Kings County Farmers Unhappy About HSR Route
Last year, the City of Hanford, located in Kings County, told the California High Speed Rail Authority they didn’t want tracks going through their city. It interfered with their development plans, they said. OK, said the Authority, they would put the tracks on the edge of town, impacting about 3,000 acres of farmland. That’s a small number, but since tracks have to go somewhere it made sense to cut through a couple farms. After all, the project is crucial to economic development in Kings County, the Central Valley, and even the state of California.
Predictably, those few farmers are now screaming about the project. And in typical fashion, their screams are unhinged. Instead of complaining to the city of Hanford, however, they’re taking it out on the Authority. As the Hanford Sentinel reports, these NIMBYs are exhibiting the same behavior as their Peninsula allies – a total unwillingness to accept compromise, common sense, or even realize the fact that the needs of 37 million people should not be held up because of a small number of folks.
Residents got their chance to speak this time, and they took full advantage of it. Person after person in an estimated crowd of 225 – many of them landowners who would be directly affected – lambasted the authority for everything from failing to notify residents along the route that they would be affected, for having an uncaring attitude about the local impact, to not having enough money to complete the system, which is intended to connect all the state’s major urban areas from the Bay Area to San Diego.
“This is the most bass-ackwards plan I have seen in my 64 years,” said Hanford resident Jerry Sojfer.
I totally understand where these folks are coming from. It’s not easy to learn that you might have to sell your home, your business, in order for an infrastructure project to be built.
On the other hand, that sort of thing happens all the time. On the west side of Kings County, farmers had to sell their land to the state of California in the 1960s for the construction of Interstate 5. Unlike the HSR project, which will generally follow existing corridors except where cities like Hanford have insisted the rails go through farms, Interstate 5 was largely built on an entirely new alignment through the Central Valley. Many, many, many more farmers lost land to the freeway than will lose their land to high speed rail.
Interstate 5 didn’t destroy agriculture in Kings County. Farmers moved on and did fine. The same will happen with the high speed rail project.
Agriculture is important to the Kings County economy. But so are other industries. And with high unemployment, Hanford and Kings County have a greater need of a high speed rail station than most other cities in the state. They are poised to skyrocket past other cities once they get their station and their connection to the rest of the state. Hanford will become a destination for residents and jobs, drawn by affordable land and quick, affordable connections to other important urban centers in the state.
Some Kings County residents get it:
Only Hanford resident Veronica Felts spoke out in favor of the project.
“I am genuinely concerned about my future,” she said, defending the high-speed rail line as necessary for economic development.
Boos and jeers were directed at Felts, but some yelled out, “Let her speak!”After the meeting, Hanford resident Andrew Picard, who started a Facebook page last week called “Citizens Who Support High Speed Rail in the Central Valley,” defended the project in an interview.
“It’s sad. There’s no amount of money that can compensate people for the loss of their land,” he said. “However, we have to think of the future of gas prices, our jobs. I think there’s a large, unheard majority who do want high-speed rail, but they don’t have skin in it. I think [high-speed rail] is going to hurt now and heal later.”
Picard is right. None of us take joy in seeing anyone lose their land. And we know that money doesn’t make the loss whole. But if it has to be done for the good of Hanford residents, Kings County, and the state, then we’ll do it. The cost of not building HSR is far too high for us to give up now.
Some in Kings County and elsewhere have wondered why the Highway 99 corridor can’t be used between Fresno and Bakersfield. My understanding is that because Union Pacific controls the right-of-way, it’s very difficult and expensive to do this. And of course, for most of that distance, there are farmers along the 99 corridor as well who would be impacted.
Whether it’s in Hanford itself, through farms outside Hanford, or through farms along the Highway 99 corridor the tracks have to go somewhere. I don’t really care where. But Visalia and Hanford fought hard to get their station, and it will bring a lot of benefits to the region, just as it will to the rest of the state. In the end, that is what matters most.
According to sources cited on wikipedia (insert laugh here), approximately 50% of the income of Kings’s County residents comes from working government jobs.
There are approximately (just a little less) than 3 government jobs to Ag jobs (3:1 ratio) with Government jobs paying more than Ag.
Ag. is important but not the major employer or economic presence for the citizens of Kings county. There are three correction facilities in Kings County.
The State is already a major presence in King’s County and not some outside force intruding on a rural community.
“there’s no amount of money that can compensate people for the loss of their land.”
and yet somehow, houses got built on former farmland up and down the central valley in the past decade, and landowners cashed those checks happily.
a more accurate headline here might be “225 farmers unhappy about land route; rest of kings county shrugs.”
wu ming Reply:
June 8th, 2011 at 11:22 pm
and to be clear, i’m all for preserving farm land in a coherent systemic manner statewide, through things like funding the williamson act, and rewriting land use planning laws to discourage greenfield subdevelopments in favor of densification and infill, and yes, even subsidies to promote farming if there are economic counterpressures making it harder for farmers to make ends meet, since i see ag land as a public good in a lot of ways (rice farming up here in the sacramento valley is a major part of recharging groundwater and provides critical wetlands habitat to all kinds of migratory waterfowl, as well as flood control and salmon habitat to boot).
i just don’t see these periodic NIMBY protests as particularly salient to accomplishing those broader goals.
synonymouse Reply:
June 9th, 2011 at 12:25 am
“Hanford will become a destination for residents and jobs, drawn by affordable land and quick, affordable connections to other important urban centers in the state”. In other words Hanford will be sprawled. I-5 avoids this problem.
The hsr will never be able to be profitable so long as the Pelosi-Burton patronage machine, the main backer of the CHSRA, demands their pet unions dominate it as they do SF Muni:
http://www.ktvu.com/news/28178207/detail.html
Wildest remark reported in the Hanford Sentinel is the claim that Kings County will lose $100 million dollars and the loss of property tax income will mean that one fifth of the county’s sheriff deputies will be laid off.
4000 plus acres is a a lot of farm ground to loose, yet most urbanites won’t think that it’s much compared to the big picture of the high speed rail job/project. However, in 1940 that’s what they said about Long Beach, Anaheim, Irvine and all of Orange County! Funny thing happened along the way, they don’t grow many oranges any more in Orange county. Hmmmmmnnnn, could it be that it’s because 4,000 acres didn’t seem like much then either? It’s a scientific fact folks, they don’t make much farmland any more and the best and most fertile, is right along both coast lines in the good ole U.S.A., and that’s almost all gone due to competition from housing and business development. Aghhhhhh, what’s one little iiitty bitty train, compared to the needs of the masses anyway? It’s not going to take much land! — of course when I need to eat, then — I’ll have a good lunch by eating seaweed – Kelp I think! That’ll do it! Who needs farmland, when we have the whole ocean, RIGHT????
PASSENGERS IN THE VALLEY DON’T EVEN PAY FOR AMTRAK NOW, HOW ARE YOU EVER GOING TO MAKE A PAYING PROPOSITION OUT OF HIGH SPEED RAIL JUST BECAUSE YOU THINK THE PEOPLE WILL COMMUTE FROM THE VALLEY TOWNS TO THE BIG CITIES – IT’S NOT GOING TO HAPPEN!
Look folks! — the issue isn’t just farmland and a bunch of farmers, the issue is, how can we save tons of money and not have the REQUIRED above grade overpasses and the below grade underpasses and all their related trenches and tunnels that would have to be built along the Hwy 99 corridor and/or building them to needlessly pass through the middle of the farms and tearing up the most prime farmland in the world, WHEN YOU CAN USE THE FOUR (4) EXISTING LATERAL (HORIZONTAL) RAIL TRACKS PASSING THROUGH BAKERSFIELD, HANFORD/ARMONA, FRESNO/KERMAN AND STOCKTON AND their GOING ALL THE WAY TO I-5! If they used the I-5 highway corridor, with the existing lateral right of ways passing through the San Joaquin valley like they already do, THEN they can still service the SAN JOAQUIN VALLEY AND all those towns in the valley at only a slight cost in extra commute time per passenger, and still have AMRAK and the high speed rail, without tearing up all the farmland. DON’T YOU GET IT??? You get two large services for the price of ONE! Look on the Google satellite maps! MUCH LESS COST, QUICKER PROJECT COMPLETION TIME AND NO LAW SUITS IMPEDING PROGRESS!!!! IT’S NOT JUST HIGH SPEED RAIL BY ITSELF – IT’S High Speed Rail PLUS AmTrak on the lateral to form BLENDED service!
Alex M. Reply:
June 9th, 2011 at 10:57 am
Calm down.
Peter Reply:
June 9th, 2011 at 11:40 am
Where are you getting 4000 acres from? I’m getting approximately 1200 acres of land required between Fresno and Bakersfield. That’s assuming a 100 foot wide ROW.
Nathanael Reply:
June 9th, 2011 at 10:07 pm
And it’s more than likely that the actual width of land used will be less than 100 feet, with the “shoulders” being rented to the neighboring farmers.
Clem Reply:
June 9th, 2011 at 11:18 pm
No, 100 feet fence to fence when at-grade with regular drainage structures (basically a ditch on each side). No trespassing in between.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
June 9th, 2011 at 11:56 pm
300 feet with the 100 feet of no-mans-land that’s needed on either side of the HSR tracks because a truck or a railroad car might get near.
Risenmessiah Reply:
June 9th, 2011 at 1:39 pm
In other words, this is the “bring people to the roads argument” instead of “bring roads to the people”.
Just in case you were wondering. CHSRA would love the rail line alignment that hugs the 99. But Union Pacific that makes a killing off agricultural exports doesn’t want to share it. Okay, big loss…whup whup. Much of the currently proposed alignment following existing track of Amtrak uses anyway owned by BNSF.
The I-5 alignment might be “cheaper” but no concessionaire wants to operate a system that doesn’t serve as many people as possible for negligibly higher construction costs. Isn’t the real issue here that farmers closer to 99 have more secure access to water, and that every year they don’t built the UBER-canal said farmers are profiting more and more from the way things are?
thatbruce Reply:
June 9th, 2011 at 3:26 pm
The I-5 alignment through the Central Valley doesn’t meet the AB3034 criteria of linking the major Central Valley population centers with other major population centers, however attractive its empty unfenced median looks to people.
YesonHSR Reply:
June 9th, 2011 at 10:28 pm
You raise fat hogs and steroid cattle..no big loss
urghhhh Reply:
June 10th, 2011 at 7:56 am
David,
You don’t LIVE in Hanford…stay OUT of it!!! It was a very calm meeting and you stand up and start screaming and then the reporters did a peice on you. You dont live here, its not affecting you.
urghhhhh
i MEANT 4,000 ACRES IN KINGS COUNTY AND NEARBY, – NOT THE WHOLE HSR PROJECT. (SMILES!)
Emma Reply:
June 9th, 2011 at 12:14 pm
Why are you yelling?
Nathanael Reply:
June 9th, 2011 at 10:09 pm
More importantly, why is he making up bogus numbers? 1200 acres from Fresno to Bakersfield, which is more than just Kings County.
I-5 doesn’t avoid the problem – it just moves those jobs somewhere else to be sprawled. Of course the problem there isn’t the jobs, its the laws that allow sprawl in the first place.
Peter Reply:
June 9th, 2011 at 5:19 am
Not to mention I-5 would stiff Merced, Fresno, Hanford-Visalia, and Bakersfield out of direct HSR service…
VBobier Reply:
June 9th, 2011 at 10:19 am
In any case the two freeways are not enough for a growing population, widening the freeways is a band-aid solution which will not help & their expansion would make HSR look inexpensive by comparison, as freeway lanes do take up land and yet don’t add enough capacity to keep up with demand as autos can’t go fast enough to meet the need, as there’s the law of diminishing returns, so put HSR where it will impact the farmers the least and help the cities the most, at the edge of the cities if needed or in the cities if possible. The CHSRA needs to design HSR to accommodate existing land uses, if HSR goes through a field, give the farmer easy and quick access to both sides of the tracks, plan for bridges where farmers drive so that they have what they need and I think farmers would not object to HSR and negotiate a price for the land and ask what amount of profit they get out of the field in question and give them 1 years worth of compensation for the loss of that part of the crop in that field and only 1 year(the crop compensation for the land that’s bought would ideally be a percentage of that fields yearly profits, based on a reduction in size of the field, if the row used 10% of the field, then the crop compensation should be 10% of the profits for that field, but then this could be negotiable and not rigid).
Peter Reply:
June 9th, 2011 at 10:22 am
LONG-standing eminent domain law does not require compensation for future income. The idea is that the money that you receive for your property will enable you to purchase other property that will produce the same or similar income as the property taken. No reason to change that now.
VBobier Reply:
June 9th, 2011 at 10:34 am
Ok, that I didn’t know, still getting the farmers input on the row design to help the farmers, wouldn’t be a bad idea and it could sooth some feathers.
Peter Reply:
June 9th, 2011 at 11:34 am
If you look at the most recent maps for HSR between Fresno and Bakersfield, you’ll see that they now have all the road overpasses marked as well.
Elizabeth Reply:
June 9th, 2011 at 2:51 pm
This brings up the issue that dairy farmers have raised which is that they don’t think they can get permits to open up a new dairy.
Peter Reply:
June 9th, 2011 at 2:59 pm
Ok, what dairies would be displaced and by which alternative?
Have they ASKED the respective Air Resources Board yet? As in, even put out feelers? From what I can remember of CAA, for an area that is non-compliant with NAAQS, if they can show an offset (one dairy closes, replaced by one that is less polluting, possibly), there shouldn’t be too much of an issue, though.
Eric M Reply:
June 9th, 2011 at 3:18 pm
And there are over 1.5 million dairy cows in the valley. I can’t see the HSR line destroying the dairy business. Besides, with as much pollution dairies make, a few less cows might help the valley air pollution out some.
Elizabeth Reply:
June 9th, 2011 at 4:27 pm
No clue. People are asking why the farmers are concerned. This is what they are worried about. I found this PPT which has a map of dairy farms in California and the train is supposed to go through the bottom hotspot. http://www.state-cafos.org/events/docs/AZCAFO/Albright.pdf page 4.
There are many potential solutions to the impact on the dairy farms, but dismissing the impact does not move things forward.
datacruncher Reply:
June 9th, 2011 at 4:52 pm
Doesn’t that map show there is a larger (blue colors) dairy concentration in Tulare County between Tulare and Bakersfield thus potential impacts on more dairies if the Kings County farmers’ solution of the 99 corridor were used? Looks to me like fewer dairies in Kings County than along the 99 corridor.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
June 9th, 2011 at 4:57 pm
There aren’t a whole lot of dairy farm on the highway or on UP’s tracks.
Peter Reply:
June 9th, 2011 at 5:21 pm
I believe there are a lot though within 100 feet of UP’s tracks.
Risenmessiah Reply:
June 9th, 2011 at 11:17 pm
What solutions do you have in mind?
wu ming Reply:
June 11th, 2011 at 10:15 pm
FUD
adirondacker12800 Reply:
June 9th, 2011 at 3:12 pm
what does that have to do with HSR? The price of milk in California is below production costs.
That points to an oversupply of milk. Why would anybody in their right mind, at this moment in time. want to go into a business that is sure to lose money?
Drunk Engineer Reply:
June 9th, 2011 at 7:07 pm
Interesting that high-speed rail is expected to have an operational profit, but the same
does not hold true for the dairy industry.
peninsula Reply:
June 9th, 2011 at 8:46 pm
What’s REALLY interesting is that the only way that they could cajole voters to agree to even allow an HSR to be built, was for the HSR foamers to put ‘no subsidy’ guarantees in the ballot measure. In other words, they wrote it in to law, and voters agreed. – Californian tax payers and voters on the whole – value DAIRY FARMs enough to subsize them, and they do not value HSR enough to allow their tax dollars to subsidize.
If you, I, we valued Dairy Farms less, we’d pass a law outlawing subsidy of Dairy farms.
joe Reply:
June 9th, 2011 at 10:27 pm
Or feed corn, another crop that we pay to subsidize at below cost.
Dan Reply:
June 10th, 2011 at 7:35 am
I think that’s actually the problem. The ethanol subsidies have absorbed so much corn that feed corn prices are artificially high, pushing up the operational cost of owning cattle in an industry which was used to subsidized/low feed prices.
synonymouse Reply:
June 9th, 2011 at 10:32 am
Not at all. With new trackage from Bako via Tejon to LA using dual fuel diesel hybrids you could extend the San Joaquins to LA. On the I-5 side also using hybrids in the interim you would tap the Bay Area via the ACE route. Preferably the I-5 corridor would be also extended via the best of various alternatives to SAC using the monies saved by utilizing the freeway row.
And is there a way to cheap trick those overpasses? Maybe simply trenching a few feet?
Joey Reply:
June 9th, 2011 at 12:23 pm
You still haven’t addressed the FRA problem.
synonymouse Reply:
June 9th, 2011 at 1:26 pm
The current Amtrak equipment is FRA-AAR compliant and any hybrid equipment would have to be as well. The CHSRA might as well get used to the reality its rolling stock will have to be heavier than overseas stuff. Ala Acela.
Miles Bader Reply:
June 9th, 2011 at 6:00 pm
Why should the “CAHSR [...] get used to the reality its rolling stock will have to be heavier than overseas stuff” when there’s no indication that it will be?
CAHSR seems to have done their homework. They have tons of powerful political backing.
The FRA manages to screw up many things with their idiotic and antiquated regulations, but there seems every indication that CAHSR won’t be one of them.
VBobier Reply:
June 9th, 2011 at 6:31 pm
So far the FRA has dragged their feet on HSR regulations & Congress could help, but right now I doubt Congress will do so. The FRA should just copy European HSR rules and regulations and adapt them to the USA and its needs.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
June 9th, 2011 at 7:19 pm
CHSRA’s extra special World Class consultants have designed their very own globally unique track geometry specifications, just for starters, and you can be 100% certain that no furrin equipment will meet the American Special Needs requirements that will be made of rolling stock. And of signalling. And of communications. And of power. And of SCADA. And of …
All this generates the “need” for hundreds of millions of dollars of extra cost (and years of delay) for “design” and “verification” and “testing” and “engineering change orders” and “testing again” and “more change orders” and “my oh my who ever could have imagined that we’d make so much money while delivering nothing?”
There’s no way in hell that rent-seeking PB and their consultancy mafiosi pals are going to allow somebody else to just deliver something working without getting a big, big, big slice of overhead right off the top. That’s not just the way it always works, but it’s the way things are being done today at CSHRA.
Joey Reply:
June 10th, 2011 at 12:29 pm
You really have no idea how pitifully the Acela performs, do you? Low acceleration and high maintenance are not something we want.
Of course Hanford has a history of hating the railroads that dates back to the Mussel Slogh Tragedy of 1880. Settlers vs railmen. Seven dead. Settler vigilantes became local heroes.
That’s Mussel Slough Tragedy.
Reality Check Reply:
June 9th, 2011 at 10:43 am
Wikipedia even knows all about it: Mussel Slough Tragedy
Risenmessiah Reply:
June 9th, 2011 at 1:54 pm
The Slough Tragedy was a bit overblown, if you believe historian Richard Orsi: http://books.google.com/books?id=8fOtfDnp6uQC&lpg=PP1&dq=sunset%20limited&pg=PA92#v=onepage&q=mussel%20slough&f=false
Are the farmers receiving truthful/accurate information?
Some anti-rail groups such as Burlingame’s ‘High Speed Boondoggle’ have indicated that they have gone to the central valley to spread their virulent, anti-HSR fear mongering lies and misinformation, turning the farmers against HSR, as they have done on the peninsula. Instead of *destroying* hundreds or thousands of peninsula homes and businesses, they tell the farmers that HSR will *destroy* thousands of acres of pristine farmlands.
The actual amount of farmland lost to the footprint of HSR (Peter says 1,200 acres) seems trivial as a proportion of the total ag economy. But the tracks will slice some holdings into two pieces, potentially creating, in some cases, two separate plots that are somewhat less economic than if they were one big plot. Loss of economies of scale, and all. The opposition seems to be mostly emotional rather than (legitimately) financial, but regardless I am wondering this: under eminent domain, could a farmer be compensated not just for the value of the land taken (the narrow linear ROW) but also for any loss of economies of scale that render the remaining landholding less valuable?
Peter Reply:
June 9th, 2011 at 2:44 pm
Yes, there is a mechanism in place to take care of that, namely “inverse condemnation.” This differs from ‘regular’ condemnation in which, in addition to getting a check for the value of property seized up front, the landowner brings a suit against the seizing agency for the claimed decrease in value to the remaining property that was not seized, in addition to any alleged underpayment for the original property seized.
This is not rocket science, and the eminent domain process is extremely efficient. Remember the uproar on the Peninsula when NIMBYs thought they could hold up the project in the eminent domain sphere? They had cold water poured on them by an attorney specializing in eminent domain proceedings and have basically given up on that route…
Joe Reply:
June 9th, 2011 at 8:35 pm
If you own two plots of land and they widen the road and take a fraction of one plot, you can cannot build or sell it and a standalone and meet code. Now you have 1 larger plot of land. You can sue and get more for what they take.
For farming, the economy of scale is what? if the remainder of property is cut into areas below some threshold and you lose aid, classification status, or something, then maybe you can get more money. If your crop is too small, well you might buy other land or lease land or process/pick other farmers crops to get an economy of scale. I don’t see that argument working.
From what I know of farming, contiguous land isn’t an economy of scale.
Nathanael Reply:
June 9th, 2011 at 10:11 pm
If you lost land such that you had to drive your farm equipment 30 miles out of the way to cross the tracks to the “other plot”, you would have a case. If not, you wouldn’t.
joe Reply:
June 9th, 2011 at 10:32 pm
You might have a case – the value of the land is diminished due to accessibility. That’s not an economy of scale.
Of course if that land is accessible the argument would be you could sell and buy land with other impacted farmers who reside on the other side of the tracks.
Mike Reply:
June 10th, 2011 at 10:04 am
Joe, almost anyone knows more about farming than I do, so I’m only speculating. But, say your large rectangular plot gets divided into two non-rectangular plots, and say you’re given a rudimentary pass-through under the tracks (assuming that the embankment is high enough). Much of your equipment won’t fit through that pass-through, so maybe you now have to purchase two each of some expensive things. When you want to spray pesticides, you might need to set-up twice, once on each side. You’ve probably got some big equipment that you run over/along your crops periodically — harvester, sprayer, whathaveyou — and it might be a little more time consuming to do this with a non-rectangular plot. I guess you could say that these are not technically economies of *scale*, and they may not be all that large, but (if they exist) they are at least “economies of contiguous regularly-shaped land” that could be undermined by placement of a rail corridor. (To be clear, I’m not particularly sympathetic to the ag complaints, but I do think that where there are impacts that farmers should be fairly compensated.)
Peter Reply:
June 10th, 2011 at 10:15 am
They’re actually looking at building overpasses for access across the tracks, not underpasses.
thatbruce Reply:
June 10th, 2011 at 11:26 am
You’re making the matter of a divided plot much, much bigger than it is in actuality.
Additional equipment? Really? Take a little bit of time and work out how those expensive bits of equipment gets to the original plot of land in the first place.
It may come as a surprise of you, but those expensive bits of ag equipment are moved on both private (the farmer’s access roads between fields and the barn/garage) and public roads, because it makes little sense to dedicate an expensive piece of equipment to just one field. A divided plot makes two fields out of one field, with access between them by way of existing or to-be-constructed roads using the same clearance envelopes that the ag equipment currently fits in.
The argument of ‘it will cost too much to move equipment across the new easement’ is bogus, because those sort of equipment moves already happen on a daily basis, and the CAHSRA is not going to be stupid enough to leave plots of land with no access.
They never complained about the highways which are approximately 6x wider and 4x as loud. It’s not that CAHSR will take 3000 acres from a single farmer. It’s really beneficial to run HSR through farm land. It is one of the safest areas. No crazy people trying dumb stuff. Large animals tend to avoid the wide fields.
Many if not all high speed tracks in Europe and Japan cut right through farmland.
Sheesh, it’s not that they were growing gold and 3/4 of the farmer’s income come from agricultural subsidies anyway. Whether they work on a tiny bit less land won’t matter.
YesonHSR Reply:
June 9th, 2011 at 10:26 pm
3000 acers is one slurb housing project
Aaron Reply:
June 11th, 2011 at 4:45 pm
I cannot believe I missed this comment on my first read through. I honestly am purely saddened by your remarks Emma. I hope one day you are able to visit some of our farms in Hanford.
“Whether they work on a tiny bit less land won’t matter.”
I hope you never have to lose something you worked for, fought for, toiled over and truly love. Keep those things close to you that you cherish for it is for people like you that make the liberties and rights of this nation disappear.
wu ming Reply:
June 11th, 2011 at 10:18 pm
people buy and sell farmland all the time. if farmers cherished their land above any monetary value, there wouldn’t be so many housing bubble developments sitting vacant all up and down the 99 corridor. farmers sold that land and cashed those checks, and didn’t lose their liberties and rights in the process. eminent domain for public works is settled, constitutional law.
joe Reply:
June 11th, 2011 at 10:55 pm
“I hope you never have to lose something you worked for, fought for, toiled over and truly love. Keep those things close to you that you cherish for it is for people like you that make the liberties and rights of this nation disappear.”
A 100ft wide ROW for goodness sake. You would think CA was re-filling Lake Tulare.
Aaron, you write as if your fellow urban and suburban citizens haven’t had property taken or impacted for the common good. Should CA stop HSR and then dismantle the canal system to undo that other heartbreaking land grab – or is that subsidized water and feed corn good infrastructure and public spending?
This is out there but I attended an interesting event hosted by The Atlantic and the New America Foundation yesterday (http://www.newamerica.net/events/2011/a_bank_to_rebuild_america) about the proposals for a national infrastructure bank. Sen. John Kerry was one of the panelists and spoke very forcefully about the need for both an infrastructure bank and for high speed rail here in America. He said he was in Europe last week and was able to take passenger rail from downtown London to downtown Paris in 2 hrs 30 min. Senator Kerry also said he was in China earlier this year (or last yr) and took high speed rail from Beijing to Tianjen. According to Sen. Kerry, the trip previously took 8 – 10 hours and now it takes 30 min. He noted the ride is so smooth, the water in his glass was barely moving.
In the US, on the other hand, Sen. Kerry said we’re fighting to keep Amtrak alive. Kerry noted Acela has “the ability to ability to go 150 mph and it goes 150 mph for 18 miles the whole trip.” He said “if Acela goes too fast in the Baltimore tunnel, the vibrations might cave in the tunnel.” Additionally, “if you go too fast on the bridges over the Chesapeake, they’re not reinforced for that kind of speed and the train will end up in the Chesapeake.”
VBobier Reply:
June 9th, 2011 at 5:20 pm
In which case Amtrak has good reason for the $117 billion then, as Amtrak has row that’s largely old, decrepit and in need of replacement for modern HSR uses. And people wonder why Amtrak is sometimes in need of a subsidy, It’s cause Amtrak has not been allowed to go beyond the old status quo, now that Amtrak asks for money to do just that, Sen Mica says sell off the NEC, I think thats a bad idea, Sen Mica just wants to cripple Amtrak and make a bigger case for Amtrak abandonment. But that’s just My opinion.
Aaron Reply:
June 10th, 2011 at 9:31 pm
That is great Sen. Kerry was able to take the train. Guess who paid for it? Yep, Mr. Kerry is right, we cannot get the rail we have done right, but if we can get one that goes 220 MPH we can do that. Unfortunately we have a massive cadre of incompetent and brown nosing staff running this project right into the ground.
Alon Levy Reply:
June 12th, 2011 at 1:05 pm
Sen. Kerry paid for the train himself. The Acela makes money off of customers, not the government.
If anything, that’s an argument for CAHSR, not against it. If Amtrak and Congress managed to build a train that makes money, so can California. If the Bay Area power brokers are even half as incompetent and corrupt as the ones in New York, Richard Mlynarik is too nice to them.
Too bad land can’t be taken from just one NIMBY (Union Pacific) instead of all the NIMBY farmers.
VBobier Reply:
June 9th, 2011 at 6:25 pm
That might require an act of Congress and right now Congressional Republicans hate HSR(among other things) and their in charge of the House of Representatives for the moment.
Nathanael Reply:
June 9th, 2011 at 10:13 pm
That is precisely the problem; it would require either an Act of Congress or a landmark court ruling; Congress is broken by the Republicans, and the court ruling would take too long, as well as being a tricky case.
Dan Reply:
June 9th, 2011 at 10:08 pm
Although I’m a fan of HSR, I don’t include UP as “just” a NIMBY. Freight rail is important in this country; it’s somewhat disingenuous to be an HSR supporter who believes in lower emissions, less highways, and self-supporting infrastructure ….. and yet wants to handicap UP for providing that in order to support passenger rail.
UP has legitimate concerns and HSR needs to address them.
Does anyone really believe that someone who chooses to work for UP is actually anti-rail or anti-HSR?
//dan.
YesonHSR Reply:
June 9th, 2011 at 10:25 pm
The UP is a pig…they make a huge amount of money off California for there Reb ways of the CEO
political_incorrectness Reply:
June 9th, 2011 at 11:01 pm
In the case of the Peninsula, I think they overexagerate the importance of their freight operation being only two trains per day. Unless they develop a RORO system, with the Port of SF not growing, I do not see why the HSRA has to bend over backwards to accomadate minimal freight traffic or why UP cannot have specialized equipment for the corridor and run single levels if they want to run to SF. But that is the Penninsula
In the CV, they do have a legitimate concern of increasing volume. Rereading UPs letter to the HSRA, I am not sure why they have double standards for HSR depending on the location. The threats to their expansion are legitimate such as being able to add more spurs to industrial sites. The collision threat is definitely an issue with the freight railroad since their is the possibility of it jumping the tracks and then going into the HSR ROW. That I could definitely see as being a legitimate issue. However, then why is BNSF allowing at grade tracks in their ROW? Is there going to be a crash barrier? I think UP does have some legitimate concern and what they are doing is looking out for their best interests of their customers.
To me, Visalia would be a great asset to have for HSR. However, I am not sure how many ariel segments using a ROW *similar* to UP versus the BNSF value engineered. If it costs more on UP to mitigate versus that of BNSF, might as well use BNSF
Clem Reply:
June 9th, 2011 at 11:29 pm
UPRR has never “over exaggerated” the importance of freight on the peninsula. Caltrain has, because it keeps BART at bay and earns them some trackage rights income. PB and HNTB have, because it’s a juicier engineering problem that leads to separate infrastructure. NIMBYs have, because it might make HSR harder. The freight customers have, because they want to continue operating and might even get better service billed to the taxpayer. Environmentalists have, because it keeps trucks off the freeways. San Francisco and Redwood City have, because they wish to maintain their mighty ports.
As for UP, they lose money on their peninsula operation, and would like nothing better than to be paid to go away. Unfortunately, nobody wants to step up for fear of lawsuits.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
June 9th, 2011 at 11:53 pm
wants to handicap UP for providing that in order to support passenger rail.
How does running passenger trains near the UP tracks handicap UP?
Peter Reply:
June 10th, 2011 at 3:12 am
UP claims that any HSR tracks built parallel to their tracks hampers their future ability to access potential customers who may wish to begin operating near the UP tracks, but on the other side of HSR. They wish to maintain access no matter how unlikely it is that such customers would in fact move in, and have threatened to use all legal remedies in order to preserve their and their future customers’ rights.
Joey Reply:
June 10th, 2011 at 12:26 pm
It’s kind of silly when the only thing on the other side of the HSR tracks would be a major highway.
http://articles.sfgate.com/2011-05-18/news/29559206_1_debt-service-general-fund-bond-debt
Have yet to see Brown put his money where is mouth is.
YesonHSR Reply:
June 9th, 2011 at 10:23 pm
Why dont you work at geting rid of prop 13 and the “welfare” it provides for many of the aging NIMBYS if your so worried about it?? Pennie
OT: Stadium plans which would have interfered with Las Vegas Desert Xpress station called dead.
Hi All, It has been some time that I posted here. Since this concerns me and I am a proud NIMBY I thought I would shed a different perspective. I realize and recognize many of your arguments made here on this posting. However, I think I posted months ago about the unethical and horrid engineering and outreach efforts of the CHSRA. As I explained to them, if you are going to seize my property you better come with facts and answers, then we can have a discussion of when, where and why you have to take my property. I have yet to be contacted by any CHSRA employee, yet I continue to outreach to them to ask questions. They have answered a few basic questions and ignored other questions. The answers I did get were not even worthy of discussion on this blog because many of you would probably find them insulting. This is also a much larger question than farmers in Kings County. The CHSRA continues to spin information and make the public believe things that are continually not true. Example: they tell the public that Hanford is going to get a station, and when you ask any consultant of CHRSA staff the tough questions we get “well, no it is not going to be build unless your city of community wants it and pays for it”. So, essentially if we want any benefit we have to pay for it, while other cities get a station as part of the project. The Sheriff asked a simple question to be address such as does the Sheriff have a responsibility to respond to incidences on the trains and what is the procedure, to which the CHSRA said they had no answers and proceeded to tell the Sheriff “well we have 22 questions for you”. I am embarrassed for my profession (engineering) that the CHSRA is treating people in our area with such treatment and further saddened by the overall lack of integrity shown by some of the CHSRA staff. I use the word “some” because I will admit I have work with a few (basically 2 URS) consultants who have been helpful, although they are limited in their ability to respond to questions.
wu ming Reply:
June 10th, 2011 at 4:13 pm
are there any HSR opponents in this state without property abutting the right of way?
afukuda77 Reply:
June 10th, 2011 at 4:53 pm
In our area yes. We have a large contingent of people from the City of Hanford that are upset, including the City of Hanford City Council. We also had several groups of farmers at June 7th meeting that do not live near the route, but are upset at the way the project is being handled. Also if you look at the voting results for Prop 1A a majority of counties did not approve the bill, including Kings County. We are used to this sort of treatment, because what SF and LA want, SF and LA get. For those who have not looked as the results, Prop 1A was not slam dunk, it was approximately 48% to 52%. So when Van Ark says the State wants this, he should say 52% of the State wants this, the other 48% are NIMBYS! That is how you spin information!
wu ming Reply:
June 11th, 2011 at 3:28 pm
just to be clear, you have a parcel of land abutting the HSR route, correct?
Aaron Reply:
June 11th, 2011 at 4:38 pm
Not abutting, it goes right through my living room. My initial position was simply a NIMBY reaction to try and protect my property and our dream. However, after spending over 6 months trying to get answers form the CHSRA and try and make sense of everything, I am now fighting for something much larger. The CHSRA and its staff has been rude, arrogant and dismissive to the landowners in our area. We have families that are trying to get some answers and to simply sit down with a rail representative to discuss impacts and the typically response we get is “you will get your chance during the 45-day review period”. That is not much consolation for families that are having a hard time with the potential that they will lose their land, homes and dreams. And, please do not patronize me with the “well you will get paid”. It is not that simple, and has never been that simple. And I am sorry wu ming, but until you are put in our shoes, you have very little room to criticize us.
Peter Reply:
June 11th, 2011 at 5:42 pm
That’s how it works, unfortunately. They don’t have the time or money to sit down with every person that will be affected. That’s one of the problems that supporters and critics (well, at least the rational ones) alike have been complaining about. The project is not being given the funding needed to do all the outreach the stakeholders deserve while at the same time working towards completion of the design. The people working for the Authority don’t work for free, and if they don’t get the funding to do outreach, they can’t do outreach.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
June 11th, 2011 at 6:11 pm
That’s how it works after 40 years of lawsuits and revisions to the law by the legislature. And lots of billable hours by high priced lawyers. It’s been a long hard slog to come to the current system. Arron may not like it but it’s what the system is.
BruceMcF Reply:
June 12th, 2011 at 7:26 am
“The Sheriff asked a simple question to be address such as does the Sheriff have a responsibility to respond to incidences on the trains and what is the procedure, to which the CHSRA said they had no answers”
Really? The Sheriff is asking the authority building the train tracks what the procedure will be in 2020 in terms of who will respond to what incidents? And you don’t want the construction to go ahead until that question is settled?
Seriously?
What everyone needs to remember is this: farms are a non-renewable resource. Unlike a commercial business, you can’t just buy more land across the street to put your farm on. Farming is highly regulated and land that compares with that being seized by HSR in Kings county simply is not available. It was earlier stated that when I-5 went through it did not disrupt farming. The population on the Westside was much less dense as was the population of California. Yep farming continued. That’s why we wouldn’t mind the HSR to go alongside I-5. Land in that area has less water available (thank you federal regulations) and just is not comparable to the land currently on the chopping block by HSR. Again, farmland is a non renewable resource. The current plan angles through our land making our safe, reliable farming practices impossible. New wells will have to be drilled to service smaller parcels that have been severed from their water source. Aside from the fact that our state cannot afford this project we all understand it is coming. We just want it placed along an existing hiway where transportation has been the main business. Let us continue to farm for you. Let us keep our food resources in California. If you really want to understand we are happy to show you what we are worried about. If you haven’t been involved in ag in the last generation , you really need to see for yourself.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
June 10th, 2011 at 12:36 pm
farms are a non-renewable resource.
As would the farmland taken for extra lanes on the highways or the new airports. HSR takes the least amount of land of the three options. Not doing anything isn’t a viable option.
Land in that area has less water available (thank you federal regulations)
Would it be farmable at all if it wasn’t for the elaborate Public works that make farming possible in the arid climate of California?
We just want it placed along an existing hiway
State Route 99 is nearly ideal. I’m sure you have written your legislators, State and Federal, about how that nearly arrow straight existing right of way isn’t being considered because of Union Pacific’s intransigence.
…thanks for the FUD
wu ming Reply:
June 10th, 2011 at 4:09 pm
if you’ve been involved with ag in the last generation, you know damn well that greenfield suburban housing developments, not narrow rail right-of-ways, are the #1 cause of lost ag land. the potential requisitions for the HSR project are dwarfed by the number of acres that got eaten up by the housing bubble. just as they would be dwarfed by the land needed to build a bunch more highway lanes and airports.
as for the water, westlands water district stole water from delta farmers and fishermen, it wasn’t yours to begin with.
afukuda77 Reply:
June 10th, 2011 at 5:18 pm
No one can argue with you on that wu ming that greedy home builders built expensive homes all over farm ground without any understanding of the outcomes and crashed the economy into a jobless, depressed and frantic state (sound familiar CHSRA – greedy consultants, wreckless behavior and no sound financial plan). What we see in Kings County looks like someone took a piece of spaghetti and threw it on a map over prime farm land driving a new transportation corridor through our County. This corridor present major problems not only for the people who will lose their land, but also issues surrounding operation around the rail, across the rail and within (Sheriff has some legitimate questions as to how we interface with the rail and any issues on the trains themselves). Being that Kings County probably will not get a station, where is this any benefit to its citizens? It just becomes a net loss; a loss in land, a loss in revenue, and an overall loss in the local economy. Do we get jobs, well some argue yes and I argue we will get a few and we will see a bump in our local economy, but when everything is said and done and we don’t have a station, we get another economic void. Why is Highway 99 and the UP tied together? Well it is because this is a transportation corridor. Exactly where the HSR belongs, however misguided and incompetent CHSRA staff made sure that the alignment and all the documents were based upon the politics of the day.
Peter Reply:
June 10th, 2011 at 7:06 pm
“Why is Highway 99 and the UP tied together?”
That’s a red herring. Why are Highway 43 and BNSF tied together? You gave the answer yourself:
“Well it is because this is a transportation corridor.”
And that means:
“Exactly where the HSR belongs”
Your argument doesn’t exactly make a persuasive case for your position, that HSR “belongs” along Highway 99 and not along Highway 43. Swap out the names of the roads and the railways, and the same argument makes the same point, just for a different alignment.
afukuda77 Reply:
June 10th, 2011 at 7:41 pm
Peter I am not sure we are talking the same area. Through Kings County 43 is about 1 to 2 miles to the east of 43. The alignment proposed is thw then 1 to 2 miles east of 43. Why is the UP and the 99 parallel, because they are transportation modes in a transportation corridor.
Peter Reply:
June 10th, 2011 at 7:58 pm
You are correct. For some reason in my head BNSF followed 43 north of Hanford. That’s what I get for not looking at a map while actually writing my posts. My point IS correct south of Hanford, though.
Let me make a different argument, then. If you’ve been following the HSR project for as long as i have, you know that the Authority originally planned to build along Highway 99. Union Pacific has made it CRYSTAL CLEAR that it will not abide by having HSR sharing OR following its ROW. BNSF, on the other hand, has not made the same ridiculous assertions about following HSR following its ROW as UP has. Because the tracks have to go somewhere, and it makes no sense to build the tracks along the UP ROW while the UP resists to the death against HSR tracks coming near them, the only remaining option is BNSF.
Again, I think most commenters on this blog would agree with you that a UP alignment would have been better than BNSF. The goal, though, is to get HSR built, not to engage in lengthy legal battles where they can be avoided.
Aaron Reply:
June 10th, 2011 at 9:19 pm
Hi Peter, and yes you are correct, however for the majority of Kings County they are not near each other. However, your argument is the exact fear I have been having, and that is that people are so enamored with the train and the POTENTIAL benefits that they are willing to sacrifice good decision making and weak arguments like the UP resistance. UP hates everything near them, except if it pays them. I have worked on a few projects near the UP and they cannot even provide records to much of their right-of-way in the Central Valley. Has CHSRA ever sat down with the UP to understand concerns and try to address them, or are they simply afraid and won’t engage. Why not try and make UP a part of the program. These people know rail, it is there business! Well I can guess why they want nothing to do with it….CHSRA!
I can appreciate your last comment and thank you for your honesty, however it really scares me that people are willing to sacrifice wise decisions for politics and scare tactics. Like I stated earlier, our house market bust was based on greedy banks and poor decisions by home buyers. Here we have greedy consultants and unions and CHSRA making poor decisions. I say fighting for the right thing is better than settling for the easy thing. That is why I am fighting the CHSRA. At first it was about my home, however their treatment of our residents and County makes me ashamed that my profession (Engineering) has produced such a dishonest and money polluted project.
If we want this done right, we have to start making tough and educated decisions, not political and easy decisions.
Peter Reply:
June 11th, 2011 at 7:34 am
Hi Aaron,
Yes, the Authority HAS sat down with the UP and tried to iron out their differences, on a number of occasions. UP’s position hasn’t budged. Ever. UP doesn’t even want HSR tracks to cross OVER its tracks, although that was a battle that they conceded they weren’t ever going to win.
I’m not sure how avoiding lengthy and expensive lawsuits is “sacrificing good decision making”, or how wanting to avoid UP resistance is a weak argument. If it’s not going to work, then at some point you have to throw in the towel and go with what works.
“If we want this done right, we have to start making tough and educated decisions, not political and easy decisions.”
Acting as if we can make these types of decisions without politics coming into play seems to be kind of unrealistic. EVERY decision made MUST be weighed in political terms, as politics is ALWAYS intertwined with any sort of project.
synonymouse Reply:
June 11th, 2011 at 12:48 pm
This dilemma has an easy solution. Move the hsr to I-5 and upgrade the UP’s 00 corridor lines to 110mph passenger operations.
It is interesting that a true-believer consensus has developed that hsr in the San Joaquin Valley will be a rounding success. I suggest that, as with BART to SFO and other BART extensions, that the ridership may prove to be deeply disappointing. Another white elephant courtesy of Bechtel & clones like BART broad gauge.
California is a Greece; it just doesn’t know it yet. Stilt-A-Rail a political scandal on the order of the Mexico DF to Queretaro electrification fiasco.
Peter Reply:
June 11th, 2011 at 1:01 pm
Your wishy-washy “suggestions” that something “may” disappoint are irrelevant. Unless you can come up with concrete numbers that actually prove the point you’re claiming to make, not some completely unrelated point, people are going to continue to not take you seriously.
synonymouse Reply:
June 11th, 2011 at 1:13 pm
There are no concrete numbers, the proponents just pick them out of you know where, just like Kopp, MTC and BART with the BART to SFO projections.
It has become an issue of dogma with the hsr-PB foamers that the San Joaquin Valley stops are guaranteed to generate enormous ridership. I dispute that certitude and point to the low income and high auto dependance realities of the Valley.
Besides future conditions would wreak havoc with todays’ projections. Party line decrees that conditions will improve; I suggest conditions may very well worsen. Who thought Detroit would go down the tubes. California is the Greece of today and the Mexico of the day after tomorrow.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
June 11th, 2011 at 1:13 pm
Peter. it’s a Turing test……..
synonymouse Reply:
June 11th, 2011 at 1:38 pm
California transit of the future:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/americas/mexican-cartels-now-using-tanks/2011/06/06/AGacrALH_story.html
Mad Max lives.
Peter Reply:
June 11th, 2011 at 1:46 pm
Just proof that you can still be highly amusing even when you just spout gibberish.
Miles Bader Reply:
June 11th, 2011 at 6:41 pm
So synonymouse, you’re basically saying California should just STFU, stop all forward-thinking and progressive development, scream “we’re doooooomed”, huddle in the mud, and cry?
That’s how you handle problems?!
synonymouse Reply:
June 11th, 2011 at 9:26 pm
I am “basically saying California should just” adopt the general lines of the Tolmach-TRAC proposals and put PB on a short leash, a very short leash. We need value planning to go along with value engineering.
Do you really want another blinking BART on astatewide scale? Do you really want to set up the TWU in another featherbed? The City is going to have to go thru a strike to get its useless Muni union under control. Watch Pelosi install her pet unions at the CHSRA. Weinergate is just another proof of how feckless and parasitic these machine hacks are.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
June 11th, 2011 at 9:35 pm
Turing test….
We need value planning
The did the value planning and found that for passengerservice running the train where there are passengers makes the most sense.
synonymouse Reply:
June 11th, 2011 at 9:43 pm
Value planning not value fixing. You already have the San Joaquins which can be upgraded and extended to LA via Tejon using dual fuel Amtrak hybrids.
I-5 could be a real bargain – we’re lucky the row is there and quite close in actuality to 99.
BruceMcF Reply:
June 12th, 2011 at 7:53 am
Non sequitur ~ you are now building an Express ROW in one side of the valley and
a Regional HSR set of tracks in the other side, paralleling each other, which is going to be more expensive total, and then pointing out that doing half of the job that way is cheaper ~ though not half as cheap ~ as doing the whole job.
Compare apples to apples ~ to get the same urban areas connected, your system costs more total and delivered less transport benefit. On an economic cost/benefit comparison, it fails.
datacruncher Reply:
June 12th, 2011 at 11:10 am
I-5 is not close to 99, Fresno to I-5 is about 50 miles apart.
synonymouse Reply:
June 12th, 2011 at 11:27 am
Close enough and potentially much, much cheaper. Look at the offset, way to the east and off-route, of the Techachapi detour.
If you could get Bako to LA, I-5 Tracy-Livermore to Tejon, and maybe Tracy to Sac for about the same price as the 99 Stilt-A-Rail would not that be a very good deal?
Jack Reply:
June 12th, 2011 at 11:39 am
Why are you obsessed with skipping nearly 3 million people?
wu ming Reply:
June 12th, 2011 at 11:56 am
@Jack – because we’re “nobodies.”
adirondacker12800 Reply:
June 12th, 2011 at 1:29 pm
If you could get Bako to LA, I-5 Tracy-Livermore to Tejon, and maybe Tracy to Sac for about the same price as the 99 Stilt-A-Rail would not that be a very good deal?
You are still thinking inside the box. Why do something really radical?
http://www.interstatetraveler.us/
This way everybody gets and express train.
BruceMcF Reply:
June 12th, 2011 at 7:33 am
How is UP resistance a weak argument? They have federal immunity from state level eminent domain, under the interstate commerce clause.
Get your congressman to push through a release of the exemption on Class I right of way not presently being employed from eminent domain in support of a federally funded intercity transport project, and then CHSRA has leverage. Until then, UP has the right to say “no” if it wishes to.
Of course, the Democratic Congressman are in the minority at the moment, and the Republicans are focused on sabotaging the economy to try to get one of their weak Presidential field elected in 2012, so you’re not likely to have much success getting that narrowing of the scope of that exemption.
political_incorrectness Reply:
June 12th, 2011 at 1:49 pm
It would definitely be helpful when going to the Penninsula. Would it still be cheaper and easier to use Monterrey Highway’s ROW? Also, this could reopen the possibility of a connection to Oakland. Highly doubtful though depending on where most of UPs trains go from Oakland.
Miles Bader Reply:
June 11th, 2011 at 6:37 pm
A “narrow piece of spaghetti” means “actually not very much.”
Sure some people will be adversely affected, but the overall impact will be very low.
Aaron Reply:
June 12th, 2011 at 10:51 am
That narrow strip also has other impacts than directly to the landowner, however the CHSRA refuses to engage with Kings County to hear those impacts. Remember this is not just the taking of land and placing a rail, it is a completely new transportation corridors through our County. There are economic impacts, safety impacts, transportation impacts, agricultural impacts and our response to the CHRSA to these are, “we don’t care, your land is cheep and we are going to take it”.
joe Reply:
June 12th, 2011 at 11:11 am
The system, like all infrastructure projects, is impact land owners everywhere.
Act like Sanctimonious land owners isn’t drawing sympathy.
synonymouse Reply:
June 11th, 2011 at 9:36 pm
I-5, like Tejon, has not been considered for political reasons. It is up to the farmers to turn up the heat to force an attitude change.
No doubt the contractors and consultants do not want I-5 as it would be cheaper.
BruceMcF Reply:
June 12th, 2011 at 7:39 am
Everyone is likely to understand that its not either/or: the economic impacts on local areas generate political support.
The likely mode share and induced demand of running through the populated parts of the CV are economic arguments, not political ones. The desire to gain the employment benefits and transport choices that result from that generates political pressure.
Indeed, the relative project risk of the Tehachapi and Tejon pass are economic arguments, and if new information were to emerge that elsewhere on the Tehachapi alignment were greater than expected project risks, the economically prudent course of action would be to take a second look.
Seriously, I don’t understand the NIMBYs logic. What’s wrong with just selling it and moving on? If they don’t like how things are going in CA, they are free to move to AZ. No one’s sticking a gun to their head saying they have to live here.
Stop whinin’ about their selfish reasons and leave CA. Why’s that so hard to do?
Miles Bader Reply:
June 10th, 2011 at 4:05 pm
Yeah, they are acting unreasonably, and even selfishly, but I expect they’ve been riled up by the usual bunch of anti-rail FUD-meisters…
In a calm and reasonable atmosphere, I’m sure this sort of silliness would quickly be resolved, but unfortunately, the political atmosphere in the U.S. is extremely dysfunctional.
Aaron Reply:
June 10th, 2011 at 9:25 pm
Lets see, last week Kings County Supervisors invited Jeff Abercrombie back to Hanford after over 30 days to review a list of questions that were asked of the CHSRA. Mr. Abercrombie stated he would and could not answer the questions however had 22 questions to ask the County. The County said they would answer the questions he had and then asked for a response to the questions as earlier. The response from Mr. Abercrombie was along the lines of….I don’t think my response will answer any of the questions you asked. Many of us took time off of work to come to the meeting in hopes of getting some answers however we were met with nothing and actually accusations by the CHSRA that Kings County was not engaged enough early in the project (meaning back in 2005).
Can you explain how we intent to resolve anything if the CHSRA won’t respond to us, lies to us and withholds information from us?
James Fujita Reply:
June 11th, 2011 at 4:02 pm
There’s a difference between answering questions and an interrogation. A hostile situation is not conducive to negotiation and there’s no reason to kowtow to unreasonable demands.
Aaron Reply:
June 11th, 2011 at 4:27 pm
The meeting was a typical Board of Supervisors meeting until Mr. Ambercrombie reported that he would not answer questions. Since he did not have any answers the Board of Supervisors moved to begin public comments. There was no hostile environment other than a few funny comments by the Board of Supervisors and Mr. Abercrombie himself. If you do not know what the demands are how do you know they are “unreasonable”? Define unreasonable please.
James Fujita Reply:
June 11th, 2011 at 5:02 pm
http://www.hanfordsentinel.com/article_93f4220c-9158-11e0-85d9-001cc4c03286.html
“Abercrombie faced a blistering assault from county supervisors and staff as well as a standing room only crowd in the supervisor chambers.”
Assaults do not sound friendly.
And “unreasonable” would be any demand which can not be reasonably met. As in, do not take farmland to build the rail line.
Aaron Reply:
June 12th, 2011 at 11:00 am
James, journalism tends to exaggerate a situation, sometimes it is in our favor sometimes it is in CHSRA favor. If the atmosphere was seen as an assault it was probably only after we all took the time to come and hear answer and get, well you don’t get any. Try imagining losing your home, which I am, and unfortunately I bought my property near the peak of the market (and I am not at all holding this against the CHSRA) to build what I considered by dream home. I now stand lose money and my property being that the market in our area has slid approximately 30%, which will not cover my existing home mortgage. I have asked politely and diligently for about 6 months to sit down with the CHSRA to try and understand any way I can prepare or understand how I can get help and all I have gotten so far is two responses: “You will get fair market value” and “you can address your concern in the EIR”. Needless to say I have had to contact real estate friends and appraisal companies on my own to try and understand the situation. So I take yet another day off of work to go to this meeting and try and get some clarity and, well you know the response we got, or maybe you don’t since you were not there, don’t have any home/land at risk and have bought into the thing hook like and sinker and guess where you are headed….staight to the bottom.
wu ming Reply:
June 12th, 2011 at 11:21 am
so let me get this straight: you bought property just a couple of years ago, at the top of the market, just a year or so before the prop 1a vote (possibly the same year?), and are banging on about the tragedy of 100-year old farmland being unfairly wrested from the salt of the earth yeoman farmers’ hands? your property was probably built on old farmland, especially if you built the house recently.
be glad your property only fell 30%, it was a lot more brutal than that up here in the sacramento area, and we don’t even have a red herring infrastructure project to scapegoat for the losses.
Peter Reply:
June 12th, 2011 at 2:09 pm
Again, they’re not at the phase where they will be offering relocation assistance. They don’t know yet exactly where the route will be going, so they’re not going to be wasting their small resources on such assistance when it may not be needed.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
June 12th, 2011 at 2:13 pm
it’s going right through his living room. The one that has been in his family for generations even though it was built in the past few years.
BruceMcF Reply:
June 12th, 2011 at 7:47 am
OK, so your complaint here is that (1) a set of questions were sent in, (2) while working through them, the CHSRA sought further information.
Bastards! Asking for more information while working on your questions! Any reasonable person would call that tyranny!
Aaron Reply:
June 12th, 2011 at 11:03 am
No,
A set of questions was submitted and the CHSRA was asked to respond to those questions over 30 days later, they came to the meeting and said “we will not answer the the questions you submitted” however we have 22 more questions for you.
You called it….they are Bastards, you I would probably add Greedy Bastards to that.
joe Reply:
June 12th, 2011 at 12:09 pm
What are the questions? If you are sincere, post a link.
1. I’ll demand CA pay those losses and increased costs only if those accepting the compensation will pay fair market value for corn feed and water, oh and no longer accept Ag subsidies or payments.
2. Again I would say Yes, only if Kings County will give their taxes on increased GDP resulting from HSR back to the HSR authority.
Freedom isn’t free.
Peter Reply:
June 12th, 2011 at 1:38 pm
“Will they pay the county permanently for the losses in tax revenues caused by the devaluation of our properties?”
That’s making the extremely large assumption that property values will in fact go down.
Even if Kings County doesn’t get the HSR station, it will still benefit from greatly improved access to Sacramento, LA, and the Bay Area via Amtrak San Joaquins connecting at Bakersfield and Fresno to HSR.
BruceMcF Reply:
June 12th, 2011 at 2:27 pm
You just repeated the same narrative you repeated before, including outrage, but omitting the part where they behaved outrageously.
You repeat that there was a set of questions submitted, and a little over thirty days they asked for some follow-up information. How many of them were leading questions as egregious as the question of whether HSR would compensate Kings County for the gross losses in net tax revenue, ignoring the net increase in tax proceeds Kings County can expect to receive?
How many questions were along the lines of “predict the outcome of eminent domain proceedings in advance”? I can see why someone who might be facing eminent domain would like to dupe the public authority into committing to some particular value in advance, since you’d want to start from there and argue up.
Here is a new article about HSR supporters starting to organize in Hanford/Kings County.
http://www.hanfordsentinel.com/news/local/article_b470fdb6-939c-11e0-a196-001cc4c002e0.html
political_incorrectness Reply:
June 10th, 2011 at 2:36 pm
I think those of us with a FB should join the group to show that we do have numbers. It would be a great way to show that their is a silent majority whose voice has not been heard. More power to Veronica to take action on this.
J. Wong Reply:
June 10th, 2011 at 2:58 pm
I think it would be more effective if you actually lived in the Central Valley…
Peter Reply:
June 10th, 2011 at 3:06 pm
Why? NIMBY’s don’t play by those rules. Look at how the Peninsula NIMBY’s are trying to make it appear that there is “organized resistance” in the CV by paying for billboards there…
Drunk Engineer Reply:
June 10th, 2011 at 9:46 pm
Sort of like a blogger out in Monterey pretending to speak for Peninsula residents?
Spokker Reply:
June 10th, 2011 at 10:49 pm
Everybody can speak for everybody else. It’s all fair game when money is planned to come from local, state and federal sources.
wu ming Reply:
June 11th, 2011 at 3:33 pm
robert doesn’t speak for peninsula residents, so much as point out polling, voting, etc. that peninsula residents support HSR. unlike the NIMBY atroturf, robert has not passed himself off as being from the peninsula.
wu ming Reply:
June 10th, 2011 at 4:10 pm
some of us do.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
June 12th, 2011 at 11:57 am
Lonely spherical choo choo fanboy seeks NSA FB. For poking. And civil engineering pr0n. And everything but tea bagging.
joe Reply:
June 12th, 2011 at 1:18 pm
The right of a citizen to peacefully 1) parade and gather or 2) demonstrate support or opposition of public policy or 3) express one’s views is guaranteed by the freedom of speech and the right to peaceably assemble.
I have to ask this of the farmers here–why the apparent double standard? You or your predecessors sold land for housing, roads, and waterworks for years; the argument can be made that these actions were much more disruptive and destructive of farmland than this railroad will be. I can personally attest to the closure of an applesauce plant (which once employed 500 seasonal workers, and a smaller regular staff) right down the street from me because too many orchards got turned into developments. The property map of my county shows a huge swath in the middle for the right-of-way of an Interstate road, but railroads, both on the map and in areal photos, are virtually invisible (you mostly find them by looking for the trees that grow on the sides of their rights-of-way). This goes even for lines with multiple tracks.
Why this concern now, why this apparent “double standard?”
D. P. Lubic Reply:
June 12th, 2011 at 8:37 am
I must apologize, I was a little grumpy with the above, but I do wonder about this perceived double standard.
Perhaps the better way to ask the question is what makes this railroad different from the huge freeways and housing projects of the past? We who support it have what we think are good reasons (and think you would agree with most of those), yet. . .why?
Aaron Reply:
June 12th, 2011 at 11:17 am
Hi DP I can appreciate being grumpy something. This whole project has caused my wife and I a great deal of grief and a great deal of “grumpiness”. So both sides of the issues probably feel the same way at times. From my perspective the conversion of farm ground to housing is a product of poor planning on behalf of cities. They keep increasing their sphere of influences and force housing to spread. Sometimes this coincides with increases in population and sometimes they are simply chasing revenue and taxes. When these borders push out is takes farm ground with farm values to values we saw in our area of over $150K per acres. It makes this a simple business decision on behalf of the farmer. I will also say we have many farms in our area that have resisted the conversion to farm ground. We actually had one farm put their ground into some kind of reserve which will prevent any development. Farm ground conversion is also a willing and open negotiation to sell, however in our case we are simply getting told we want your land for a project that has been openly criticized by numerous academic and professional reports and has yet to deliver a sound business plan. Add that on top of the treatment we have received and simply put, “you ain’t got a deal”.
I would also argue that in the past highway and freeway projects like the Highway 198 project here in the Hanford/Visalia area, CALTRANS did a significant outreach program and the way I understand it, they worked with each landowners to discuss impacts and worked with them trough the process. However in our case we have to discover the alignment on our own and have to pursue help on our own.
Alan Reply:
June 12th, 2011 at 2:16 pm
How you feel about the business plan is pretty much irrelevant. The decision has been made by the electorate and the EIR’s are being prepared with the outreach that the law requires. When that’s done, you can either negotiate or fight, but one way or another the land will be sold. I’m sorry if you feel that the CHSRA should come to you on bended knee and hasn’t. Get over it. The fact that there was an election almost three years ago should have alerted you that something was going on. If you couldn’t be bothered to even Google it, I’m not going to have much sympathy for you.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
June 12th, 2011 at 3:13 pm
Thanks for a reasoned response, Aaron.
A bit of background–I have to admit I am an observer from the eastern US, near the north end of the Shenandoah Valley in West Virginia, minutes away from the border with Virginia and only about 25 miles from Harpers Ferry, where the Shenandoah joins the Potomac, and also the site of the John Brown raid and attempted slave revolt in 1859 that many would say was the spark that lead to the conflict of 1861. It is the southern half of what was called the Great Valley that extended from Roanoke, Va. to Harrisburg, Pa.
You may recall that the Shenandoah was called the “bread basket of the Confederacy;” prior to the opening of the Great Plains, its primary product was wheat. The huge production of the Plains states lead to the farmers of the Shenandoah changing to peach and apple production in the 1890s, with a number of apple product plants being built, including the one down my street in my small town. As it was, a bit of the wheat legacy remained; several towns on the railroad that also is down the street (running past that apple sauce plant, and which served it) had their station facilities not in a separate building,but in a space in the grain elevators that were provided for shipments both out and in. One of these still stands minutes from me in Clearbrook, Va., and was occupied by a farm supply dealer until just a few months ago; the ticket window and some other railroad items were preserved as a sort of exhibit inside.
My interest in this is partially as a railroad enthusiast (some other posters here have some good-natured fun with me and my liking for steam trains!), and partially out of concern for a future in which cheap oil is no longer cheap, if it is available at all. I’m old enough to remember the first oil embargo in 1973 and the commotion it caused; it really tangled some things up with the auto transport system we rely on so heavily (even more so now). Of course, railroads are much more efficient in this regard, and can easily be made virtually oil-free; at the risk of being prejudiced (which I have to admit I am), trains are nice to ride anyway.
However, a lot of things have prevented these changes, this rail revival I think we have needed for almost 40 years. Part of it has been apathy on the part of politicians, part of it is fear (of losing votes) on the part of politicians, part of it has been apathy and even hostility on the part of the public (a big chunk of which I am convinced is generational, which is the “cultural” argument you hear about Americans not riding trains because we love our cars), and apparently there is still opposition from the oil, road, and auto interests.
This opposition by both commission and omission has been quite detrimental in my opinion; I do believe we need to de-emphasize motor transport, which accounts for 54% of our total oil demand. This includes automobiles and diesel trucks–for comparison, all non-transportation use of oil amounts to only 35% or so of oil demand. That’s electric power generation, plastics, paints, certain fertilizers, etc.
The over dependence on the highway system is our Achilles heel.
That’s why I am a booster for this and other rail projects.
If only we could find that Jim Hill speech. Hill was the founder and long-time president of the Great Northern Railway; he was nicknamed the Empire Builder, and a train was later named that for him (and it is still operated by Amtrak today across the northern United States between Chicago and Seattle). One of his speeches was entitled “The Farmer and the Townsman Must Be Friends”. . .
I hope all this works out.
wu ming Reply:
June 12th, 2011 at 11:22 am
it’s just haggling over the price.