Republicans Want To Take HSR Money For Flood Relief
Just when you think the House Republicans can’t get any crazier – surprise! They do. Here’s the latest madness:
WASHINGTON (AP) — A House panel has approved $1 billion in emergency money to repair levees and other flood control projects damaged by the devastating flooding along the Mississippi and Missouri rivers.
Rep. Rodney Frelinghuysen said billions of dollars more will be needed once full Army Corps of Engineers estimates are in for repairing breached levees and other flood control projects damaged by this year’s devastating storms and floods.
The New Jersey Republican offset the cost of the amendment by cutting $1 billion in unspent money from President Barack Obama’s 2009 economic stimulus measure. The money had been intended for high speed rail projects.
This is just nuts. The government used to simply pay for the important cost of disaster relief either through taxes or deficits. Instead Republicans want to pay for it by stealing from the future. More ironically, they want to end something intended to reduce global warming in exchange for something that may well have been caused by global warming.
This is how a civilization dies.
Democrats need to reject this idea out of hand. We’ll have to see whether they do or whether they once again cave to Republicans.
If HSR is intended to reduce global warming, you are looking at a very warm future indeed. The extra CO2 in the atmosphere should help boost crop productivity however, so hey, maybe HSR’s complete meaninglessness when it comes to emissions is actually it’s contribution to reducing global malnutrition.
Of course, it might be more care worthy if:
1. Democrats hadn’t shown their complete uselessness (witness today’s state budget).
2. The administration hadn’t pissed away far more than a billion dollars of HSR money on programs that were not in fact HSR.
BruceMcF Reply:
June 16th, 2011 at 8:25 am
HSR is clearly a necessary part of a low emissions transport system.
The fact that its not sufficient is not surprising, since there are no silver bullets in CO2 emissions reduction.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
June 16th, 2011 at 9:13 am
There might not be any silver bullets, but replacing coal power plants with nuclear is about the most cost-effective thing you can do (but of course, its too scary, despite a dam failure in Japan caused by the quake killed more people than did Fukashima [the meltdowns of which killed absolutely no one] and a single dam failure in China, back in the 1970s, killed more people than either of the atomic bombings did (together they managed more however).
As for HSR clearly being a necessary part of a low emissions transport system, I’m afraid that’s not true. Intrastate airline travel that HSR is competing for looks to be about a million tons of CO2 per year, not all of which will be diverted to HSR. Major reductions in car trips and emissions are going to be from where HSR acts as a commuter rail system (such as LA-Irvine and LA-Riverside) and doesn’t actually act as high speed rail. At an average of 238 grams per km and 13,500 miles an average person drives per year (we’ll pretend this is commuter trips), to get another million metric tons of CO2, you’d need to have nearly 200,000 people switch entirely to using HSR for their commutes. Won’t happen, not enough capacity at the very least (actually, if you did 32 trains per hour, 800m double deckers, maybe you could).
And remember, even at the CAHSRA’s most optimistic assumptions, the total emissions reduced is essentially a rounding error relative to the whole currently produced.
BruceMcF Reply:
June 16th, 2011 at 9:53 am
“As for HSR clearly being a necessary part of a low emissions transport system, I’m afraid that’s not true.” There was not any systems analysis in what follows, so the claim was not addressed.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
June 16th, 2011 at 10:32 am
As an economist, your inability to understand (or perhaps outright unfamiliarity with) ORDERS OF MAGNITUDE is mind-boggling, but perhaps, given the record of the profession, unsurprising.
http://www.azimuthproject.org/azimuth/show/Stabilization+wedges
Business dudes on a FL0 350kmh airline vs business dudes on a FL350 900kmh airline = irrelevant. (Except inasmuch as the planet would be better off without any of them.)
BruceMcF Reply:
June 16th, 2011 at 6:39 pm
As a commentator, your addiction to straw man arguments is well established.
As an engineer (?), your inability to understand or unwillingness to admit the fact that HSR is not used exclusively by businesspersons and to understand or admit that the narrower the scope of transport tasks that can be undertaken sustainably the easier it will be for vested interests to fight to retain their vested privileges and subsidies … is, perhaps, not so surprising.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
June 16th, 2011 at 12:44 pm
And what would you expect the systems analysis to show? Intrastate air travel, the major HSR market, simply isn’t a big polluter.
California vehicles, all trips, were forecast to travel 362 billion miles last year, burning 19.58 billion gallons in the process. According to the EPA, that’s about 172.3 million metric tons.
So, the main area HSR targets (air travel) is just about one half of one percent of state CO2 emissions from transportation. By way of comparison, the nine largest CO2 polluting power plants in the US produce 184.8 million tons of CO2 per year (along with a sundry list of other pollutants).
Remember, CAHSRA claims 12 billion pounds, or 5.4 million metric tons, of pollution avoided annually starting 2030. So CAHSRA claims to reduce, from current emissions levels, a whopping 3% of all transport emissions. If we look at the 2030 transportation numbers, however, we’re looking at 29.04 billion gallons and 255.5 metric megatons of CO2. PRAISE THE LORD ALLELUIA, WE’VE CUT EMISSIONS IN ONE SECTOR OF ONE STATE BY 2%! THE ICE AGE WILL COME BACK FOR SURE!!
Or we could replace the 9 largest polluters in the US with nuclear power, completely offsetting California’s current transportation CO2 emissions, and for an overnight cost of only $100 billion at $4,000 per kilowatt capacity (South Korea’s gotten it down to about $1,500 which, if we could match, would make it possible to completely offset CA’s transportation emissions for the cost of CAHSR).
BruceMcF Reply:
June 16th, 2011 at 6:47 pm
How does that put transportation on a sustainable basis? Making electric power more sustainable is a fine goal, but it does not on its own make transportation more sustainable.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
June 16th, 2011 at 7:14 pm
There are never going to electric airplanes. ( well maybe if someone figures out the problems with aluminum batteries ). Do both, run the trains on electricity and close down the coal plants, thought what closing down the coal plants, since none are in California, will do for California’s emissions is a bit obscure.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
June 16th, 2011 at 7:36 pm
There are a few actually, producing about 400MWe between them all (cogeneration plants mainly), and a few million tons of CO2. Californian utilities also own several plants out of state and import the electricity as well as electricity from other coal plants. Coal ends up accounting for about 20% of our electricity. We could get off of them with four new reactors though, it’d be quite cheap.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
June 16th, 2011 at 7:59 pm
There’s two west of the Mississippi on the list of the dirty dozen ( there’s 12 in a dozen btw not 9 ) One is in Texas, which only marginally affects electricity in California and one in in Arizona
Paulus Magnus Reply:
June 16th, 2011 at 8:15 pm
Twelve in a dozen, but only nine of them to match CA transportation CO2 emissions.
BruceMcF Reply:
June 17th, 2011 at 12:17 am
So with 3/4 of the dirty dozen, you’ve covered the transportation emissions of about 1/8 of the nation’s population. I assume you are going to shut down the other 24/4 of the dirty dozen to account for the transportation emissions of the other 7/8?
Shutting down the dirty dozen accounts for emissions from electricity generation. To reduce the emissions of the transportation system requires reducing the emissions of transport.
BruceMcF Reply:
June 16th, 2011 at 9:58 am
And of course the cost effectiveness of the nuclear for coal swap depends substantially on ignoring cost.
As for Fukushima, its not finished yet, is it? There was melt down and now melt through has been confirmed, and we are still waiting to see whether or not the fuel that melted through the metal containment will wear through the concrete containment and make its way to the water table. If we build nuclear to take coal off line, it better not be LWR.
Peter Reply:
June 16th, 2011 at 10:05 am
And there are a number of power plant designs that physically cannot experience a meltdown, and don’t need circulating coolant in order to prevent dangerous temperature increases.
BruceMcF Reply:
June 17th, 2011 at 12:36 am
There’s also the issue of proliferation ~ I have seen arguments that because of the difficulties of separating U232 from U233 and the gamma radiation associated with U232, the products of thorium breeder reactor fuel cycles are easier to detect and so more difficult to smuggle. Most of its disadvantages as a fuel cycle seem to be associated with LWR, and it could be speculated that a molten salt reactor with an actively cooled plug melting down in failure into a chamber that is passively safe would yield a design safe enough to trust to commercial power utilities. AFAIK, there was one molten salt breeder thorium fuel cycle test reactor at Oak Ridge in the 60′s, but thorium is not very useful for nuclear weapons, so we didn’t do much research and development of that fuel cycle.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
June 16th, 2011 at 10:14 am
Cost per kilowatt hour actually generated is lower with nuclear than any other emissions free power system except perhaps hydro (which has its own issues and isn’t as readily available).
LWRs are fine. Building a 50 year old design like Fukashima wouldn’t be the brightest idea, but that’s why we have Generation III reactors with advanced safety features such as natural circulation (in use for decades by the USN).
Alon Levy Reply:
June 16th, 2011 at 12:35 pm
I just spoke to a time traveler from the 2050s, who explained to me that after a 9.2-pointer hit Los Angeles in 2047 and caused a full-scale nuclear meltdown, and building 40-year-old designs like the new plants in the Valley would be a stupid idea but fortunately they have Generation V reactors with advanced safety features.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
June 16th, 2011 at 12:58 pm
You need a gigantic tsunami of doom to help out your analogy, Fukushima survived the earthquake, but the tsunami nailed all their reserve cooling capabilities. Important point of consideration, however: An AP1000 can passively cool for 72 hours without requiring external power, diesel, hydraulics, etc., after which point in time you just top off the tank. The same goes for Economic Simplified Boiling Water Reactor, which can go for 72 hours without any operator action thanks to natural circulation. If you can’t get the appropriate assistance within 72 hours, odds are that no one is going to even notice the nuclear problem on top of everything else.
BruceMcF Reply:
June 16th, 2011 at 6:13 pm
Or some other double dip disaster ~ hurricane, mudslide, wildfire, whatever ~ that all safety systems designed to be independent are exposed to as a systemic risk.
“If you can’t get the appropriate assistance within 72 hours, odds are that no one is going to even notice the nuclear problem on top of everything else.” Better a system that if it fails, does not “melt down” at all ~ eg, because its already molten and its active stay-up, passive shut-down.
The market test of the cost of that risk is getting an insurance policy against the risk with a prudently assured insurance counterparty.
Alon Levy Reply:
June 16th, 2011 at 7:43 pm
prudently assured insurance counterparty
Do these even exist for low-probability, high-impact risks?
Paulus Magnus Reply:
June 16th, 2011 at 8:10 pm
They do sell alien abduction insurance. Nuclear power plants carry insurance that covers up to 12 billion dollars in off-site damage however. To my knowledge, that makes them unique among power plants in the United States.
BruceMcF Reply:
June 17th, 2011 at 12:06 am
The $12b coverage is due to exemption from liability over $12b. I don’t know offhand whether that is full cover or whether acts of war/terror are exempted.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
June 17th, 2011 at 12:12 am
To my knowledge, that makes them unique among power plants in the United States.
Hmmm. Are there any privately owned hydroelectric plants? A failed dam can be very very expensive.
full cover or whether acts of war/terror are exempted.
Any insurance policy is going to exclude acts of war. Any policy that claims to cover “all risks” has a exclusion clause.
BruceMcF Reply:
June 17th, 2011 at 3:47 am
But is terror an act of war or a criminal activity? I can see my car, if I had one, not being covered in event of an invasion that reached Ohio, but protection from criminal activity would be one of the main things I’d be trying to insure against.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
June 17th, 2011 at 9:18 am
All of the workers at the World Trade Center had workers compensation insurance, carried at the insistence of the state. Many of employers also carried group life insurance. Government settled the claims. Also paid out on workers not covered by life insurance. Depends on the scale and what Congress wants to call it.
BruceMcF Reply:
June 17th, 2011 at 12:45 am
The Fukushima power plants were also certified as fine, with multiple independent back-ups. And it was protected by a sea wall substantially lower than the previous highest tsunami in the area’s recorded history. Granted, that was quite a long time ago (we don’t have quite the same recorded history in North America) … but that and the use of pool on an upper floor of the reactor building for both fuel storage during maintenance shut down and as a long term storage pool suggests that the nexus of failure is in the commercial corporate governance rather than in the engineering per se.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
June 16th, 2011 at 11:29 am
Los Angeles isn’t New York. Very very very roughly 200,000 people a day ride NJTransit trains. 200,000 people a day ride Metro North trains and 200,000 people a day ride LIRR trains. Mostly because trains don’t get stuck in traffic. I hear traffic in LA can be awful.
James Reply:
June 16th, 2011 at 12:23 pm
New York isn’t Los Angeles. The LA basin has 15 freeway segments with more than 250,000 Annual Average Daily Traffic for a total of around 4.5 million car trips (Note: some of these trips overlap multiple freeway segments. Even so the freeways must provide the capacity.) LA drivers seem to all get to work, get the groceries, and get home so apparently they have figured out how to make the crawl work. Imagine throwing 5 million+ cars at the NYC region with the rail system LA has.
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/policyinformation/tables/02.cfm
thatbruce Reply:
June 16th, 2011 at 1:10 pm
Navigating the LA crawl is work.
Meanwhile, California republicans will be running around tomorrow screaming about how the democrats are raising our taxes (a .25% sales tax increase!) and we’re doomed and we should cut everything.
What they’ll forget to mention is that because the sales tax will fall by 1% in July….taxes will still be going down (instead down by .75%)
And just watch 100% of the media take the bait.
Im sure some of them will spin HSR into their lies.
VBobier Reply:
June 16th, 2011 at 10:07 am
Yep, Couldn’t agree more, Republican mascinations seem likely, kinda like da weather.
With this being touted for flood relief, something tells me it will skirt by.
thatbruce Reply:
June 16th, 2011 at 9:34 am
Better to spend money on relocating the towns currently along the Mississippi River, rather than continually raising the levees in a futile effort to keep the river in its current channel.
VBobier Reply:
June 16th, 2011 at 10:11 am
And some given the chance to relocate to higher ground will do just that as they now realize that old man river will always win, If You are at river level and not above the river substantially, as the old man has infinite time to wait.
Winston Reply:
June 16th, 2011 at 10:37 am
I think that when it comes to Red State disaster relief it’s time to take Mitt Romney’s advice and let the magic of the market handle it. After all, disaster relief is “immoral.”
In all honesty, this proposal is simply more of the Republican party trying to find an excuse to torpedo one of Obama’s projects. Remember, their main objective is to make Obama lose, even if it means destroying the country.
synonymouse Reply:
June 17th, 2011 at 12:01 pm
The Republicans don’t have a clue, but neither does the Pelosi patronage machine. SF Muni is in clear decline, the result of politically enabled incompetence. Now they are going to payola the kicked-out GM almost $400k, Dugger redux. Meantime the system is fraught with service outages. Plus they will most likely have to endure a TWU strike to begin to regain a handle on work rules and ot. Not to mention the abysmal Rose Pak Memorial Subway fiasco.
So is that what you really want – the BART-Amalgamated-Muni-TWU management model for the CHSRA? That’s what the machine will demand.
On the Sac front, Jerry Brown is marginalizing himself, essentially putting himself in the same position as was Schwarzie, alienated from his own party. The Demos are not going to willingly crack down on public employee and teachers unions. The Repubs should demand Prop 1A back on the ballot along with any vote on tax extensions. It is time to give the Tehachapi detour, greenfield Stilt-A-Rail, iconic Diridon-Pacheco and PAMPA embarcardero freeways on rails a good, sound kick in the teeth.
Peter Reply:
June 17th, 2011 at 12:27 pm
I’m impressed. Is there a synonomousism that was not included in that post?
synonymouse Reply:
June 17th, 2011 at 1:41 pm
I am always trying to coin some new ones to match the ongoing comedy of errors but it is not easy.
But the economic situation is not humorous. All economies eventually hiccup, especially ones tht have been pushed to overheat on purpose, and if China goes into recession on top of the piig’s failing currencies things could get very interesting. But please no more blinking TARP’s or other saviours of economic royalism.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
June 17th, 2011 at 1:48 pm
Or it’s a sophisticated Turing test. There’s about 40 phrases that get endlessly permuted.
Alon Levy Reply:
June 17th, 2011 at 3:45 pm
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Deny_recognition
Peter Reply:
June 17th, 2011 at 6:38 pm
I just enjoy mocking him.
Alon Levy Reply:
June 17th, 2011 at 7:06 pm
I enjoy reading clutter-free threads.
Spokker Reply:
June 17th, 2011 at 8:04 pm
Good thing this isn’t Wikipedia. If you want clutter-free threads then encourage Robert to switch to something that isn’t boxes within boxes within boxes within boxes until boxes are simply stacked until the end of time (or until Peter finishes mocking synonmouse).
Jerry Reply:
June 17th, 2011 at 2:31 pm
“synonomousism” — wow. I really like this blog.
Alon Levy Reply:
June 16th, 2011 at 1:16 pm
Relocating a million people would make this top Three Gorges Dam in the amount of displacement caused.
wu ming Reply:
June 17th, 2011 at 8:09 pm
by the time the next couple decades are over, the three gorges resettlement is going to look quaint.
I read the article and also poked around a bit. I can’t figure out *which* $1Billion is being taken. Is this money which was already allocated to CA/someone else, money that was never allocated (I didn’t know there was any), or part of what Florida gave back?
Daniel Krause Reply:
June 16th, 2011 at 10:09 am
The funds would likely be yanked from various projects that just received money from Florida but haven’t begun spending it yet. California might lose its $300 million that it just received. Now I am sure there will be an all out effort to completely eliminate HSR in the debt ceiling negotiations.
VBobier Reply:
June 16th, 2011 at 8:44 pm
Yeah I expect House Repugs to try and make HSR in the US illegal to build with any federal money.
Let’s not forget that this proposal would take money dedicated to solidly Democratic states and redirect it to solidly Republican states. Republicans have nothing to gain from sucking up to California and the Northeast Corridor states, and everything to gain from throwing money at their most loyal constituents. The cynicism is incredible.
Mica just introduced the bill to privatize the NEC. It’s a 99 year lease with the following provisions:
A bit more ambitious than I would’ve done, but otherwise pretty good. State corridor and long distance routes would also be opened to bidding if requested.
Alon Levy Reply:
June 16th, 2011 at 9:33 am
2.5 hours NY-Boston is the same average speed as Britain’s existing ECML and WCML services.
BruceMcF Reply:
June 16th, 2011 at 9:59 am
Precisely: this is privatizing the NEC in lieu of Express HSR.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
June 16th, 2011 at 10:16 am
It’s half an hour slower than Amtrak’s ridiculous 117 billion dollar plan. It’s not a meaningful loss.
Alon Levy Reply:
June 16th, 2011 at 12:43 pm
It’s zero minutes faster than dropping off-the-shelf tilting Pendolino or Hitachi trains on the line, raising superelevation on curves, straightening a few really bad curves (Elizabeth and Cos Cob Bridge are the only two that comes to mind right now), and sending everyone who works at the FRA to early retirement.
Amtrak’s extravaganza calls for 1:24 New York-Boston. This is a serious improvement over 2:30 – and if you read the plan carefully, you’ll see that the selection criteria offer no points for exceeding the 5 performance goals you mention.
BruceMcF Reply:
June 16th, 2011 at 9:52 am
Why would a 99 year lease be required? If it doesn’t pencil out over 30 years, what difference can the additional 69 tacked on make?
Paulus Magnus Reply:
June 16th, 2011 at 9:57 am
99 years is fairly standard for territory concessions.
BruceMcF Reply:
June 16th, 2011 at 6:03 pm
Yes, its more like a concession of land to another sovereign state ~ Hong Kong, Guantanamo Bay ~ than a normal transport concession.
Winston Reply:
June 16th, 2011 at 10:00 am
If you’re giving away a big asset, you might as well give it away forever.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
June 16th, 2011 at 11:20 am
1. All current commuter rail services on NEC continued at current levels
Unacceptable. Metro North and NJTransit want to run more trains. Lots more trains. You want to do this in ten years someone better come up with the money for ARC because that’s the only way you are going to do it in ten years.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
June 16th, 2011 at 11:26 am
Then let Metro North and NJT come up with the money to expand things if they want to run more trains.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
June 16th, 2011 at 12:48 pm
NJTransit had 10 billion dollars committed from various sources.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
June 16th, 2011 at 1:00 pm
Then they can build it on their own. Amtrak or the NEC operator shouldn’t, especially if they aren’t gaining any additional train capacity for themselves.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
June 16th, 2011 at 1:31 pm
The station annex had enough capacity to serve all of NJTransit’s current trains. That frees up capacity in the existing station for Amtrak.
Alon Levy Reply:
June 16th, 2011 at 12:44 pm
My thoughts: there really needs to be regulatory reform, and the performance standards are unambitious. Please, please, contact the relevant members of Congress and let them know about the FRA problem; it’s realistic to expect some FRA reform to be tacked onto the bill, and now is our chance.
Alon Levy Reply:
June 16th, 2011 at 12:45 pm
My thoughts, link fixed. Sigh.
VBobier Reply:
June 16th, 2011 at 8:59 pm
The Repugs wouldn’t know real reform, Even if it bit them in the ass and I expect the 2012 election could do that if they steer to the far right as usual and cross seniors. If there is no more unproductive sit down strikes by Democrats and Independents in 2012 that is, Otherwise the Repugs could take over at will and cut what they hate at will, All cause some people don’t like the fact we have a president who thinks the other side is rational when their not, the other side is insane and would lead the USA to ruin to establish the CSA(Corporate States of America). the Repugs don’t give a rats ass about people, Only power interests them and means giving the KOCH brothers huge useless tax breaks that they need like another hole in their head(As My Dad used to say, He was a real Republican, Not a Repug, But then Dad disliked Big Oil a lot).
Emma Reply:
June 17th, 2011 at 11:31 am
Privatizing the most profitable corridor is the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard. If they should do something, then lease the non-profitable tracks to private freight rail and stuff.
Privatization makes matters worse as you can see in the UK. What do you have when several private railroad companies are trying to coordinate their schedules? A pure mess! Now imagine one train breaks down. Complete chaos. Railway is one of the areas where a monopoly has obvious advantages.
Amtrak is probably hoping that their system will evolve to what we see in Japan. We’re definitely not going that road.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
June 17th, 2011 at 11:35 am
Amtrak only owns a few hundred route miles. The rest already is in private hands. It being in private hands is part of the problem. The private owners have little incentive to maintain the tracks, freight doesn’t have to go particularly fast.
Spokker Reply:
June 17th, 2011 at 1:29 pm
I’m guessing you read this article?
http://www.detnews.com/article/20110615/METRO05/106150358/1409/metro/Amtrak-passengers-to-face-slower-rides-on-Detroit-Chicago-line
“Railway passengers may face delays of up to 90 minutes on trains running between Ypsilanti and Kalamazoo due to a decision by the Norfolk Southern railway to decrease speeds on their tracks between the two cities.
…
“What we’re saying to Amtrak and MDOT is that we don’t have a problem at all with passenger trains running over our railroad. It’s just that we don’t feel we should pay for the maintenance for high-speed passenger service,” Norfolk Southern spokesman Rudy Husband said.”
Passenger rail in America.
synonymouse Reply:
June 17th, 2011 at 2:14 pm
But this comes back to the same unwillingness of Congress, even liberals, to spend the vast sums that would be required for a nationalized railway system. That is why Conrail got sold off.
Amtrak’s perennial problems with intermittent funding – the love-hate relationship with Congress – underscore the importance of carefully and exhaustively thinking out schemes to get the most bang for the buck. Value planning to accompany value engineering.
Real rr people would never build the Tehachapi detour, meandering and still too steep for freight. They would build a new line, Tejon, just as the Santa Fe wanted to but couldn’t afford. And they would take advantage of the tremendous bargain that the I-5 median offers. We already own it and it would be easy and expeditious to build and quite functional for the price.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
June 17th, 2011 at 4:49 pm
Conrail got sold off because the instant it started to make money the private market cultists insisted it be sold off.
Alon Levy Reply:
June 17th, 2011 at 12:57 pm
Amtrak is yelling and screaming about the proposal. Joseph Boardman even complained that it amounts to a “government takeover” of Amtrak.
And you guys wonder why were in a rush to get this spent. Even after we do all the work to secure federal funding, if we don’t spend it fast enough it gets taken.
Since this is ARRA funding, I don’t think it going to be very easy to redirect, but jebus these people…
Eurostar to tackle carbon footprint of supply chain\
Andre Peretti Reply:
June 16th, 2011 at 6:06 pm
“Eurostar also aims to increase the number of passengers using high-speed rail from 2.5 million to five million”
Which passengers is the article is referring to? Eurostar’s ridership was 9.5 million in 2010.
Among these 9.5 million, 310,000 were Americans who bought their tickets in the US.
Maybe Americans don’t ride trains at home but they do ride them quite a lot when in Europe. They’re easy to spot. Contrary to the French who don’t marvel at the TGV anymore, they talk about it. Like “this train is flying!” or “why don’t we have them in the US?”
Latest DesertXpress news:
http://www.vegasinc.com/news/2011/jun/13/train-ever-going/
Alon Levy Reply:
June 16th, 2011 at 1:55 pm
I propose the following sliding scale of project delay: a project should be rated 0 to 4, where 0 means it will be completed before Second Avenue Subway phase 1, and a positive n means it will be completed after SAS phase n.
Winston Reply:
June 16th, 2011 at 2:08 pm
The advantage of this scale is that, if history is a guide, all possible project delays can be mapped on a region between 0 and 1.
Alon Levy Reply:
June 16th, 2011 at 3:22 pm
Not necessarily. I’d peg the Tel Aviv subway as a 4.
Peter Reply:
June 16th, 2011 at 3:51 pm
The station v. stadium problem no longer exists. The station proposal is pretty much dead for that location.
Peter Reply:
June 16th, 2011 at 3:58 pm
I’m impressed with the fact that my only problem was that I wrote “station”, when I meant to write “stadium”, given that I was writing as if i had fists of ham.
What I meant to write was: “The stadium proposal is pretty much dead for that location.”
SF Chronicle reports on Pacific Institute’s study on the recent drought’s impact on farming. Hint, it’s related to HSR: http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/06/16/MNK21JUH6J.DTL
OT- St. Sen. Alan Lowenthal announced he will run for Congress.
http://www.rollcall.com/news/Alan-Lowenthal-Congress-Long-Beach-California-206586-1.html
Peter Reply:
June 17th, 2011 at 1:02 pm
Who could run against him as a Democrat in that district?
Per the article it might be either Laura Richardson or Linda Sánchez or both. The final redistricting maps may impact where the other two choose to run.