May 2011 CHSRA Board Meeting Open Thread
Apologies for the delay on getting this up. The agenda is here and the webcast is here. Included in the agenda is discussion of the Peninsula rail plan and the proposed study of the Grapevine alignment.
Sometime today is the Senate committee hearing where Senator Joe Simitian will have to defend his “blended” plan, especially with respect to how it will meet the Prop 1A rules, how it will not throttle HSR ridership or operations for decades to come merely because a few NIMBYs threw a fit in 2011, how it will not undermine the project’s financing, and how it will not serve as an even worse and more unsafe barrier that divides communities.
The board of the rail authority approved spending $70,000 to study for 4 to 6 months the Grapevine alignment to determine if it should be included in the environmental report as an alternative. The phased implementation plan with its “Initial Operating Phase” item vote was postponed until there is a clarification of the letter from Simitian et.al. Chairman Pringle expressed concern as to funding a study of electrification of the penninsula to the benefit of Caltrain with the threat of not being able to use HSR on the corridor.
This is o/t but in yesterday’s House Transportation Committee hearing, John Mica claimed he was the biggest supporter of high speed rail in Congress. This is a bit of an exaggeration, to say the least.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
May 5th, 2011 at 1:20 pm
Biggest Republican supporter. Democrats don’t count. And poor Bernie Saunders is on another planet altogether.
Alon Levy Reply:
May 5th, 2011 at 7:11 pm
He may well be right. There’s nobody else in Congress who was trying to arrange for HSR before 2008.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
May 5th, 2011 at 7:18 pm
He was 18 when Lyndon Johnson signed the High Speed Ground Transportation Act of 1965. Promised two hours between DC and NY by the 80s. Or an average speed of 112 MPH which is respectably high speed railish. Especially for 1965
Alon Levy Reply:
May 5th, 2011 at 10:51 pm
Fair enough. Amend my comment to “nobody between the 1990s and 2008.” And even the 1990s is doubtful, since Congress is a lot to blame for the Acela’s problems. so make that 1970s and 2008, or something.
BruceMcF Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 11:06 am
Didn’t George HW Bush have a watered down HSR bill proposed? Of course, it was Clinton who won the election, and he watered it down further to the bill that set up the framework for all the HSR Authorities without giving any funding to actually build any HSR.
That was the last time the “lets get it all focused on the NEC where we have a single target we can wrestle into submission” tactic was used that the Republicans are aiming to use again.
Alon Levy Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 2:54 pm
Yeah, I’m thinking about the Acela here. But Congress’s role in it was mainly to pressure Amtrak to finish it now, now, now, without bothering to finish the resignaling first, to say nothing of modifying the regulations. It wasn’t government’s finest hour.
BruceMcF Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 6:25 am
Yes, ’94 to ’99 was divided government. Getting regulatory improvements through is tricky in the best of circumstances, and especially hard during a period of divided government.
Alon Levy Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 1:10 pm
Yes, Gingrich was a huge fan of government regulation…
But whatever. Let’s say somehow Congress couldn’t act. Why not instead give Amtrak another year to get ACSES (ugh) done instead of pushing it to start service early?
Nasdaq reports, “The Obama administration is set to announce next week which states will receive nearly $2 billion in federal funds to upgrade and construct inter-city passenger-rail lines, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said Thursday”. Hopefully more money will come to California.
Ken Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 11:50 am
Accorfing to HuffPo, seems like quite a sum might be going to Illinois
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/05/05/illinois-wins-high-speed-_n_857972.html
Plus, Ray LaHood is making the announcement Monday at NY Penn, suggesting that quite a bit will go for more NE Corridor improvements. I’m sure CA will get some too, but you can’t have ‘em all. Might as well disperse the money to pro-HSR states like CA, IL, and NY.
Brandon from San Diego Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 4:39 pm
It is probably time that some one else gets the lion share. We can’t be tto greedy.
YesonHSR Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 8:31 pm
No we need it..we have a real HSR project here that needs big capital to get really going..Now if that 1Billion2011 monies would have stated plus the 400 taken back I think we had a good chance a t the 1.2 asked for in the base request..thats now not going to happen as 180million is already spoken for leaving around 1.8 billion..we will be luckly to get 710million like we did in 2010 and if we want to get to Merced then we are going to have to match it like the other ARRA monies dollar for dollar or wait for another day
BruceMcF Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 6:26 am
Thing is, California needs more than just what has already been appropriated, so California needs allies in getting funds appropriated as much as California needs a piece of the funds already appropriated.
Alan F Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 7:20 am
CA HSR has done very well over the past 17 months for federal funding. have to remember that the prospects of any significant federal funding were very dim until the $8 billion for HSIPR was added to the stimulus funding. If my numbers, CA HSR has received about $3.6 billion in federal funding so far from the $10.1 billion total available. There are many good applications for the Florida HSR funds which would lead to improved service in 2 to 4 years, not the 8-10 for CA HSR – which has to be weighed in the political calculations. My guess is that CA HSR gets maybe $500 to $600 million of the Florida HSR redistributed funds.
For the CA HSR project to succeed, it will need federal funding in the years to come and for private investors to put up a big chunk of money for the project. Think of the $3.6 billion plus what is announced on Monday as start-up & seed money.
Brandon from San Diego Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 8:29 am
California has been very fortunate, to date. I think the State and Federal government might risk sour grapes elsewhere if a disproportionate share comes, yet again, to the Golden State. We don’t need decision makers in other states having sour grapes and then vocally speaking against future appropriations to California.
Now, if the CHSRA had a really robust communications department that was able to sell the merits of HSR across the COUNTRY, then I might think differently. Right now, we’re on the left coast and could be viewed as sucking the wind out of project efforts elsewhere, even if those projects were marginal.
Donk Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 9:57 am
Well at least now it is clear why CAHSRA could not apply for funding for the Bakersfield-Palmodale route yet. They aren’t even close to figuring that part out yet. So now the decision to start with the Central Valley instead of LA-Anaheim or SJ-SF is a pretty obvious one. The only real debate is whether they should build to Merced or not.
Alan F Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 7:54 am
Michigan submitted applications totaling $208 million for the Chicago to Detroit (to Pontiac) corridor. This funding is to supplement the $100 million already awarded in the FY2010 HSIPR grants to buy 135 miles of NS tracks to upgrade it to 110 mph speeds. With the 95 miles of the corridor already owned by Amtrak, this would put around 230 miles of the corridor into Amtrak and state ownership.
The goal for both the Chicago – St. Louis and Chicago-Detroit corridors are to upgrade to 110 mph max speeds and get trip times down to around 4 hours compared to the current 5:30 to 5:40 times for both corridors. 4 hours would be faster than driving and would be close to being competitive with flying, especially for downtown to downtown trips. Success on these 2 corridors would help build support in the greater mid-West region for more 79 to 110 mph corridors and >125 mph true HSR projects.
My guess is that Michigan may get all or close to all of the $208 million they applied for. The other corridor service that can be upgraded to notably faster speeds for a modest amount is the Amtrak owned electrified Keystone East corridor from Philadelphia to Harrisburg, PA. PA submitted a $248 million dollar application to upgrade the line to 125+ mph speeds and to reduce Harrisburg to Philly trip times by 20 minutes. If the goal is to show visible progress with the $2 billion, $248 million for the Keystone East is another good candidate to get selected on Monday.
YesonHSR Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 9:25 am
I don’t have a problem with states getting the funding if they’re actually going to have 110 MPH service on their designated projects within four or five years.. otherwise their timelines are far out of California .
Since this money came from one single project maybe it should’ve gone to one single project.. whether that’s California or the Northeast corridor or the Midwest. If all we get is 550 million it’s only good for extend the line 15 or 20 miles and not really do anything for us unless additional funding is coming in the 2012 budget.. yet everything helps in the overall picture and will we be a beneficial to the project in the long run… I have a feeling people thinking we are getting 1.2 billion and getting the project to Merced soon will be disappointed
VBobier Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 9:29 am
Lets hope both Corridors get what they need Alan F, As does some for the NEC and for CA too.
YesonHSR Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 11:27 am
With Illinois receiving 186 million and Michigan possibly 190 million that will leave about 1.6 billion if they would split that down the middle with California getting 800 million and the Northeast 800 million it wouldn’t be too bad of a deal for us. And really California and the Northeast corridor are only the only projects in line with the thinking of true high speed rail at this point in time.
Alan F Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 2:30 pm
There are also applications from Washington state ($120 million), Oregon (cheap at $13.1 million though), Missouri, New York state for the Empire corridor, CT for New Haven to Springfield MA corridor (Amtrak owned), NC for the Raleigh to Charlotte corridor & funds to buy the CSX S-Line from Petersburg VA to Cary NC for the SE HSR corridor, Maine for the Downeaster corridor, and $800 million from the mid-West states to buy new bi-level cars & locomotives. The money is not just for true high speed rail, it is for high speed and intercity passenger rail (HSIPR). Not easy to figure out to best divide up such limited funds.
If there were $4.9 billion (Florida funds with no rescission & $2.5 billion FY11) to grant, it could all be put to good use to make marked improvements in passenger rail options in many corridors just for this round of applications alone.
YesonHSR Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 2:55 pm
I really thought we had a good chance of getting 3.4 billion nationwide distribution this year.. really sucked that they were able remove another 1.4Billiion after Obama gave up the 1.5 billion that was kind of not really there, as it was just a placeholder figure from 2010… oh well at least we have 2 billion
VBobier Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 3:37 pm
Yes It did suck, But on the Bright side, There’s always 2012 & Hopefully enough Republicans stepped in It with Seniors to be voted out of Congress in 2012, Then maybe some money can be allocated(like $8 to $24 Billion, I know, Dreaming, but I can dream, It’s Free at least) for Rail Projects in States that would like them & that haven’t had a history of being Refuseniks, All while still reducing the deficit at a sensible rate & while not hurting people.
Donk Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 10:08 am
I am really questioning the wisdom of spending all this money on the Chicago-Detroit corridor. That corridor is a dead-end route that dead-ends into the biggest failure of a city in the U.S. – one that we continue to subsidize. To me it would have made much more sense to focus on the line to Toledo and then maybe to build a spur north to Detroit. At least this would give us the start of a continuous corridor to Cleveland and beyond. Instead we are basically blowing money on a train to a city that continues to lose population.
Continuing to blow more federal dollars on Detroit is just putting more good money after bad. At some point you have to cut your losses. Lets build a wall around Detroit and then lease it to the Chinese for 50 years – ala Hong Kong or Macao. Let them invest in it and turn the place around. I bet they would do wonders for the place.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 10:50 am
The biggest failure of a city is in the center of a metro area, that while it may not be thriving, it’s not dying either. One that’s twice as big as Cleveland’s. It’s at the end of a corridor that has a few people along it. Amtrak owns the track which means when they spend money on improving the track the improvements won’t be abandoned two years later because the last freight customer along that section of track went bankrupt. It already has PTC. Odd peculiar made just for Michigan PTC, but it has PTC.
YesonHSR Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 11:24 am
Michigan was having problems getting the matching funds for their 2010 grants.. did they ever come up with the match? This funding must be ARRA and if they didn’t come up the match maybe this can be swapped out for it and that money redistributed
jim Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 12:05 pm
Toledo and Cleveland are in Ohio. Governor Kasich’s position with respect to passenger rail funding is if solicited he will not apply, if awarded he will not build. So for the next few years the only corridor running east from Chicago that’s available is Chicago-Detroit.
Alan F Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 2:16 pm
Yea, the problem with Ohio is that they have a Governor who is not just transit indifferent, or just pro highway & roads, they have a Governor in Kasich who is rabidly anti-transit. He is going out of his way to do his best to kill a long planned street car project in Cincinnati. Over the objections of the city leaders and business community in Cincinnati.
No, for the next few years, intercity passenger rail funding will go to Illinois, Chicago hub improvements, Michigan, Missouri, some to Indiana in the mid-West and to the NEC and PA & NY state in the east. Then when Kasich leaves office, then planning and engineering funding can start to flow to Ohio to connect the cities in Ohio to Chicago to the west and Buffalo & Pittsburgh to the east.
Alon Levy Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 2:57 pm
Not only that, but a nonpartisan statewide commission had deemed the Cincinnati streetcar to be the highest-performing transportation project in Ohio.
But why care about performance when you have
GodDavid Koch on your side?Donk Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 12:27 pm
LaHood will be flying to Detroit after for an announcement following his announcement in NYC.
http://www.freep.com/article/20110507/NEWS06/105070365/U-S-bring-money-high-speed-rail-Michigan?odyssey=mod|newswell|text|FRONTPAGE|s
YesonHSR Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 12:37 pm
I wonder who’s going to make the announcement for all the projects.. he supposed to come to California next Monday we have to wait until then? thou after Monday it should be fairly easy to figure out how much is left!
Alan F Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 2:03 pm
I would expect there will be a press release from the DOT and the FRA on Monday or Tuesday listing the applications that were selected. The official DOT press release may follow a little later in order to give the local politicians, the Congressmen, and Senators time to put out their own press release first, so they can get their names in the newspaper articles. There is a pecking order on these things in DC.
Beta Magellan Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 12:29 pm
And even if you wanted to do Chicago-Detroit via Toledo as true HSR eventually (very eventually), it wouldn’t make sense to abandon the existing cross-Michigan line. As adirondacker noted, there’s still a fair number of people there (metro Kalamazoo’s around 325,000, metro Battle Creek around 150,000).
YesonHSR Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 12:35 pm
The nice thing about the current Michigan plan is that it gives it its own right-of-way for exclusive use of passenger trains if I’m correct.. that alone is worth it and they will have to deal with a lot of railroad freight train issues and could possibly even upgraded to much higher speeds in the future
VBobier Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 12:43 pm
You might consider It a dead end & It might be, But expanding HSR to the Chicago-Detroit area would show that Amtrak doesn’t own enough of Its own rails & needs more Amtrak owned rails to be more profitable & closer to the USPS in being more self reliant. To Me the Chicago-Detroit area track project is a good thing and is better than playing second fiddle to the Freight RR’s while waiting to proceed down the tracks at 79mph, Sure 110mph may be only 31mph faster, But still It’s faster and has No pesky Freight Trains to get in the way, Which makes Amtrak Trains wait for Freight to pass and is what Amtrak does on lines that It does not own and so the lines need a bit of help(a subsidy), It’s a long overdue upgrade for Amtrak, Expansion, Higher Speeds and real profitability, Which will get bigger and bigger as more and more Amtrak routes Nationwide are on Amtraks own rails.
Oh and I thought I’d introduce Trains.com where Kalmbach Publishing publishes Trains Magazine and some articles are online, Particularly HSR, Which I’m linking to The Magazine of Railroading as Trains.com calls It. I’m a former subscriber of course and I don’t and never have worked for Kalmbach Publishing in any capacity. I just like Trains…
YesonHSR Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 11:56 am
Actually I wonder if everybody already knows what they getting?? I can’t believe the states dont have an inkling of what’s happening on Monday or for that matter Feinstein and Boxer
Alan F Reply:
May 8th, 2011 at 3:53 pm
This thread is getting rather long, but this appears to be the most appropriate place to ask this question before the re-allocation of the Florida funds is presumably announced tomorrow.
If CA gets $500 or $600 million from the re-allocated funds, what will the reaction be in CA from those who are opposed to the project? Of course, this is funding that was not going to go to CHSRA until Gov. Scott in FL killed the project. But, will those opposed use this to attack the project, saying that 1) there are no FY11 funds coming and 2) it shows that the Obama administration is not really behind the project because they did not put $1 billion or more into the CA HSR project? Comes down to perception more than real facts, but all too often, perception and the spin game is much more important than facts in politics.
Plus ca monte:
http://www.newsdaily.com/stories/tre7446bh-us-markets-oil1/
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
May 5th, 2011 at 1:42 pm
The long-term trend is upward. No one-day spike or one-day decline changes that unalterable fact.
Donk Reply:
May 5th, 2011 at 2:19 pm
Well since the Republicans now say that Obama is responsible for oil prices, he must have waved his magic wand to reduce it 10%.
BruceMcF Reply:
May 5th, 2011 at 5:39 pm
Stated as if you doubt that Obama is actually responsible for oil prices. But the US consumes about a quarter of the world’s petroleum, and through that consumption plays a big role in the price of oil … and who was it who stalled the fuel efficiency standards for cars and opened up the SUV loophole in the standard in the 1980′s? Obviously it was Obama from his positions as community organizer in the middle of the decade and then editor and then President of the Harvard University Law Review near the end of the decade.
Brandon from San Diego Reply:
May 5th, 2011 at 11:48 pm
But, republicans are stupid.
VBobier Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 12:45 pm
Really? ;)
joe Reply:
May 5th, 2011 at 7:22 pm
The outlook for oil is bleak. We’re heading off a cliff.
http://www.cnbc.com/id/42909575
In March, Rogers predicted that crude prices will rise over the next decade.
“Where is the oil? I still want to know where is the oil? You know why the price of oil [CLCV1 100.04 0.24 (+0.24%)] is going up? Because there is no oil,” he said.
But if the price is going too high, the race to find the last drops of crude will accentuate, before the search for alternative energy resources yields results, according to Rogers.
“At $300 a barrel they would be drilling for oil under Buckingham palace,” he said.
The International Energy Agency “has come to the conclusion that the world’s oil reserves decline by six percent a year,” and that is an argument for the rising price of crude, Rogers said.
“Say they don’t decline by six percent, say they decline by four percent. That means in 25 years there’s no oil at any price,” he said, adding that rising oil prices will “hurt some people very badly” and some companies will go out of business.
“We will certainly have dips (in oil prices), we will certainly have consolidation, I hope we do. If oil goes into a spike, if it goes parabolic, you have to sell it,” Rogers said.
The world uses 86 million barrels of oil every day, he pointed out, adding: “we found some big oil fields in Brazil and let’s say the bull estimates there are correct, that’s still only two years worth.”
adirondacker12800 Reply:
May 5th, 2011 at 7:26 pm
At 300 a barrel you can mine coal and make oil out of it. We don’t because oil is cheap.
wu ming Reply:
May 5th, 2011 at 11:40 pm
coal isn’t infinite either, and faces growing global demand as well.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 1:09 am
Not it’s not but the numbers I hear bandied about mean we could drive SUVs until Antarctica is tropical. That would be after we suck up the tar sand stuff at 250 a barrel.
joe Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 6:55 am
Bull – What’s the amount of energy needed to to extract and process the resource into fuel ?
BruceMcF Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 7:14 am
China is going to be hitting peak coal in the next decade or so ~ the US has maybe 150-200 yrs oof abstract coal at constant current rates of use, which translates into perhaps 100 years of recoverable coal ~ convert that to oil at 50% energy efficiency and replace our current oil with synthetic coal oil and we got 33 years at constant rate ~ fewer if we assume a growing population and constant usage levels per capita.
Enough to make cushioning of the impact of climate chaos impossible, true, but not enough for a long term fuel source.
And banking our energy future on consuming a fuel source that we have no proof is safe to use would be insane.
There are limits on how fast we can convert tar sands into oil, since it is, after all, tar embedded in sand from an oil reservoir that did not have any capstone and so the volatiles have been lost ~ normally that’s natural gas, which is why the Energy Return on Investment is so much lower than conventional oil. If we have to synthesize, the EROI goes down even lower. A million barrels per day of tar sands is not equivalent to a million barrels per day of conventional oil, because the energy yield is so much lower.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 8:42 am
The peak oil crowd love to sit around and say that we run out of oil in 2034. June 17th at 11:42 in the morning to be precise. I’m sure that the peak coal crowd loved to sit around and tell each other that we run out of coal in 1963. At 20 cents a gallon for No. 2 heating oil it doesn’t make much sense to insulate your house because the payback is 120 years. Or heat it with coal. At 2 dollars a gallon the payback is 12 years. When your oil fired boiler springs a leak it makes sense to switch to natural gas. If it happens at 8 dollars a gallon you switch to a ground sourced heat pump that gets it’s electricity from windmills. At 300 a barrel you put up with it taking 20 minutes to recharge the electric car at the rest area on the interstate. With electricity that comes from a breeder reactor that came on line when oil was 225 dollars a barrel. You save the 300 dollar a barrel oil to make the plastic in the bumper. Or since it’s faster to take the train the 20 minute charging problem never occurs. somewhere in there it became cheaper to install solar thermal collectors in the backyard and a 2000 gallon storage tank instead of using electricity to drive a heat pump. At that point I’ve insulated the house well enough that I only need a 500 gallon storage tank and a quarter of the collectors. “Oil” is never going to disappear, plastic is too useful and we need lubricants. Burning it in a boiler or in a car has alternatives. The question is how fast we convert and how painful the conversion is.
BruceMcF Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 9:28 am
Nope, peak oil means half of the production lays ahead, so if it took over a century to get to the peak, its not going to be a couple of decades to run out.
Peak oil is not about when oil runs out, but rather about when the increase in productio that we have been used to for a century stops happening. That increase no longer happening changes the rules of the game.
BruceMcF Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 9:43 am
And what kind of import bill is tar sand oil at $6/gallon crude? $4/gallon gasoline on $3+/gallon crude helped bring down our economy ~ with financial institutions a house of cards the explosion it triggered was much bigger, but it was already a recession and was already going to tilt downwards from the oil price shock in any event. $6/gallon at (2010) 180b gallons crude oil product imports is a $1T drain on the economy.
Where is the offsetting $1T in spending going to come from? We did a $250b one year peak stimulus bill and it led to all sorts of phony political terror about “the deficit” ~ and that’s only 1/4 of the output gap that we’re talking about here.
BruceMcF Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 9:31 am
Also, Rogers does not understand how oil field decline works. A mature oil field that declines by 5% per annum is not “dry” in 20 years after peak … ten years down the track, the production is smaller, so the 5% decline is a smaller amount. We have stripper wells running in this part of the country that were part of Rockefeller’s Standard Oil empire before they broke up Standard Oil, and they are pumping down lots of gallons of water to bring up each gallon of oil, about a hundred years later.
Matthew F. Reply:
May 5th, 2011 at 11:33 pm
Call me when oil drops to $40/barrel.
Ain’t gonna happen.
BruceMcF Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 7:15 am
Oh, it could happen ~ say hyperinflation takes the purchasing power of the dollar to $40b/barrel, and then they come out with a “New Dollar” that chops off nine zeroes.
LA Times Coverage of the Grapevine issue:
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/lanow/2011/05/high-speed-rail-california-grapevine-palmdale-5-freeway.html
synonymouse Reply:
May 5th, 2011 at 2:29 pm
LA Times is saying almost 30 miles shorter
morris brown Reply:
May 5th, 2011 at 4:39 pm
Huge opposition from the Tejon Ranch group which has been planning
along the Grapevine for years now, since they understood the HSR route was fixed to Palmdale
They made quite clear, they would strongly oppose. They own almost 300,000 acres. The meeting made it sound like, just another option, and for sure not close to changing positions.
synonymouse Reply:
May 5th, 2011 at 4:59 pm
I wonder what their position would be toward building another freeway thru there when the Grapevine is jammed. Maybe a tollway.
joe Reply:
May 5th, 2011 at 7:25 pm
What will these vehicles use for fuel? 7.00 a gallon gasoline?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110505/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_bin_laden_rail_threat
Info from Osama raid shows interest in US trains
So not only planes and buildings, but also trains possible targets!
spokker Reply:
May 5th, 2011 at 4:27 pm
Came here to post this. If people don’t think high speed rail will feature pat downs and screening, they are living in a fantasy world. If HSR has security theater I won’t be using it.
Reality Check Reply:
May 5th, 2011 at 5:08 pm
German HSR enjoys lack of “security theater”
joe Reply:
May 5th, 2011 at 7:27 pm
While TSA security is mostly stupid and ineffective, what happens at 40K feet when you blow a hole in the plane with an underpants bomb vs a train running at 100ft above sea level?
Spokker Reply:
May 5th, 2011 at 7:30 pm
Don’t bother preaching to the choir. It’s the TSA you have to convince, the head of which already wants a strong presence on transit.
Expect the TSA to try to justify itself further by citing that terrorists were thinking about possibly considering maybe bombing trains. Even if such plots were imminent, you and I would probably have to stop the threat anyway because the TSA is so ineffective.
AndyDuncan Reply:
May 5th, 2011 at 7:34 pm
Who knows what level of irrationality will take hold. But the day i can hijack a train and steer it into a skyscraper with twenty five thousand people in it, then we’ll see pat downs and porno scanners on HSR.
Spokker Reply:
May 5th, 2011 at 7:35 pm
They already did trial runs with pat downs at an Amtrak station in Georgia.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
May 5th, 2011 at 7:51 pm
That’s true, and it was also reported that the head of Amtrak’s police department blew his top when he heard about it (and saw a YouTube clip as well), and proceeded to kick the TSA out. Good for him!
Seems he also thinks railfans can be useful, too; they know railroads almost as well as the people who work on them (and in some cases know things even the pros don’t), and their eyes can be good at spotting things that don’t look right.
Spokker Reply:
May 5th, 2011 at 8:33 pm
See something, say something, but just don’t take a picture of it.
YesonHSR Reply:
May 5th, 2011 at 11:29 pm
Dome train Foamer!!!!!
BruceMcF Reply:
May 5th, 2011 at 5:41 pm
what was the plan for hijacking a train and driving it into a major building, again?
Paulus Magnus Reply:
May 5th, 2011 at 8:48 pm
Fairly simple to cause hundreds of deaths in attacks upon rail systems.
Spokker Reply:
May 5th, 2011 at 10:12 pm
Fairly simple to cause thousands of deaths by fostering a car culture with few alternatives.
Intrusive security will cause people to make the choice to take the risk driving than having their ball bags felt over by the TSA before getting on Amtrak, and I wouldn’t blame them for one second.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
May 5th, 2011 at 10:33 pm
The TSA has had ten years to institute it and they haven’t.
Spokker Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 12:23 am
A few more deep thoughts from Osama’s diary and they’ll get enough funding to place a TSA agent at the entrance of every train station in America. They’ll line them up to create a human fence around platforms and you are only getting in if you release your anus and let them have a little look.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 1:13 am
Spokker back in the 70s they took out the lockers in Penn Station so that terrorists couldn’t leave locker bombs behind. There was the incident on the LIRR. Amtrak has been thinking about terrorism since there was an Amtrak. They aren’t going to make Penn Station into a maze of metal detectors and X-ray machines.
Alon Levy Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 1:57 am
That’s only because there’s no room for any of that at Penn. At South Station, they have no trouble forcing people to queue single-file and walking along the file with trained dogs.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 2:54 pm
Security theater. No reason why they couldn’t have the dog at the bottom of the escalator. Or the top of the escalator. If the suicide bomber wanted to make a statement it would make more sense to make that statement at the ticket counter. Or the waiting room. Or the subway station. Or Fenway Park. But then terrorists aren’t the brightest bulbs in the string. The one from the 1993 World Trade Center bombing went back to the truck rental office to get his deposit back. The one, at that point, staffed with FBI agents.
Andre Peretti Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 12:10 pm
Lockers have been removed from all French stations after several bombs had exploded in them.
No special security measures are taken for the TGV, although France is rated target #2 by Jihadists (#1 being, of course, the US). Experience proves high-speed trains are not a productive target for terrorists. The human density is too low. Training teams for months just to kill 2 people, which is the maximum they have achieved on the TGV, is not what they are after.
What they want is carnage, and a high-speed train is clearly not the place where they can get that.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 3:08 pm
Don’t fool yourself! It’s straightforward to cause mass carnage of HS train passengers, but it isn’t done on-train.
Regardless, there are much softer targets available elsewhere, as we’ve seen, and as are readily conceived by even the dimmer turrrrrrust.
Risenmessiah Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 8:06 am
If you look at recent successful Al-Qaeda style attacks (Atocha, the Tube) they exploited commuter rail and the subway. It is true that in 2004, there was a failed attempt to blow up tracks (and possibly a HSR train when it passed by) on Spain’s HSR train from Madrid to Seville. It doesn’t really matter: security theatre is unlikely on HSR except at the busiest stations, and even then will probably amount to using dogs and other bomb detection techniques. Sure, Michael Chertoff wants to sell his backscatter machines….but like the Tea Party is down with that. It’s why we have never fully funded border security…it’s much easier to talk about an agency’s shortcoming (and your frustration with it) than actually solve the problem.
Andrew Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 11:10 pm
It is very easy for a terrorist to park a car full of explosives in an area full of people and cause many deaths. For example a car parked just outside a busy train station can cause a lot of damage and is virtually impossible to protect against unless you close every road near the station to cars. Similarly a terrorist can hide a bomb in a knapsack or bag and kill many people that way. It is impossible to guard against every method of terrorism so aside from aviation (because flying planes into buildings can cause massive damage) there is no point of using intrusive security checks.
ks Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 2:49 am
Terrorists could also blow up dams or nuclear plants. Now shut all of them down.
BruceMcF Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 6:31 am
And collect all copies of Force 10 from Navarone, destroy them, and ban its distribution, since it could give trrrsts idears.
Joey Reply:
May 5th, 2011 at 10:14 pm
Yes, but at least as simple to cause thousands by choosing another target.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
May 5th, 2011 at 11:09 pm
Nope. 9/11 was a non-repeatable fluke which could have been easily prevented with the same measures that it is now: security doors between the cockpit and passengers and non-cooperative passenger psychology. Rail is the highest payoff, lowest risk target venue (as shown by Madrid and London).
Spokker Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 12:25 am
We could prevent it all if we simply get out of the Middle East.
Joey Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 12:37 am
If you’re going to target a train, you want one where people are packed together densely on board. This probably means a subway at peak hour and not an intercity train.
BruceMcF Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 7:17 am
And of course, they attacked the HSR at Madrid ~ not.
Donk Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 7:38 am
I wish it was still socially acceptable to use “not”. I miss “not”.
Alon Levy Reply:
May 5th, 2011 at 10:48 pm
Not intercity rail – the passenger density is too low for a bomb to have that big of an effect. The last time a bomb exploded on a high-speed train it killed 2 people, embarrassing the terrorists into never trying it again.
Commuter and subway trains and stations are higher-value targets, and those have indeed been targeted. Those are also all but impossible to security-check. Israel does have a (very short and rudimentary) security check at entrances to train stations, but it can get away with it because it has low rail ridership; buses, which have higher ridership, have no security, and have been favorite targets of local terrorists.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
May 5th, 2011 at 11:06 pm
Which is why you don’t bomb the train directly, or at least the intended cause of major casualties. You try for something like Palo Verde or arrange for a derailment with high speed collision of another train set into the wreck. With that said, commuter is the more likely venue of venue. On the gripping hand, baggage policies means you could bring a fairly sizeable bomb on board an Amtrak California train and cause a sizable number of casualties.
Alon Levy Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 1:58 am
Yeah, they already brought a bomb on board the TGV. 2 people died.
Andre Peretti Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 2:41 pm
And the bomb was fairly sizeable: 10 kg (22 lbs) of C4 explosive.
The impact on ridership was nil.
Vice Chair Lynn Schenk asked for a legal opinion on the ability to move segments in phase 2 to phase 1, Los Angeles to San Diego for example. The authority attorney responded that other segments could be legally funded in phase 1, which seemed to please Schenk, and that a more complete legal opinion would be provided to the board.
Dan Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 7:30 am
Best news I’ve heard in awhile. If San Jose –> San Francisco is going to take longer than expected we can just wait out the NIMBY’s and build the rest of the system.
Donk Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 7:39 am
Or if Altamont is built first they can build to San Diego or Sacramento before San Jose.
BruceMcF Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 9:23 am
Of course, if they’ve first to Sacramento, then the incremental benefit on the second half of the split alignment will say just forget it ~ whichever piglet is sucking hind tit is the first one to get knocked aside in a squabble.
tony d. Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 9:59 am
COW TOWN before Silicon Valley? PLEASE! And stay away from pot clubs.
Alex M. Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 6:33 pm
Sacramento is not a cow town.
StevieB Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 2:24 pm
Schenk opined that Los Angeles to San Diego has ridership to be successful but that at the time of phase 1 selection maglev was being discussed on that route so it was not chosen. Now that maglev is forgotten and politicians on the peninsula are blocking progress the route may be preferable. Schenk resides in San Diego where she served one term in Congress and was highly critical of the Simitian et.al. proposal. She vociferously combined with Pringle to table the peninsula phased implementation as quoted by KQED
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 2:40 pm
Regrettably, he’s right re “bail out of Caltrain.”
What has happened in the Bay Area is that MTC (an agency fully controlled by the capital project mafiosi) together with the Caltrain CMAs (SFCTA and VTA — SMCTA is already worse than broke from last decade’s encounter with giving billions to PBQD et al) have in fact defunded voter-approved and fully funded Caltrain capital projects in order to transfer the funds to PBQD and allied consultants. (See: PB’s Central Subway catastrophe in San Francisco. See PB’s BART extension via the dead auto factory, SJ Flea Market, and empty SJ downtown to a dead factory site in Santa Clara.)
VTA, in particular, explicitly defunded the Caltrain projects (most particularly electrification) that its voters approved as part of a transportion sales tax package in order to commit everything to PB’s BART extension corporate welfare undertaking, with the fig leaf that some how the HSR Tooth Fairy would come along and magically patch up the holes that the regional agencies had chosen to shoot in their own budgets and own feet.
Caltrain electrification and Caltrain fleet replacement and Caltrain track upgrades and incremental Caltrain grade separations and Caltrain Dumbarton service were all funded and approved parts of multiple voter-approved local and regional tax and toll plans, and moreover high priority parts of the legally binding approved Regional Transportation Plan.
What’s happened, under the aegis of the limitlessly corrupt MTC executive director Steve “$5 billion Bay Bridge budget overrun”, is to transfer these funds into the pockets of BART contractors and then seek to have state and federal taxpayers put on the hook for the bait-and-switched regional projects of Caltrain.
So he’s absolutely correct. There is a bail-out being sought, of immense size. Only it’s of the CHSRA’s prime consultant and its BART-extending special friends.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 2:48 pm
“… she’s right …”, that is.
You can view Item 5 of today’s CHSRA Board meeting (section dealing with the Peninsula) at:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovvM_RSLI24
Senator Simitian gave Daniel Krause some polite feedback near the end of the meeting, obviously not agreeing with the message that Krause was sending.
Also posted is the Senate Hearing on SB-22 [LaMalfa] of 5-03-2011. bill if passed could essentially removed funding from the Authority
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDEgullAF5w
Jack Reply:
May 5th, 2011 at 7:10 pm
Love the way you leave out how SB-22 was denied… HSR is coming, I know your loosing sleep over it. Nightmares of trains barreling down disrupting your ability to drink your expensive wine on your porch.
AndyDuncan Reply:
May 5th, 2011 at 7:30 pm
Hey, I drink expensive wine on my porch!
Dan Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 7:34 am
So do I …. and I love drinking a glass of wine on the porch on the weekend evenings when the big freight trains come through. I’m not right on the tracks, but they’re a short walk away and I’ve got an unimpeded view of the tracks, trains, and the rumble. No diesel fumes though.
Do not fear a view of the traintracks. It’s actually kind of nice.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
May 5th, 2011 at 8:03 pm
The diesel fumes add so much to the experience today….
YesonHSR Reply:
May 5th, 2011 at 11:31 pm
The front porch…Melon/PA is rich slurb hicks
adirondacker12800 Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 1:06 am
Well in TOD-ey places sitting on the front porch is lots of fun. There’s all those people who you know walking past.
thatbruce Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 9:26 am
Air-conditioning is one of the (many) reasons people stopped sitting on their front porches.
John Burrows Reply:
May 8th, 2011 at 4:21 pm
Most TOD-ey places, at least where we live, have no front porch. But I do admit to going upstairs every now and then to have a glass of wine, open the front window and check out the action at Diridon.
Usually there is a train, although it may be parked; sometimes I actually see people. And the five loading platforms are very impressive. One thing for sure—San Jose Diridon will be ready to handle those extra passengers. ” Build it and they will come” And when the four additional elevated tracks are built,we will be more than ready.
Clem Reply:
May 5th, 2011 at 10:43 pm
Yikes! The peninsula really took it in the chin from several board members. Maybe they can reallocate some phase 1 funding to build the Altamont overlay to Livermore instead (far cheaper, shorter, and less tunneling than SJ-Merced, good connection via BART for an initial SF-LA operating capability). Pacheco and the peninsula can be built later after all the litigation has run its course and sufficient funds become available.
YesonHSR Reply:
May 5th, 2011 at 11:35 pm
Clem.. you need to stop.. your starting to sound like SYN…or space cadet intergalactic lightspeed supermouth Bitch Richard.AKA .. the Super Bitch.. nonstop service from San Francisco to Palo Alto on a daily basis.
synonymouse Reply:
May 5th, 2011 at 11:59 pm
Naah, Clem has technical expertise whereas my ideas are mostly half-baked.
Here’s one. 99 may shift to some greenfield, but I-5 is all free-field.
tony d. Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 10:08 am
“technical expertise” will never triumph over common sense. Sorry.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 10:27 am
As an ill-informed pseudo-intellectual with a particular interest in the unverifiable, I’m always on the lookout for some partially thought out misinformation.
Joey Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 11:02 pm
I hope you’re not saying that a thorough quantitative analysis will never triumph over an uneducated general feeling of what is the right answer.
tony d. Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 10:05 am
Agree with YesonHSR.
dave Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 1:04 am
Yes sir, maybe Van Ark canr recommend a re-study of Altamont as the primary HSR route and mop up after Kopp & Diridon. Wait, they can just use Altamont Overlay EIR, make sure they can do SF-LAUS in 2:40 and bam, Value Engineering. Altamont isn’t too far back from SF-SJ EIR anyway. Pacheco can wait, I mean Caltrain needs to collect funds on the route soute of RWC and just electify to Gilroy so Santa Cruz & Monterey counties have a connection. It’s cheaper than Gold plated Pacheco Pass.
tony d. Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 10:12 am
You are more than entitled to your opinion (even if it makes no sense and is wrong).
BruceMcF Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 7:20 am
But the Altamont litigation would likely still be proceeding when the Pacheco litigation is finished, so that strategy does not actually get Altamont built.
joe Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 10:24 am
Yes, The larger point shouldn’t be missed: What you support will be used against you too.
Litigation, compromise with NIMBY’s, using undocumented inflated estimates, questioning the EIR, ridership attacks, and attacking San Jose’s density – a attribute most all CA cities have at this point — all these tricks hurt rail projects.
Altamont advocates want to “win”, really build what they want to build which is a commuter line to sacramento, at *any* cost – including supporting tactics that screw rail.
VBobier Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 4:26 pm
Another Ridership study will take 1.5 years according to the CHSRA. But then endless studies will do no one outside of the stupid Nimbys any good.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 4:45 pm
Well, they would say that, wouldn’t they?
VBobier Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 5:18 pm
Let Me guess, No one rides trains & so all Ridership Studies are Faked? LOSSAN is the 2nd densest Passenger Train travel corridor after the NEC in the entire USA, So I doubt their faked, If a new study is done, It should be done by somebody else, Just for some objectivity, If It’s even close to the 1st one, Then I can imagine the howls from the ignoramus troglodyte knuckle dragging Nimbys will intensify(Too bad, So sad, Not), Especially If they lose in their lawsuits, It would be nice If someone could keep US appraised on the status of those lawsuits of course, win or lose.
VBobier Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 5:28 pm
LOSSAN is just an example I used, a 2nd Ridership Study might take time, But It would be a good idea.
YesonHSR Reply:
May 5th, 2011 at 11:51 pm
Simitain needs a polite kick in the balls
synonymouse Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 12:05 am
Simitian is merely representing the views of the majority of his constituents. That’s politix. Just like Mark Leno pushing legislation requiring employers to hire stoners. It is called appealing to your base.
YesonHSR Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 12:29 am
And that one needs to work alot more for HSR..and I am going to start making sure of that soon..lots of people in SF want HSR..72% said yes on prop1a..remember??
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 12:27 pm
“Majority” of his constituents? By what evidence do you make that claim?
peninsula Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 12:46 pm
Probably the same source you use to pull unsubstantiated BS claims out of your ass all the time. However, you might want to use a little logic this time, (as hard as that may be for you) and consider that Simitian is a professional politician, who’s been successful politician for quite some time. And as such, his job is to be re-electable by doing the work the majority of his constituents will support when the next time his name is on a ballot. One might assume that he actually has a pretty successful way to gauge the pulse of his constituency, in ways that (surprise!) he doesn’t share with YOU Robert – as astounding as that may sound. And if his positions and actions were against that majority, his positions and actions would be self-destructive, and thats just not the way people succeed in politics in the long run. And venture to guess, he’s been in politics a lot longer, and positions of a lot more power than you. So maybe, just maybe, he knows more about what his constituents support than you do. Lets put it this way – if a tree falls in the forest and Robert’s not there to hear it – does that mean it didn’t make a sound?
joe Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 3:09 pm
I looked at 2008 election results for the Counties.
Prop1A passed with 61%, 60% and 60% for San Matro, Santa Clara and Santa Cruz Counties.
So how could you partition that consistent, powerful 60%-40% into a district where the majority vote was NO?
thatbruce Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 4:07 pm
Statistically, you can argue that because there was not a 100% voter turnout, that any results of that election are not truly representative of the area.
Looking at say Santa Cruz, there were 178,855 eligible voters at the time. Only 128,555 of them showed up on the day (71%, actually high for a US election), and of those, only 120,444 cast a valid vote on Prop 1A. If you want to play with numbers for this county:
40.5% of eligible voters voted for Prop 1A,
28.1% did not cast a vote for anything on the day,
26.8% voted against Prop 1A,
4.5% abstained from casting a valid vote regarding Prop 1A, although they did vote in other matters on the day.
If you make the assumption that that 28.1% would have voted ‘No’ on Prop1A, if only they could have been organized enough to cast a vote, then you get to a point where the majority opinion can be considered as ‘No’. But with the statistically significant sample of 71% expressing their opinion, the votes of the remaining 28% or so are not likely to have changed the outcome one way or another.
VBobier Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 5:25 pm
If people don’t show up to vote or don’t vote by mail, Then I see those that didn’t vote as abstentions, And so that was that. They had no excuse for not voting as they could have taken 10 minutes to vote by mail, attach a stamp and mail the thing with their bills, It isn’t rocket science. But that’s just My opinion.
BruceMcF Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 6:24 pm
“If you make the assumption that that 28.1% would have voted ‘No’ on Prop1A, if only they could have been organized enough to cast a vote, then you get to a point where the majority opinion can be considered as ‘No’.” … and if you assume that they would have cast their votes equally yes and no, or equally yes and no and not voting, then there’s be no change in the outcome from the electorate.
Indeed, among the various assumptions one could make, the assumption that 80%+ of non-voters would have voted No when a majority of the electorate voted Yes seems like the least plausible assumption that could be made.
joe Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 7:08 am
You can argue anything.
Just don’t argue this way.
” you might want to use a little logic this time, (as hard as that may be for you) and consider that Simitian is a professional politician, who’s been successful politician for quite some time. And as such, his job is to be re-electable by doing the work the majority of his constituents will support when the next time his name is on a ballot. One might assume that he actually has a pretty successful way to gauge the pulse of his constituency”
Politicians are perfect bell-weathers … they are never wrong.
Arthur Dent Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 4:18 pm
@Peninsula – well said.
@Joe – you’ve got the emphasis on the wrong word: “a district where the majority vote WAS yes”.
(I assume you meant to write “yes”.)
Simitian is looking forward while too many people on this blog are still caught up in Nov 2008.
peninsula Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 7:05 pm
See the difference between Simitian’s constituents and the morons on this blog is that they recognize that the HSR they were sold under Prop 1A is a pure lie (starting with 33B number, business plan, ridership at 117M/year, ticket prices at $55, completed usable segments, no subsidies, 17B federally funded, private investors, peer reviewed, and on and on it goes), and that the CHSR they see now unfolding under the arrogant SOBs at CHSRA is pure garbage.
Like 4 years later, the Peninsula voters haven’t picked up a newspaper and figured out for themselves what BS they were sold under Prop 1A?
VBobier Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 7:08 pm
You’re full of It, Loser.
Joey Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 11:05 pm
Way to prove your point with evidence!
joe Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 7:13 am
Exactly peninsula !!
I think the billions in Federal ARRA money sent to CA to build non-useable segments in the Central Valley really pissed of Californians.
Jeff Carter Reply:
May 8th, 2011 at 5:27 pm
Peninsula: “Like 4 years later, the Peninsula voters haven’t picked up a newspaper and figured out for themselves what BS they were sold under Prop 1A?”
What about the BS and lies that comes from you, your NIMBY buddies, and toilet paper rags such as the Palo Alto Daily Post?
There are people in my Burlingame neighborhood that actually believe that HSR is going to plow through every house/business/building along Carolan Avenue and California Drive. That every tree in Burlingame is going to be cut down. That a 60/80/100 foot high freeway structure will wall off the middle of the communities. That the whole peninsula will be utterly destroyed!!!
The Caltrain ROW is wide enough through Burlingame that NOT one home NEEDS to be taken. It is likely that the Chevron station/car wash across from my apartment complex will have to go and just maybe the donut shop next to Burlingame Station might be in the way. Some car dealerships parking lots/car lots may have to be reduced at the southern end of Burlingame. There are no facts to support the overzealous fear that people have here in Burlingame.
The plans from PB/CHSRA are poorly designed, I’ll grant you that. They maximize construction cost and minimize passenger/customer/HSR usability. But instead of taking a proactive approach to change a poorly designed HSR project into something worthwhile and more efficient, you and your NIMBY buddies demand more expensive and disruptive (during construction), tunnels or nothing at all, you spread fear-mongering miss-information among the constituents, who in turn, express their concerns to Simitian, et al. So they (Simitian, et al) have no choice but to respond to their constituents.
VBobier Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 4:29 pm
If Smitty, Er Simitian, is a pro, Then Governor Brown must be a Master.
Jeff Carter Reply:
May 8th, 2011 at 4:37 pm
Peninsula: “Probably the same source you use to pull unsubstantiated BS claims out of your ass all the time.”
Oh… it’s no different than the BS garbage that you and your NIMBY buddies are pulling out of YOUR asses all the time.
GoGregorio Reply:
May 8th, 2011 at 4:55 pm
A large part of being elected is also fundraising. And, of course, those most satisfied with the status quo are those with the most money. Therefore, by taking a pro-status quo position, you’re appealing to those with the greatest means.
Appealing to the wealthiest is a political strategy not solely used by any one party. I have no doubt that politicians have a mind to appeal to those with the most disposable income just as much as they do to appeal to a simple majority of voters.
Ok so who is going to break the news about the next round of HSR funding?
synonymouse Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 12:26 am
Clem is correct – they turned down Simitian’s plan, at east according to the SF Chron:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/05/05/BA8S1JCGBA.DTL
But Ms. Schenk is totally ignoring LA’s diversion of hsr funds to upgrading Palmdale Metrolink commuter operations. Simitian should jump on that choice bit of hypocrisy.
VBobier Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 4:48 pm
Syno I may not always agree with You, But since You or someone else put up that link to the 2004 Caltrans study of HSR & Tejon & the Australian firm vs PB, I give in on PB, PB is being too extravagant in their estimates, Even the Aussies kept It simple & “relatively” inexpensive(PB was definitely GOLD plating the route, I’d ditch PB If I were the CHSRA). As to Simitians plan, Good I’m glad they turned down that idiots plan, As It would have possibly broken the law. Oh and nice link.
peninsula Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 6:55 pm
Except they didn’t turn it down. They asked for more information, and delayed voting on it.
synonymouse Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 7:29 pm
My off-the-top guess is that the 4th & Kind “temporary” terminus idea is originating from the CHSRA staff since Kopp was proposing the very same not long ago. My interpretation, correct or not, is they they really want to trim costs and still have a reasonably functional hsr sorta within the provisos of Prop 1A..
I supported the TBT tunnel in 1990 and still do as a bulwark against BART Ring-the-Bay so I do not know how to respond to this idea. But I doubt PAMPA is pushing to kill the TBT tunnel since PAMPA wants a viable Caltrain they can live with.
Personally and strictly imho I advocate nullifying the shotgun marriage of hsr and Caltrain, dumping Pacheco and doing instead Altamont to SFO via Dumbarton. In a torqued extrapolation of Washington’s advice: “no foreign entanglements” Cut Caltrain loose to duel to the death with the Evil Empire.
synonymouse Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 7:44 pm
Here’s another way to put it. Just how fast do you think that hsr train is going to be travelling from SFO to the TBT(or 4th & King). Just trundling along, relatively. Might as well let Caltrain or BART do it.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 8:06 pm
Tell ya what, instead of having the passengers transfer the conductor can pull out magnetic logas at the station in San Jose that say BARTaltrain and slap them on the side of the train.
If there are 500 people sitting on the northbound train painted blue and gold in San Jose they can get off the train, cross the platform to the red and white train with 500 seats or you can get over your fear of blue and gold trains and they can just ride in the blue and gold train all the way to San Francisco.
morris brown Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 7:34 am
The Chronicle article is not accurate. The Board took no action on the item and will see it again in the June meeting.
However, it seems quite clear that the Authority is not going to go along with the Simitian/Eshoo/Gordon proposal and is going to continue to use its phased approach.
In the Simitian meeting that followed, vanArk argued that the Simitian proposal was not Prop 1A compliant. In particular, he cited that passing tracks were needed at stations and were included as a Prop 1A requirement. Simitian is more than upset and issues a threat the project may lose his support if that position doesn’t change.
vanArk likes to pick and choose what sees as Prop 1A requirements, while ignoring others. So he insists that the 2 Hr 40 minutes trip time for SF to LA must be obtained.
On the other hand, all his proposals in the CV certainly do not comply with Prop 1A, since as proposed they don’t have electricity and therefore don’t quality under Prop 1A as a “usable segment” for HSR as defined.
Prop 1A prohibits construction funds from the bonds being released until total funding sources for a “usage segment” are in hand to complete that segment. vanArk says, we will complete it later, but that doesn’t satisfy Prop 1A.
joe Reply:
May 8th, 2011 at 5:16 pm
How vs What. Process vs Outcome.
Van Ark’s focused on the final project – is it being built according to Prop 1A promises.
Those focused on how the compliant HSR system is built, the process, are in a weaker position.
Arthur Dent Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 1:20 pm
$186M is going to Illinois.
Off-topic: Rich E Green’s site recently expired, taking all of the track maps with it. I have copies of the Metro-North and NJT-SEPTA maps saved on my computer, but not the rest. Does anyone have copies of the other maps?
Joey Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 1:54 am
I’ve got a copy of the NY state track map.
Alon Levy Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 3:00 pm
Would that be the one going all the way north to Albany? I may have it, but can you send it to me anyway?
Joey Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 11:09 pm
Sorry, I think “Tri-State Regional Track Map” is the proper name. It’s the one that shows MNRR and LIRR, as well as the NEC as far as Westerly.
Alan F Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 7:55 am
I have several others of his maps. LIRR V3, a NEC-MD draft of the NEC from Union Station in DC to Newark DE. I also have a NYC V3 map which covers the Tri State region, but it appears to be LIRR, MN, and Shore Line East, which are covered by the MN V 2009 and LIRR maps.
The last I read he was working on a map of the entire NEC and I would guess the Keystone East corridor. Which would be very cool. Hope his website is just down temporarily and he has not given up on the NEC map.
Alon Levy Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 3:00 pm
I don’t have those drafts… I heard about the NEC map, and saw the Connecticut and Rhode Island maps, but that’s it.
If you send these to me, I’ll start uploading them to one of the domain names I’ve parked in case I ever go back to blogging.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 9:11 am
Something is snafu’d at GoDaddy. DNS records show it expiring in 2013 as does information from GoDaddy.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 11:17 am
Something is deeply, deeply, horribly, irremediably fucked at Godaddy.
And it’s not a matter answering UDP datagrams sent to port 53.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 12:19 pm
I don’t get answers from GoDaddy when I send out a request for DNS resolution. It comes from somewhere deep in the bowels of my ISP. A dank and ugly place. The information I got from GoDaddy arrived on port 80. If they have snafu’d responses to requests on port 80 for Mr. Green’s website odd and peculiar things like displaying a page that says it has expired will display. At least they appear to be using LAMP and not WAMP or WIMP …Apache version 1.3.33, insert an eye roll here.
Grapevine Alternative re-study? It’s looking bad for DesertXpress!
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanfrancisco/blog/2011/05/train-in-vain.html?ana=RSS&s=article_search&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+bizj_sanfrancisco+%28San+Francisco+Business+Times%29
Revolt in Brisbane…
BruceMcF Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 11:00 am
What makes that quite bizarre is that the pretext is wanting to reserve the site for cleantech industry ~ as if HSR support services is not a cleantech industry.
thatbruce Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 11:20 am
HSR support services don’t generate local tax revenue, compared to say, an electric hybrid flying kite manufacturer.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 11:32 am
It’s perfectly rational for Brisbane. A train storage yard and medium-level maintenance facility is space intensive and employment non-intensive compared to pretty much any other hypothetical use for the site.
I spent more than a decade or two gently reminding Caltrain staff that Bayshore is the only remotely logical maintenance and layover location, for both them and for HSR, and that somebody should be actively working with Brisbane and San Francisco to remind them of this, but, well, hey, they were too busy with really truly massively important stuff, like the San Bruno grade separation.
The development problems for the toxic waste site that is the former SP Bayshore Yard are immense, and one might suspect (more accurately, hope, in a triumph of hope over bitter experience of stupidity) that eventually it may come to be understood that a big train yard is the least problematic use for the site, but random sloganeering about HSR parking lot being a “cleantech industry” so the site owner and city government (of a jurisdiction of which this site is a significant percentage of its entire area!) should just roll over and ignore everything they’ve worked on for the last 20 or so years is delusional. What’s in it for them, brave capitalist economist?
adirondacker12800 Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 12:38 pm
Well they can just run 20 trains to San Jose in the dead of night with a conductor on board to punch tickets, generating revenue! Then three hours later run them with a conductor on board, collecting revenue!! so that they are in San Francisco for all the thundering herds of reverse commuters that are there at 6 in the morning. Firebird!!! Only have to do that until teletransporters are invented, shouldn’t be more than a few millenia.
Alternatively they could build all the TOD-ey goodness over the Brisbane yard like they did over Sunnyside Yard.
SL Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 1:06 pm
The most recent information on the SJ – SF phased implementation still lists SFO as a possible site for train storage. I’ve looked closely at the map, and the only seemingly available site that’s approximately 100 acres is the undeveloped land West of the freeway, North of where BART turns into the airport. Does SF own this land? Where else at SFO could they be looking, and how would crossing the freeway to the train yard be implemented? Seems complex to have a freeway between the yard and the mainline.
BruceMcF Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 1:15 pm
If its east of the rail corridor and west of the freeway, why would they have to cross the freeway to get to it?
SL Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 2:31 pm
If it isn’t the undeveloped land west of the freeway, the only other option seems to be on actual airport property east of the freeway. Is that feasible?
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 2:46 pm
Because it isn’t west of the freeway, that’s why.
Google Maps tourism doesn’t always reveal ground truth, evidently. You might consider doing some reading some time about “undeveloped land” even if just from the comfort of your laptop in Ohio.
Alon Levy Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 3:05 pm
Your link gives a 404. I have no idea if it’s intentional, but either way, it’s hilarious.
thatbruce Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 3:08 pm
One link, to order.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 3:09 pm
No preview function, no edit function, and other priorities. Thanks, thatbruce.
BruceMcF Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 6:14 pm
So, to translate into normal English, you are saying that the land that SL is talking about is not available because of environmental impacts.
What is the realistic time frame for BART to Livermore and San Jose? These should be considered in the HSR discussion. There are people here who are arguing to build HSR thru Modesto to Livermore, then to link up to BART there. Some of the same people are arguing against using BART to San Jose once HSR gets to Fremont.
Pacheco vs Altamont – I am in support of the one that can get done the fastest and for the lowest cost. But in arguing for Altamont, BART has to be there by the time Altamont gets to Livermore and Fremont.
synonymouse Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 11:13 am
When it comes to fighting or downplaying BART there is a phrase that is most operative – many have tried and many have died. The BART Empire continues to thrive no matter how much it ****s up.
And if they keep unleashing the berm rush on the Peninsula and create a tsunami of revulsion BART Ring the Bay is all too ready to fulfill its manifest destiny 50 years coming. The TBT basement will sit empty until, I guess, Muni uses it.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 11:18 am
BART already is in Fremont.
Donk Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 12:07 pm
Fremont to San Jose.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 12:37 pm
Fremont to Warm Springs is under construction with major contracts awarded.
VTA is advertising Warm Springs to San Jose Flea Market (SAN JOSE FLEA MARKET!!!!) contracts and has already transferred hundreds of millions into the mafiosi’s pockets for “design”.
Use the googles.
synonymouse Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 1:17 pm
Thanks, Richard, for reminding us of what is transpiring in the real world, the Bay Area transit “street”, where BART steals the other systems lunch money.
Tony D. Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 1:32 pm
You realize that the Flea Market will be history when BART gets there (don’t you?); TOD-mixed use development will take its place.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 2:59 pm
Right. Just like at the 33,000 riders per day PBQD “predicted” for their Millbrae station.
PBQD “predicts” roughly the same number of transit passengers to the San Flea Market site as today use downtown Oakland’s 19th Street station.
“Crack smoking rent seeking fraud” doesn’t begin to describe this.
PS For you Google Maps Tourists who aren’t quite clear on where “Oakland” or “Alum Rock” might be, and perhaps even for others, this might provide some context and perhaps even some food for thought.
PS You forgot to mention how “PEAK OIL” will render all ridership estimates too low by a factor of 10 or more. No worry: consider it said.
BruceMcF Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 5:53 pm
You’re aware that a straw man argument is a logical fallacy? “You forgot to mention how “PEAK OIL” will render all ridership estimates too low by a factor of 10 or more. No worry: consider it said.“
Donk Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 8:07 pm
For somebody who loves to bash people for analyzing everything based on what they see on Google Earth, you sure do like to provide links to maps.
Drunk Engineer Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 8:16 pm
Like any criminal organization, there are two sets of books. In the FTA grant application to the Feds, the parcel is indicated as getting a major TOD. But in real life, the property owner — the Bumbs (yes that’s the name of the family) — are going ahead with low-density single-family housing.
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 12:28 pm
I support Panama. But maybe if we keep arguing about it for a while, we can build the Nicaragua Canal instead.
synonymouse Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 1:13 pm
Would that the hsr benefited from the natural monopoly the Panama Canal enjoys. It would have plenty of private investors knocking at its door.
Gianny Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 7:32 pm
Guatemala is building a Dry Canal…. $12 Billion. Will be done by 2015.
Gianny Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 7:34 pm
LINK
http://www.centralamericalink.com/en/news/47-link/2737-12-billion-dry-canal-project-launched-in-guatemala
Drunk Engineer Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 7:00 pm
If I70 isn’t routed through Cove Fort, that city will be off the mainline. Some argue it needs to connect Salt Lake City, the main population center, but Cove Fort is an important Pony Express stop.
Loren Petrich Reply:
May 8th, 2011 at 12:39 am
It’s easy to find out from http://www.bart.gov — look under Projects
Warm Springs:
http://www.bart.gov/about/projects/wsx/index.aspx
The station will be on Warm Springs Blvd., between Grimmer Blvd. and Warm Springs Ct.
The extension should open in 2014.
Berryessa:
http://www.vta.org/bart/
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/04/15/BA901J14HN.DTL –
It will have two stations, one at the Great Mall of Milpitas, and one between Berryessa and Mabury Rds. Is that latter one the flea-market station?
It’s now in early construction, with major construction to start next year.
It should open in 2018.
The rest of the San Jose extension does not have funding — yet.
Off topic, but it seems like we need a little relaxation here, with a little celebration, and even an animated map:
http://greatergreaterwashington.org/post/10282/the-evolution-of-amtrak-1971-2011/
That link was actually through this site, again, I include it to cool a few tempers around here. . .
http://www.roadsideonline.com/
Take it easy, it’s the weekend. . .
D. P. Lubic Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 9:52 pm
Don’t know how I stumbled onto this one, but it’s fun anyway–deals with “socialized” transport, and other big words like that:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=107926172562722&v=info
VBobier Reply:
May 6th, 2011 at 10:23 pm
1 Billion Americans? That’s a sad and strange Facebook page, Mr T said It best, “I pity the fool”.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 6:32 am
I don’t know if it is as bad as that; did you check out the comments? Some great satire there:
http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=107926172562722&v=wall
Little disappointed I have to get my news about the meeting from the comments. Robert must be crazy busy.
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 7:33 am
I am. Sorry about that.
Elizabeth Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 8:22 am
Jack et al,
Please keep in mind that Robert, along with most of us, are trying to contribute to the debate while maintaining real jobs and real families. While I don’t always agree with him, I greatly appreciate that he has provided a forum for the exchange of information. The rest is up to us. If you want formal reports on every meeting, feel free to make it happen. Otherwise, think about how incredible that you can be part of a community that allows all of us to tap into an incredible amount information.
Elizabeth Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 8:24 am
And while you are at it, don’t forget your contributions to public radio and other sources of indepth news coverage.
Robert Cruickshank Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 9:09 am
Thanks, I appreciate that! And by all means, if anyone wants to submit a report on a board meeting or any other meeting, I’ll happily publish it, as I’ve done in the past.
Here is a list of links to videos of meetings on this HSR project which I posted to YouTube; mostly regarding the SF to San Jose segment.
YouTube links to videos of HSR meetings.
Late April to May 2011.
I have posted to YouTube the folfowing videos.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UnUMRnS731M
Announcement of the Simitian/Eshoo/Gordon proposal
for the Peninsula.
=============
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8_PYSf1KZ8
Lowenthal SB-517 hearing of 4-26-2011 in Senate Transportation
Bill would put HSR project under new management.
===========
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6x_OtTZBobY
Simitian Committee meeting of 4-28-2011 Part I
Discussion with vanArk of the proposal for the Peninsula
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S6KJU_66ges Part II
===================
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sDEgullAF5w
Senate Transportation committee meeting of 5-03-2011
Discussion of SB-22 [LaMalfa] which could defund the Project.
===============
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ovvM_RSLI24
Authority Board meeting of 5-05-2011 Item 5 only
dealing with SF to San Jose.
The full meeting video can be seen at:
http://stateofcalifornia.granicus.com/MediaPlayer.php?clip_id=73
=============
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iLzSgrOuuU8
Simitian meeting of 5-05-2011. More discussion
with vanArk on the Proposal for the Peninsula.
(1 hr 50 minutes)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ts1ybBrYhDk
2 minutes excerpt from this meeting. Simitian telling
vanArk things going backwards.
============
Clem Reply:
May 7th, 2011 at 8:40 am
Much appreciated.