Sac Bee Looks At Political Consequences of Starting in Central Valley
David Siders has a good article in today’s Sacramento Bee on the high speed rail project, examining the political consequences of the decision to begin project construction in the Central Valley. It’s a balanced article that I think does a good job explaining the range of viewpoints on starting in the Central Valley.
The article’s main contention is that by starting in the Central Valley, where construction is easier, the project won’t be as “visible” to Californians (a reflection of the pervasive anti-Valley bias on the part of Southern California and the Bay Area), and so the project becomes more susceptible to politicians from those other parts of the state.
Andrew Goetz, a professor at the Intermodal Transportation Institute at University of Denver, said the Central Valley offers a “nice, linear corridor,” and Anthony Perl, a transportation researcher at Simon Fraser University in Vancouver, said it’s “not cluttered with people, businesses and other things that will feel threatened by change.”
The nation’s interstate highway system started in the Midwest, which is roughly in the middle, too.
But Goetz said visibility is important: “If the first segment is not successful just because it’s not serving a real market, then I don’t know if you’re doing yourself any favors.”
That could well be. But that’s a temporary problem and I suspect it is overstated. Once tracks are laid, there will be a big desire from the rest of the state to continue the project and extend the tracks to SF and LA as quickly as possible. Forward momentum has been generated so far by the federal government, with its stimulus grants. Construction, however, generates its own momentum.
The article also describes some of the growing (though still small) activism among some Valley farmers who think that a very minor amount of land acquisition is somehow equivalent to the apocalypse:
But farmers in the Central Valley noticed when surveyors started visiting their land. East of Hanford, the proposed line runs through an almond orchard that has been in Helen Sullivan’s family since the late 1800s.
Sullivan voted for the rail bond in 2008, but she said it is foolish to permanently disrupt productive farmland for a line that may never be finished. If officials were expecting “yahoo farmers” to roll over, she said, they miscalculated.
“They can’t throw enough money at me to take my land away,” she said.
I’m not unsympathetic. But neither do I think these objections have much merit. This wasn’t about disdaining farmers. Union Pacific fought to block any sharing of the right-of-way, so an alignment along Highway 99 between Fresno and Bakersfield was out. Hanford officials didn’t want the trains going through town – they were quite happy to dump it in the laps of farmers just outside town – and so the only place to put the tracks was through farmland.
Sullivan’s contention that “it is foolish to permanently disrupt farmland” is totally ridiculous. That disruption happens all the time. I support farmers and support protecting agricultural land. But I also support doing something about the climate crisis, doing something about high gas prices, and doing something about economic recovery. And if that means some farmland becomes high speed rail tracks, that’s a worthwhile trade to make from the perspective of the people of California.
After all, that very same trade was made 50 years ago when the California Aqueduct and Interstate 5 were built right through the middle of farms in the San Joaquin Valley from Wheeler Ridge to Tracy. It wasn’t the end of the world. Farming continued. It thrived. While it’s never any fun to be the person who draws the short straw and has to sell their land so the tracks can be laid, if that’s the best and most affordable place to put the tracks, and if Hanford and UP continue to be obstinate, then so be it.
Further, the Valley farmers are facing a serious water problem. Although some of them wrongly blame that crisis on water management practices, and despite the demands from some farmers that water simply be stolen from other farmers elsewhere in the state, the real nature of the crisis is a changing climate that is screwing with rainfall patterns. Farmers have more to lose than most from global warming, and they should be lined up to support a piece of infrastructure that will help reduce the carbon emissions that are causing so many climate problems for them.
There are some good quotes in the article from CHSRA CEO Roelof van Ark and Fresno Congressman Jim Costa about the project financing, pointing out correctly that few projects are fully funded when construction begins. That’s a point I wish more people understood. If there are concerns about funding, the answer is to advocate loudly and forcefully for more funding. Any state legislator who sees the project as “risky” because it doesn’t have every last dollar accounted for is being hypocritical, because they have the power to do something about it and find more money to build the trains. In 1959, the legislature found a way to fund construction of the California Aqueduct. Surely they can do the same now if they don’t feel they can wait for Congress to get its act together.
The article also described some of the reform efforts that have been proposed. Daniel Krause, executive director of Californians For High Speed Rail, was quoted in the article talking about the need to be careful and make sure that any reforms don’t delay the project:
As state lawmakers last month discussed the project’s merits, Daniel Krause, executive director of the advocacy group Californians for High Speed Rail, said their “futzing around” risks delay and losing federal aid.
“We’re getting this initial chunk of money,” Krause said. “We want to build as much track as we can.”
Krause and other supporters of high-speed rail responded sharply to the legislative analyst’s report. Former state Sen. Quentin Kopp, a former rail authority board member, said it read “almost as if it was written by Lowenthal and (Joe) Simitian,” two senators critical of the authority.
“That was the most disgraceful report I ever saw come from that office,” Kopp said.
Ouch. Kopp knows something about LAO reports, having served for many years in the state legislature.
In the end, what this article shows is that the Bay Area and SoCal still do not take the Central Valley as seriously as they should. I will freely admit I didn’t either until I moved back to California in 2007. I began doing political organizing that involved the Central Valley (beyond just HSR activism). I got to know Fresno fairly well, and Merced and Bakersfield to some extent too. What became clear is that there were millions of people there with significant needs, including affordable transportation options to connect them to the economic powerhouses of the Bay Area and SoCal and to bring jobs and new investment to their own cities. The Valley has a lot of air pollution, and a need to grow denser in the major cities. HSR will help with all of those things, and therefore make California a lot stronger economically and environmentally.
I’ll never disdain the Valley again. They deserve this project as much as the Bay Area and SoCal – and happily, all three regions are going to get high speed rail. Ignoring or dismissing the Valley and its needs is something we should leave in the 20th century. 21st century California has a central place for the Central Valley, and HSR is at the heart of it.
I feel sorry for the almond farmers, but look at it this way; if part of their land were sold to the High Speed Rail, it won’t be so much work to do anymore. What the farmer could do is buy some land nearby to replace the piece of land they are losing. I know it means driving the tractor down the road and it would be inconvenient. It would only take 2 to 3 years for the new trees to reach maturity.
joe Reply:
June 5th, 2011 at 9:32 pm
1) this isn’t disrupting almond growing – it’s impacting a 100ft wide swath.
2) air pollution is a serious problem for almond growers and fruit tree producers and it will worsen as population increases. The more we can do to reduce non-farm pollution (electric rail vs cars), the less impact on the farmers and their practices.
Andre Peretti Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 6:30 am
Farmers know how to cry a river to get profitable deals.
The Paris-Lille LGV project had caused an outcry from farmers and many declared they wouldn’t sell one single square meter of their land. Then what happened?
The SNCF “improved” its offer and they all took the money.
What is the TGV’s impact on agriculture? Zero.
France was, and still is, world’s #2 agricultural exporter.
The US is #1 and will remain #1, with or without HSR.
Andy M. Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 7:53 am
But wasn’t that predictable? Why didn’t SNCF make the higher offer to start with and so avoid the negative press?
Peter Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 7:54 am
You never open negotiations at what you’re really willing to offer/accept. Then you’re guaranteed to pay more/get less.
Andre Peretti Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 9:33 am
Negatve press was unavoidable, anyway, since it was part of the farmers’ bargaining tactics. It vanished as soon as deals were concluded. Public domain procedures, on the other hand, would have led to lawsuits and a lot more negative exposure for SNCF.
Eric M Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 10:08 am
The problem with the negative press in the central valley is a lot of it is now coming from people on the peninsula, i.e. the anti rail billboards from the anti rail website, which is owned by Russ Cohen who is just another NIMBY living along the Caltrain corridor that will fight the project to stop it completely.
Lowenthal is already planning to screw with the project with threats:
From the article:
Rail officials are undeterred. They plan to release a new business plan in October, including updated financial and ridership projections.
“If that plan is not acceptable,” said Sen. Alan Lowenthal, the Long Beach Democrat who chairs the Senate select committee on high-speed rail, “then all the money stops.”
Let me be bold and predict that Mr. Lowenthal will not like business plan (no matter what is in there).
tony d. Reply:
June 5th, 2011 at 8:19 pm
No one person is above the voters of this state, including Lowenthal.
joe Reply:
June 5th, 2011 at 9:35 pm
He’s accountable – the first step is to stop the charade.
He’s an anti-rail politician. That’s the message about him and his policies.
Lowenthal is an anti-rail politician who will cost CA billions in stimulus money and thousands of jobs.
Dan Reply:
June 5th, 2011 at 9:43 pm
If he’s up against a term limit, then how accountable is he …. really. If his next gig is another political office, then perhaps it’ll come back to haunt him. If he’s looking for tenure at some think-tank then his actions will probably help him.
joe Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 2:14 am
He’s 70 and very proud of his record on environmental issues.
The man’s got a legacy-brand and ego.
Lowenthal provided significant commentary throughout the documentary Who Killed the Electric Car?.
“Who nearly killed HSR in CA?”
Labeling him for what he is – anti-rail – is going to limit his future options to screw with rail as a proponent and discourage copycats. It will
Donk Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 5:34 am
The most frustrating part about this guy is that he continues to label himself as a HSR supporter and as a thoughtful guy who knows what is best for the project. I really wish the media would expose him for who he really is instead of being fooled by him over and over again.
Arthur Dent Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 8:35 pm
Let me be bold and predict that the Authority will knowingly submit a crap finance plan and blame Lowenthal for not liking it. I further predict that Robert and his choir will find it faultless.
Have they even started working on it? Last I heard they were still looking for a financial consultant. That was a month ago. A decent finance plan is not the sort of thing you can successfully cram for at the last minute. I suspect they’re beginning to realize that and are trying to set Lowenthal up as the fall guy.
joe Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 8:48 pm
Funny thing is Lowenthal is setting himself as a scapegoat with his ridiculous behavior.
Lowenthal’s preferred plan is already out there.
1. Collect Underpants
2. Divert HSR commuter rail LA to Anaheim
3. Subsidy
it’s also worth pointing out that the freaky, global warming-related weather the valley has been having lately led to a cluster of F-1 and F-2 tornadoes that uprooted a whole almond orchard near chico just last week, and i saw another storm cell pass right overhead today that was trying to form a funnel cloud. farmers have way more to worry about from climate change than they have to worry about the loss of a sliver of farmland for a HSR line that prevents a significant amount of carbon from being emitted in the future.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 8:35 am
HSR isn’t going to do a damn thing regarding climate change and those who flip out about it are also the ones who flip out about the best, cheapest, and largest scale carbon free power source: Nuclear power.
wu ming Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 10:32 am
diverting millions of auto and plane trips a year to renewable electric-powered HSR, and concentrating future growth in urban cores centered around stations won’t do a damn thing? in a state where the vast majority of carbon emissions are from transportation? only if you’re pretending that carbon isn’t driving climate change.
ask the japanese about the wisdom of building nuclear on top of fault lines, in a breadbasket region with good fishing grounds. we haven’t barely even begun to try to tap the wind/solar/geothermal/wave potential in this state.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 11:14 am
High speed rail is highly unlikely to concentrate future growth in urban cores. Local transit and high aoil prices may do that, but HSR, which is a mode of transportation suitable for only a small fraction of trips, won’t do it.
As for it being totally renewable, I’ll believe that when I see it. We’re not meeting any of the renewable energy targets as it is.
Crunch the numbers on CO2. The US produced about 11.5 trillion pounds of CO2 in 2007. The CAHSRA is optimistically predicting 12 billion pounds of annual CO2 reduction by 2030. That is .09% of total US production today, even less than that in 2030, and completely inconsequential on a global basis.
Hell, there’s a 2800MW coal plant in Wyoming which feeds CA power and generates 15,293,640 metric tons of CO2 per year (yes folks, CA’s largest CO2 producer is out of state). That’s three times the CO2 that HSR is optimistically going to save. Replace it with two Generation III+ reactors such as the EPR and you have completely safe electricity with no CO2 emissions. Solar, wind, etc. requires three or four times as much nameplate capacity due to extremely amounts of electricity actually generated, which makes them extremely expensive.
But hey, trains are shiny and nuclear power is oh so scary and solar makes you feel so nice, right?
How many people died at Fukashima from the reactor meltdowns? Oh, yes, nobody at all, and that’s with plants set to retire soon, not updated to modern Western safety rules and backups, an obsolescent plant type, a piss-poor safety culture, and was struck by an earthquake hundreds of times stronger and a tsunami wave twice as large as designed for. The fault structures around California do not permit as strong an earthquake, walls and bluffs can be easily designed to deal with large tsunamis (and if a tsunami takes out Diablo Canyon, you’ve got rather more important issues going on).
We have. It requires massive subsidies however and isn’t worth the expense especially when there is clean, safe, and plentiful nuclear power available.
wu ming Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 5:52 pm
1. the earthquake magnitude at fukshima daiichi was in the mid to low 6.0 range, not 9.0, which was way offshore at the epicenter. if that quake broke the nuke plant, both diablo canyon and san onofre are in peril. bopth plants, BTW have piss-poor safety maintainance records.
2. nuclear requires massive subsidies and public insurance guarantees as well, which is one reason why they haven’t been built in years. and they are very slow to build.
3. most CA electricity does not come from coal, most of our electricity comes from a mix of hydro, renewables, nukes, and carbon-emitting natural gas peaker plants.
4. how many people died of cancer, or were born with severe defects in the fallout zone of chernobyl in the decades after the meltdown? i suspect fukushima will be worse, given the much higher population density in the area. they’re finding insane amounts of cesium, iodine, strontium, etc. all over northern japan, in their seafood, seaweed and produce, milk, etc. that stuff doesn’t go away, it accumulates in the food chain for decades and centuries, depending on the element and what it binds to. risking a nuclear meltdown in a state like CA with a huge ag export industry would be the death of the state ag economy should everything get dosed with clouds of fallout, to say nothing of tourism and tech investment in the area contaminated.
5. CA’s transportation sector is the biggest source of CO2 emissions. diverting passengers from gas-burning cars and diesel-burning planes to electric rail powered by renewables is a huge net reduction in carbon, period. that air corridor is one of the busiest in the country, and 5, 101 and 99 are all at very high capacity as it is, not counting future growth. diverting most or even some of that traffic by definition reduces carbon.
thatbruce Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 6:06 pm
@wu ming:
The Fukshima Daiichi plant survived the earthquake, which was a higher magnitude quake than it was designed for (either as measured at the source or at the plant). The following tsunami did most of the damage, both directly in overtopping the seawalls built to avert such a disaster and damaging the plant (but not the reactor buildings), and indirectly by severely damaging the local infrastructure so that additional power wasn’t available to power the water pumps during the critical moments before one of the auxillary buildings blew its top (yes, that is a design flaw, but that hasn’t seriously effected GE’s stock price).
Miles Bader Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 6:57 pm
But the real problem was TEPCO, who’s been ignoring safety and being generally greedy and clueless for decades (anyone remember the “carrying-around-nuclear-fuel-inna-bucket” incident from about 10 years ago?).
That, unfortunately is the issue generally too: all the best tech and engineers in the world aren’t enough if those in charge are greedy and incompetent, and nuclear plants have a way of greatly, and very suddenly, amplifying the effect of such incompetence.
wu ming Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 11:12 pm
the magnitude at fukushima daiichi was in the mid to low 6.0 range, it was a long way from the 9.0 epicenter. if it was not designed to deal with a quake at 6.0, it was incredibly irresponsible, given the location (is there a part of japan that’s not capable of sustaining a 6.0?). reports now indicate that the problems at the plant began before the tsunami hit.
swing hanger Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 11:27 pm
let me repeat thatbruce: it was the tsunami which damaged the nuclear plant- the
earthquake itself was not the problem- all reactors shut down with the initial shaking,
as they were designed to do. A nuclear plant much closer to the epicenter, the Onagawa
Plant in Ishinomaki, Miyagi Pref. also shut down, but was not affected by the tsunami. It even served as a refuge for 200 residents in the neighboring area that lost their homes.
swing hanger Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 11:33 pm
“i suspect fukushima will be worse, given the much higher population density in the area. they’re finding insane amounts of cesium, iodine, strontium, etc. all over northern japan, in their seafood, seaweed and produce, milk, etc. that stuff doesn’t go away”
What’s your source for that? Xinhua? The Sun?
Miles Bader Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 6:21 pm
Yup, even if it isn’t the most energy-sipping tech on the planet, compared to the alternatives, HSR is a huge win.
But it’s also a win as far as promoting urban-oriented development, by making city-center-to-city-center travel extremely convenient, without cars. It’s not, by itself, going to suddenly cause mass-migration out of the ‘burbs, but it’s certainly part of the solution to the horrid sprawl infestation.
Paulus Magnus Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 9:00 pm
Fukushima wasn’t built to have the equivalent of a 6.0 directly underneath it however, although the point was more of the monster tsunami which was what actually killed the powerplant. As for San Onofre and Diablo Canyon having poor maintenance records, I’m afraid I’d have to see a citation of that.
It requires construction subsidies and public insurance guarantees largely because of our regulatory framework (we have the highest nuclear construction costs in the world), but yes, it is more expensive to build per megawatt than say coal. It is cheaper, however, to build for delivered megawatt than solar and the operational cost is quite small.
Didn’t say that most CA electricity did. I did, however, say that a single coal power plant feeding CA from Wyoming emits three times as much CO2 as an optimistic projection of CAHSR believes it could save. If your goal is removing CO2 emissions, HSR is so far down the list of beneficial projects, and so ridiculously inflated on a cost-benefits ratio, that you might as well not even bother.
31 directly dead, up to 4,000 excess cancer deaths by the time everyone dosed dies. By contrast, coal power pollution is reputed to kill in excess of 10,000 Americans every year.
Absolute nonsense and again, it’s a fairly simple matter to prevent a nuclear meltdown in California with the new passively cooled reactor designs.
I’m sorry, but crunch the numbers yourselves. The CAHSRA, optimistically, predicts 12 billion pounds of annual reductions in CO2 emissions by 2030. That’s not a major net reduction in transportation sector emissions, much less total state emissions. Optimistically, you’re saving 5.4 million metric tons of CO2. Currently reportable to the Air Resources Board, which means refineries, electric plants, hydrogen plants, and cement plants, we have emissions of 183,909,411 metric tons. You’re talking about saving 3% of emissions currently reported (which doesn’t include transportation at all or other sectors), it simply isn’t meaningful in any way. It’s like spit on a fire, it won’t do anything to actually stop any CO2 induced climate change.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 9:42 pm
That’s not a major net reduction in transportation sector emissions, much less total state emissions.
The cost of doing nothing is not zero. If California doesn’t build HSR all of those travelers will still be traveling. HSR trains can use electricity generated in a coal plant in Wyoming or a wind farm in the Mojave. Or a nuclear plant. It’s difficult to run cars on electricity and the pantograph an airplane would need would be too long.
1% here and 2% there adds up.
Matthew B. Reply:
June 7th, 2011 at 12:09 am
And then there’s the financial argument. What’s the cost of expanding roads, airports, etc. if you don’t build HSR? If you do build HSR, it can be powered with electricity generated by a nuclear power plant if that’s the policy decision made by the state and federal governments. These are two separate questions.
BruceMcF Reply:
June 7th, 2011 at 12:49 pm
Yet its a sufficiently small total electricity load that it can be readily covered by newly installed renewable power supply.
BruceMcF Reply:
June 7th, 2011 at 12:48 pm
Doing 10 things each that reduce emissions by 3% would be a 30% reduction. How much better if all 10 were more capital efficient than the status quo alternative and covered their own operating costs.
Joey Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 9:08 pm
If you really want to target carbon dioxide emissions, getting commuters out of their cars would have much more of an impact than the intercity market.
joe Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 9:41 pm
What if we stop HSr and instead created a local transit authority in each city? Oh, we have them already. So let’s build HSR and connect the cities.
Joey Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 11:26 pm
If you think CA’s local and regional transit systems are effective, you probably don’t use them very much. Anyway, I’m not arguing against HSR in general, just saying that this particular point is rather invalid.
BruceMcF Reply:
June 7th, 2011 at 12:45 pm
how much of their ineffectiveness is because we do not have a stable transit operating subsidy system in this country?
We need to do both intercity transport and regional & local transpot right. But HSR has a long lead time and, on the other hand, does not need to compete for operating subsidies. Given that handing back the existing fed grant will set HSR back years, and accepting it won’t set local transit back at all, its not clear why it would make sense to look on HSR and regional & local transport as either/or.
Joey Reply:
June 7th, 2011 at 1:00 pm
how much of their ineffectiveness is because we do not have a stable transit operating subsidy system in this country?
Some, but major capital projects are really necessary in a lot of places.
Andre Peretti Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 6:15 pm
Unfortunately Fukushima has been an unexpected blessing for the anti-nuclear lobby. The Eurogreens have forced Germany’s chancellor Angela Merkel to phase out nuclear energy.
In France, where not a single nuclear incident has ever happened, they were not taken seriously and some even considered their party as a German intrusion into French politics.
Things are now changing and they have started a nation-wide scare campaign. A very dirty one. They illustrate their slogans with photos of Fukushima superimposed on views of destroyed towns, but they never mention the tsunami. They clearly want people to subconsciously attribute the destruction to the power plant, as if there had been a nuclear explosion. They never mention low seismicity and keep repeating “what happened in Japan will inevitably happen in France”.
They are now having public meetings in all French towns. I attended one and realized they target the most uninformed and credulous part of the population. Their recommendation: don’t vote for parties whose platform doesn’t include phasing out nuclear energy within the next 20 years. The socialists, who only represent 27% of the voters and need allies, are now having negotiations with the Eurogreens. If they manage to form a winning coalition, it will be the end of cheap nuclear electricity and the good times might be over for the TGV. The Eurogreens think it’s too fast and should be slowed to save energy, anyway.
If the anti-nuclear manage to be successful in France, which is the most nuclear-friendly country in the West, I’m afraid they will be even more successful in the US. And shale gas drilling is forbidden in France, but not in the US. That makes the case for nuclear even weaker.
Jesse D. Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 6:42 pm
Wait a minute. Socialists from Germany invading France…
Now where have I heard this before?
Andre Peretti Reply:
June 7th, 2011 at 8:02 am
The Greens started in Germany as Die Grünen and were emulated in all European countries. They believe nations are leftovers from a militaristic past and are now irrelevant. They ignore the national origins of their members. You have non-German citizens in Die Grünen and non-French in Europe Ecologie.
The problem with the Greens is that their leaders are unable to find a political common ground and the only dogma that unites them seems to be: Nature is Good, Science is Bad.
One of their claims is ridiculous. They want scientists in the French agency for nuclear security to be replaced by environmentalists. They say people who studied nuclear physics are inherently biased and can’t be objective. I remember a TV debate where they called Georges Charpak (a top scientist who received the Nobel prize for his research on atomic particles) a “self-styled” expert.
Their own experts have never studied nuclear physics and that, of course, makes them totally unbiased.
Alon Levy Reply:
June 7th, 2011 at 12:14 pm
Many leading science journal publishers would agree. But many others think the opposite.
(Sorry, I couldn’t resist.)
BruceMcF Reply:
June 7th, 2011 at 12:51 pm
Both Science and Nature are OK, if a little pedantic at times.
Miles Bader Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 7:00 pm
But taken in a positive light, it means that those nuclear operators that survive will be those with the most rigorous and transparent safety measures, that survive being examined under a microscope by an extremely skeptical audience.
joe Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 9:43 pm
Yes, Nuclear operators exist as safe operators until they fail miserably — as they did in Japan.
Thank god the US has a far better record…. uh we are the exception.
synonymouse Reply:
June 7th, 2011 at 9:43 am
In the real world some of these countries are looking at Fukushima and projecting that the costs of a nuke incident are too great. A small, densely populated country would have great difficulty dealing with a Chernobyl over a long period.
Why take the risk when you can get by for the moment with other means. And to some extent relying on nuclear is reducing the immediate need and thus the incentive to develop and perfect alternatives, especially the ones that appear unorthodox.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
June 7th, 2011 at 11:22 am
Except for that little incident in Three Mile Island Penna.
So I’ve been busy and not following this blog for a while. The only news I have heard about the project has been from regular media and from what I understand based on those blurbs of info is that the project is either dead, postponed indefinitely, and /or starting over from scratch with new routing. I should have known this state couldn’t pull it off. Guess I’ll have to stick to the 8 hour train to la or just stay home.
Peter Reply:
June 5th, 2011 at 6:30 pm
Welcome back, I was wondering what had happened to you.
Are the blurbs “that the project is either dead, postponed indefinitely, and /or starting over from scratch with new routing” any different from what the finest, unbiased journalists in this nation had been vomiting out prior to your hiatus?
Dan Reply:
June 5th, 2011 at 9:45 pm
Unfortunately, they aren’t. HSR here in California must have the worst PR people on the planet.
Miles Bader Reply:
June 5th, 2011 at 9:58 pm
To be fair, some of those attacking HSR are very well funded, and quite good at playing this little game (even if they aren’t so good at unbiased research). The current spate of attacks appear to be pretty well planned…
wu ming Reply:
June 5th, 2011 at 10:03 pm
calma te. what you’re hearing is the same old noise that the media flacks throw out on every other issue, to muddy the waters. the train is getting built, rest assured. it’s just not going to be done until around 2020.
well the latest news seems to be further out there… something about ditching palmdale for tejon, which I find utterly unbelievable and getting so close to starting in the valley only to have now decided not to start in the valley but instead start on the peninsula or anaheim.
Alon Levy Reply:
June 5th, 2011 at 7:12 pm
They’re still starting in the Central Valley. But they also need to figure out where to go afterward, and the most important segment to complete is Bakersfield-Palmdale (or Bakersfield-Santa Clarita). They’re revisiting Tejon vs. Palmdale to see whether it’s in fact cheaper and more useful to bypass Palmdale entirely. It probably isn’t cheaper, but it may be and the difference in cost in either direction is likely to be much bigger than the cost of studying it again.
Matthew B. Reply:
June 7th, 2011 at 12:11 am
Or the cost of being sued.
I think i also heard something about giving back some of the money we got from the feds since the project is starting over. What the hell is going on?
joe Reply:
June 5th, 2011 at 9:42 pm
Fat chance. That was a suggestion CA play hardball and move ARRA funding to a TBD project.
The Governor would have to reject the funding a la Walker or Scott or the CA legislature pass a law to disallow the proposed construction.
Risenmessiah Reply:
June 5th, 2011 at 11:08 pm
Nope. The LAO proposed negotiating some sort of deal with the Feds over re-assigning ARRA money and was told flatly no. Senator Lowenthal has a bill to completely remake the Board so that the Senate can lord over the Authority. But through it all, we edge closer and closer to it being a reality.
There’s another good reason for starting in the Central Valley.
The starter route chosen will run from somewhere in Bakersfield to somewhere in Fresno. It will more or less duplicate the existing San Joaquin service.
NARP has a fact sheet on San Joaquin ridership (PDF) that lists, among other things, top city pairs by ridership and revenue.
All nine of the top ridership pairs involve Bakersfield or Fresno. Hanford, between the two cities, accounts for two of the top nine.
This starter line would immediately result in better trips for most of San Joaquin riders. This misnamed “train to nowhere” is a good start.
Andy M. Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 7:50 am
I think it won’t duplicate the San Joaquin but become part of it.
Donk Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 8:11 am
Ok yeah, but $1M riders per year is not really much to brag about.
Wad Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 9:11 pm
It’s not much to brag about that there are only four other corridors in all of the U.S. that do better than this. It does help that two of those four are here in the state.
wu ming Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 10:35 am
the argument is that central valley californians aren’t important people, so even if they ride it, or are impressed by it, it doesn’t “count” because it’s “nowhere.”
starting in the valley is a good idea for a whole bunch of reasons. when the system’s built out, i would not be surprised if the highest ridership proportional to population isn’t in the valley stops, between sac and bakersfield.
Tomorrow I have to call 300 people and tell them they are losing their homes. The rail is going in there front door and out the back door. I have to call dairy men that will lose their business. I will have to call farmers and notify them that on May 5th the route changed and they will be losing ACRES of land and they were NOT contacted. How will these people have a livelihood? You can’t FIND land that has been in the family for 100′s of years. You can’t FIND another home that was built by your grandfather’s hands and is PAID OFF. The group that is fighting to KEEP their AG land and homes and dairy’s are NOT “well funded” we just want to KEEP providing for our families!!! Period. I didn’t vote YES on this for a reason and thank God I didn’t because now I know I am the only one here with a brain. It is STILL a train to NO where if you do not have the funding to build the rest of it. So the next time you are shoving a burger into your fat face…or eating a piece of fruit or nuts…yea…. think of us. We are the breadbasket of America…we feed you..how dare you!!
Donk Reply:
June 5th, 2011 at 11:29 pm
I don’t see why you are complaining that the farmers were “NOT contacted.” Even you state that the route was just selected on May 5th. How could CAHSRA possibly have contacted all of the landowners before knowing where the route would go? Or would you have preferred that they contacted everyone who might possibly be affected by any of the potential route choices and start a frenzy among all of the farmers in entire Central Valley?
Alex M. Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 1:00 am
Wow, where do I begin. It’s just a sliver of land and will not make any impact on ag output overall. Are you old enough to remember I-5 being built? If so, how was that? This project is no different, and uses way less land than I-5 does. In fact the amount of land used by HSR in the valley would equal a few housing developments. Trust me, like with I-5, everything will be built around it.
The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few.
Also, there are few people I respect more than farmers, since I live in the Sacramento valley myself, and because like you said, you feed us. So please do not tell me that I am fat. Attacks like that make you sound desperate. How dare I, you say? If the central valley farmers recovered from I-5, then they can definitely recover from a narrow HSR corridor.
joe Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 2:05 am
“So the next time you are shoving a burger into your fat face…or eating a piece of fruit or nuts…yea…. think of us. We are the breadbasket of America…we feed you..how dare you!!”
Wow, just Wow.
It’s hard to pin down who is supposed to be the writer- the farmer or a county official or a homesteader. This comment is a troll wrapped in a sock puppet, covered in a drama.
Society balances interests. Farmers’ land was taken to build the aqueducts, to pump water from the wetter to drier parts of CA below cost. We support farm prices, grade food quality, invest in new practices, equipment, crop varieties. And when a natural event ruins the crop – we pay for the farmer’s losses and even to not grow crops to protect prices.. Billions of dollars spent on farming every year in CA.
HSR cuts air pollution. Air pollution diminishes crop product – well documented since the early 80′s when I first got involved with DOE research where the ambient air was a treatment.
For the CV, I was thinking about all the homes HSR would save. Each town it passes in the CV will see a GDP bump of 2.5%+ — persistently. Homes values will increase due to the increased access to jobs. The rail will create opportunities for jobs locally and save fuel costs.
Miles Bader Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 2:13 am
… and of course HSR will reduce the need for vastly less space-efficient highway development.
If the GP thinks HSR is a “problem” for farms (though it seems pretty likely he’s just a troll pretending to be a farmer), he must be horrified at the prospect of more highway development…
D. P. Lubic Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 4:30 am
I think he’s a troll, too. The real farmers I know talk (and presumably write) better than that. Much more level-headed, much better fighters (which can be a mixed bag for us), not insulting.
I guess most trolls are pretty dumb. At least, that’s how they seem to me.
Jack Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 7:39 am
Nope he’s real. I think this might be the girl who spoke at the last board meeting, during public comments. What’s written is almost word for word what she said.
Peter Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 7:53 am
This person seems to be “for real”, as in this person exists, but this person is completely separate from reality in terms of how great HSR’s impact will really be.
joe Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 7:22 pm
Jack real as in truthful ?
“Tomorrow I have to call 300 people and tell them they are losing their homes.”
Really? Is this a farmer or a county official? Both? A dramatization??
Tomorrow I have to tell CV farmers air pollution is destroying their crops, stealing yield by damaging cells and forcing plants to repair the damage and grow vigorously. These poor farmers can’t stop it because it she air we all breath becoming more polluted with more and more highways and cars and people living in the valley. And the poor air forces the farmers to use cleaner equipment, newer equipment.
It’s a bitch – there’s no easy way.
wu ming Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 11:16 pm
“tomorrow i will call 300 people and try to scare the hell out of them by pretending their homes will be taken so that they will write cranky letters to the editor based on false information i told them.”
Donk Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 5:42 am
Many people around here are too quick to label someone a “troll” or a “lier”. In this case the guy probably is involved in the farming industry and is just really frustrated and letting off some steam. I like hearing the opposing view point from people like this.
However I agree that, once again, insulting somebody is not the way to get your point across.
joe Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 7:24 pm
So were 300 home owners called today by this individual? 300 home owners notified they lost their homes – if so there’s a story there for the newspapers.
If not – it’s a dramatization at best. being frustrated isn’t a license to exaggerate.
Travis D Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 5:47 am
No way is this guy for real. Those that will lose their homes will be compensated in the same way they would be if they sold their property to a real estate developer which the farmers in the central valley seemed to have no issue with back when it was happening.
wu ming Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 10:38 am
somehow that love of land didn’t stop san joaquin farmers from turning acres of their land into housing bubble tract homes, just a couple of years ago. there is a way to find land in the valley, BTW; it’s called buying it, farmers do it all the time. hence all the “for sale” real estate signs on county road corners in farm country.
synonymouse Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 11:13 am
@ Not in my backyard
You need to demand the CHSRA reconsider the I-5 option. There are a number of viable alternatives that would have most of the new construction on the I-5 corridor and incorporate upgraded passenger rail on the UP’s 99 corridor trackage.
As part of your protest you should ask why Sacramento(conurbation pop. 3 million)is being shafted with no hsr service while Palmdale is being anointed with a free gold-plated proto-BART.
But in the end you will probably have to campaign for a re-vote on Prop 1A. It would fail now.
Peter Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 11:20 am
Yes, please make sure to “ask why Sacramento(conurbation pop. 3 million)is being shafted with no hsr service while Palmdale is being anointed with a free gold-plated proto-BART.”
That will be certain to win hearts and minds. At least the minds with tin foil hats.
wu ming Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 5:53 pm
because sac is not on the route between SF and LA. palmdale is.
political_incorrectness Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 11:19 am
Feel free to talk to Union Pacific and their ROW, trust me, you will not get anywhere.
synonymouse Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 12:31 pm
The UP has taken a position they would be willing to do 110mph passenger upgrades. Of course, they will want money, lots of it.
But what do you think Pelosi’s TWU-Amalgamateds are going to demand? Mo’ money and 8 weeks of vacation.
Joey Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 1:23 pm
110 mph and FULLY FRA COMPLIANT, may I add.
Miles Bader Reply:
June 7th, 2011 at 6:28 am
I.e., “crap”
Peter Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 1:26 pm
I think the term is “red herring”.
James Reply:
June 7th, 2011 at 12:10 pm
Response to the troll’s agricultural fiction:
Where do you think the land and water came from? The first Europeans found old growth oak forests, fields of California bunch grass, annual wild-fires, and wetlands that absorbed the winter rains and supported flocks of birds that darkened the skies, grizzly bears, fish, deer, and native americans who lived off the land and traded with each other. “Your” agricultural fields are mono-cultural wastelands that contaminate the environment with pesticides, fertilizer, hybrid seeds, and cause salt accumulation.
Things change. 6, going on 7 billion people on the planet. Get used to it.
Lets build the most practical and efficient HSR system we can figure out for a reasonable cost and reduce tomorrow’s environmental impact while serving future populations. Meanwhile you can work on a better way to farm the land with less environmental impact and less water consumption.
I don’t quite buy the visibility argument. Sure, if the initial section in the Central Valley, and under the pessimistic assumption that the next extension won’t happen for a long time beyond that, then people in LA or SF won’t be likely to see the line if they don’t go out of their way to look for it specially. But there are a lot of its there and it is more likley that a second and third section will follow soon after so increasing the number of beneficiaries.
Also, there must be a lot of people living in Pennslvania, New York State etc who have never seen an Acela in real life, let alone ridden on one. But that doesn’t mean Acela isn’t a success.
wu ming Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 10:42 am
exactly. once it’s built, there will be newspaper and TV stories about it, and people will see it as much as if it were being built in their regions. the argument is especially funny given all the peninsula freakout about wanting to bury the train lines underground (at public expense) so that they won’t have to hurt their precious eyes by looking at the trains as they go by.
Risenmessiah Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 10:44 am
The argument about visibility is a really tough one. For example, had the project begun in an urban area, there would have been even more resistance and disruption. The amount of resistance, if you think about it, in the Central Valley is small. Real, probably genuine, but small.
The bigger problem for the farmers is that taking this position now really hurts them as far as building the Peripheral Canal. These sorts of arguments are going to be used against them by the Bay Area and L.A. when is comes time to vote on the bond that would build the Canal too. Too expensive, doesn’t serve anyone, disrupts the poor guy who has been fishing for 100 years…blah blah.
These guys don’t realize they are digging their own graves. If they want the support of some of the state’s urban areas on the canal, they have to show some love for high speed rail.
synonymouse Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 11:17 am
And just why should the Bay Area approve draining the Delta to enable Palmdale sprawl?
High desert development needs to be suppressed not encouraged.
Risenmessiah Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 3:50 pm
Exports, exports, exports.
You need a stable supply of water to protect agricultural output, especially in a state like ours where the climate is dry.
It’s true that thanks to shenanigans with the Kern Valley Water Bank, guys like Stew Resnick are sitting on lots of water “banked” in the ground growing high value crops like pistachios and giddily awaiting the day to sell that water to L.A. County or the Tejon Ranch project. But quite frankly, thanks to the collapse of the U.S. dollar and our housing market it’s more profitable now for most of these farmers to hold onto their land and water rights and sell what they grow.
But in order to ensure a stable water supply (this includes recharging groundwater and Sierra snowpack) there will probably have to be some other canal system to balance out the state’s needs.
Like HSR though, if you build such an elaborate system, you have to make it big on paper otherwise no one understand how it will “pay for itself”. But I don’t think that’s the case, I think a new canal could easily be a huge money loser.
I have posted audio/visual of the hearing on AB-145 on the Assembly Floor last Friday (6-03-2011) to YouTube:
Link:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sr6rg89ON3Q (about 6 minutes)
Bonnie Lowethal, ex wife of Alan Lowenthal, joined as a co-author with Galgiani. Bill passed with large majority and is now passed onto the Senate.
So there are two billing dealing with this issue. SB-517 (Alan Lowenthal), which will be heard later in the assembly, and this bill AB-145 coming to the Senate.
As a foreigner, there is an American title that puzzles me: “transportation expert”.
Quoting transportation experts (usually from Reason or Heritage) automatically frees any journalist from the need to supply evidence. They are the ultimate reference.
How do you become a transportation expert?
Paulus Magnus Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 1:25 pm
Declare yourself one. Seems to work for “defense analysts” as well.
thatbruce Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 5:52 pm
If you want people who are actual, proven experts in transporting people in high volumes and mostly keeping them happy while doing so, look to the theme parks.
Miles Bader Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 6:34 pm
Or … justtttt maybe … the people who run existing highly-successful HSR systems, who have decades of experience and vast amounts of real data!
Oh wait, the CAHSR people already consulted them.
But I guess for the mass-media, the lack of easy-to-digest pithy quotes is a huge drawback … so the Reason Foundation (with no experience at anything) it is!
D. P. Lubic Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 11:40 pm
Well, I seem to know more about transportation than average, so I guess I am an expert of some sort. The problem is, how do I collect money for this?
BruceMcF Reply:
June 7th, 2011 at 4:12 pm
Step 2, adopt and loudly proclaim conclusions convenient to Big Oil. Step 3, attract sufficient notoriety so some oil-funded propaganda mill is willing to take you on.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
June 6th, 2011 at 11:46 pm
A former coworker (sadly, now deceased) had a regular assignment of being a spokesman for my agency. In a play on words and pronunciation, he said he was considered an “ex-spurt” in this field. Breaking the word down, “ex” meant former or “used to be,” and “spurt” was “a little bit of something.” So, he used to be a little something, but now he wasn’t.
Hmm, you know, doesn’t that sound like Wendell Cox?
Andre Peretti Reply:
June 7th, 2011 at 10:01 am
Where did the expert Randal O’Toole spurt from?
The Sacramento Bee is a strong High Speed Rail supporter as they just restated in the editorial “Case for high-speed rail grows only stronger“. The key point they make that many overlook is that it will not cost nothing to not build high speed rail.
StevieB Reply:
June 7th, 2011 at 11:23 am
Link: Case for high-speed rail grows only stronger My mistake in the editorial is not by the Bee but written by Edwin Lee is mayor of San Francisco. Kevin Johnson is mayor of Sacramento. Chuck Reed is mayor of San Jose. Ashley Swearengin is mayor of Fresno. Antonio Villaraigosa is mayor of Los Angeles.
Donk Reply:
June 7th, 2011 at 11:57 am
Most people I know hate him, but Antonio Villaraigosa is one of the most pro-transit mayors in the history of the world. He always has his fingers on these things.
Whenever I read debates on the starting section of CAHSR it always seems to involve the false dichotomy – Central Valley vs. “big” urban centers (Bay Area or LA/Anaheim). I find that strange, because ALL of those options seem wasteful to me because they ALL duplicate existing tracks! What I can’t understand is why no one is talking about starting out by filling the most glaring gap in CA’s passenger rail network – Bakersfield to Southern California! Fill that in, and now suddenly you can actually ride a train from NorCal/CV to SoCal and we have a train system that is instantly 10 times as useful. Given that weekend San Joaquins are FULL even with the awful bus connections imagine what would happen with through trains! Anyway, that’s my input as an actual frequent train rider in California, if anyone was putting this logical option on the table it would get my support, but they aren’t so oh well.
Donk Reply:
June 7th, 2011 at 3:55 pm
Uh, simply because they are not ready to build it yet and need to start spending the money by 2012.