care about one thig and one thing only, and that’s jobs now. Therefore, their CHSR is flimsy and unconvincing.

Oh here’s an idea… Lets attach jobs to a requirement that the employees and managemetn of high speed rail (building and operation), live in the “TOD” condo’s built up around the train stations or in the homes that back to the high speed lines. So, the CHSRA can eminent domain them (which they’ll have to do anyway), they can shave 50 feet off the back for tracks, and then use the remainder for employee housing. WHO CAREs afterall if we put high speed trains within feet of people’s bedroom windows, all that matters is jobs. Its for the greater good (ie: JOBS AT ANY COST). Then this works out great! Those benefiting from the jobs, also get to reap the rewards of “quality of life” created by the train. Wonder if all those central valley-ites, with plenty of room to spread out, (ie; sure we’d be happy to give up our uninhabited acres of space for rail yards), will be happy to check in to living hell along the ROW, or if we’d start to see them supporters of doing HSR “right”.

Observer look at the facts.

First, no new freeways will be built. There is far more opposition to NEW freeway construction in California than there is to rail because you have both the nimbys AND the environmentalists who are against it. Ditto for airport expansion. There is far more opposition.

That leaves you with the option of adding lanes and other improvements to existing freeway, which, makes traffic worse during construction time, then results in a very temporary congestion relief period. No matter how much you add lane to the Nimitz or the 405, they continue to back up at the same time and in the same place ( pretty much the whole thing now) as they did prior to the improvement. There is only so much you can do because the access to and from the freeways from the surface is limited. You could widen the bay bridge by 8 lanes, but there still wouldn’t be anywhere for the cars to go once they get to the city.

The jobs created by freeway lanes construction do not lead to any other new jobs being created because an added lane does not do anything to stimulate economics in any new or existing area nearby. You are simply making room for the existing cars in an attempt to reduce the back up time. There is no net gain in real capacity, and there is no new stimulus to the area next to the freeway.

Now, say you improved i-5/ well, now matter how much you improve it, it still takes 3.5 to 4.5 hours (per google directions) to get from fresno to downtown la, versus 84 minutes on high speed rail.
No matter how many advantages you can claim for driving, they can never match that time savings.

Further,
High speed rail brings service and options to portions of the state that are lacking good air service.
High speed rail, unlike flying, can pick up and discharge passenger at multile locations along the line versus the single point to point service of airlines. In other word you do more with less. More bang for the buck.
high speed rail in infinitely expandable both in terms of lengthening the system, and adding capacity to the existing system and that rail capacity is much much greater and more efficient than the equivalent amount of space being used for cars.

Look ahead at another 20 million people – basically, a doubling of the popluation of souther california, being added to the state. Where would you put the concrete required for double the number of cars we have today? How many 405s do you build and where?

I just have to laugh. Don’t forget, these people along the penincula are the same ones who killed BART from going around the bay years ago. Same BS from them, different project!! Total and absolute NIMBY, again and again!

Jim, you miss the point of labor unions position. JOBS NOW, JOBS AT ANY COST. All of the cost/benefit stuff you provide is irrelevent to the LABOR UNIONS tha WANT JOBS NOW AT ANY COST. I’m not claiming any befits to driving. I’m talking about JOBS NOW AT ANY COST.

Well, of course they are going to use that type of rhetoric. Its rhetoric, thats all, designed to add emphases. It’s not literal. Did you just fall off the turnip truck?

jobs at any cost taken literally would mean, jobs even if it means running over old folks in the cross walk. Clearly its not meant to be literal.

If they are really concerned about noise and property values, then MP/PA and Atherton should work together and assess themselves to pay the difference in cost for a tunnel. The three cities, form a coalition, put it on a local ballot, and raise the money. simple as that.

If some of the posters here are going to question the credentials of Mr. Walters, here is a short bio.

from : http://www.milkeninstitute.org/events/events.taf?function=show&cat=allconf&EventID=SOS04&SPID=1450&level1=speakers&level2=bio

Dan Walters
Political Columnist, Sacramento Bee

Dan Walters is a columnist with the Sacramento Bee and an expert on California politics. He has been a journalist for more than 40 years, working almost exclusively for California newspapers. At age 22, he was the nation’s youngest daily newspaper editor. Walters joined The Sacramento Union’s capitol bureau in 1975 as Jerry Brown began his governorship and he later became the Union’s capitol bureau chief. In 1981, he began writing the state’s only daily newspaper column devoted to California political, economic and social events and in 1984, he and the column moved to the Sacramento Bee. He has written more than 6,000 articles about California and its politics, and his column now appears in more than 50 California newspapers. His articles have also appeared in The Wall Street Journal and the Christian Science Monitor, among other publications. In 1986, Walters published The New California: Facing the 21st Century, which has since undergone revisions to become a widely used college textbook about socioeconomic and political trends in the state. He is also the founding editor of the California Political Almanac, and co-author of The Third House: Lobbyists, Money and Power in Sacramento, a book on lobbying. Walters is a frequent guest on national television news shows commenting on California politics.

Sorry to splice hairs, jimsf, but we don’t actually know why people voted the way they did; we only know what information they had available at the time. We now know that some of it was incomplete, misleading or outright false. We also know that some of it is outdated and has crept sufficiently to speculate whether some voters may vote differently had they access to more accurate, complete information. Although we can all guess and predict and argue about how voters may or may not change their minds, we don’t really know unless we put it out in front of them, do we?

I think it’s possible for a group to demonstrate that since voters were not given complete, accurate information, the outcome of that vote was not reliable. Would a revote change the outcome? I don’t know, but I’m tempted to suggest that we try to find out, considering that this is the largest infrastructure project in the history of California. There’s too much at stake to gloss over the niggling issue of whether the project earned the public’s vote of confidence in an honest way.

Arthur Dent:

“There’s too much at stake to gloss over the niggling issue of whether the project earned the public’s vote of confidence in an honest way.”

Arthur, this is only the basic premise of a democracy, is it not? There are elections, there is information, there is a media, and people make a choice. And finally, we all have to live with that choice. If there was ever a vote for an immensely important issue where the intent of the voters was in question, it was Bush v. Gore, and can you tell me what ever happened to the re-vote we had on that one?

If you’re of the opinion that there should be *another* vote in California to legally change the outcome of Prop 1A, we can’t stop you from trying. But there’s no reason it *has* to happen. There was nothing wrong with that vote.

“it was Bush v. Gore, and can you tell me what ever happened to the re-vote we had on that one?”
Yeah it happened Nov 2004. Bush won (what’s that say about the intelligence of the voting public)
We also vote for politician promises and when it becomes obvious they misled the public they sometimes get impeached.

Well Morris.he is .nothing more than a cow town reporter taking directions from his owner
in Denver.. And you know that..Sorry your little event was ruined by normal people..did your friend fly back to Long Beach..or did you drive him home? Now William F Buckley is someone worth reading Reagan lover or not..

Dan Walters is a pretty well respected columnist at the Sacramento Bee … he seems to believe the CHSRA business plan is a little flimsy … http://www.sacbee.com/walters/story/2484870.html