Transbay Terminal’s Bright Future
One of the consequences of the media’s just blithely assuming, in spite of the facts, that somehow Congressional Republican opposition to HSR means the feds will never ever fund it ever again, is that suddenly people just feel free to make wild and unsupported speculation about the future of not only the California high speed rail project but also some of its related infrastructure.
Like the Transbay Terminal. In today’s Chronicle, Matier and Ross argue the project has a bleak future:
As federal funding for high-speed rail disappears, San Francisco continues to build a $400 million underground train station that could wind up being connected to nothing….
But with the Republican-controlled Congress slashing funding for high-speed rail and questions being raised on the state level about the project’s financial soundness, there may not be any high-speed rail system for years to come.
The fallback plan would be to use the station only for Caltrain, but connecting to the current station at Fourth and King streets would still cost $1.5 billion.
And no one knows where the money would come from.
What Matier and Ross did not report is that Republicans probably won’t control the House for very long and if Democrats retake it in 2012, SF’s own Nancy Pelosi would become speaker again. As their own paper reported last week, Pelosi still supports HSR funding, as do Democrats in the Senate and the White House.
Sure, Dems could lose either the Senate or the White House, or could fail to retake the House, or get wiped out completely in 2012. Anything can happen. And that’s my point. Matier and Ross appear to not have been paying attention to modern American politics, which has become extremely volatile and uncertain. Something that happens one day could get undone the next. Last summer President Obama and Congress agreed to create a ridiculous “Supercommittee” to find a trillion dollars in spending cuts. Today the Supercommittee announced its failure. Last year Congress passed a sweeping health care reform law. If Republicans win the Senate and the White House in 2012, that law will almost certainly be undone in 2013. And it could be again restored if Democrats won the 2016 election.
There’s no doubt that the loss of federal HSR funding in the coming year is an annoyance. But it’s not going to be permanent, and therefore reporters should not suddenly treat the HSR project as if it is doomed.
Ah, yes… This must be related to the downtown extension tunnel that just got rated by MTC as providing a whole dime’s worth of benefit for every dollar invested.
Jarrett Reply:
November 21st, 2011 at 11:14 pm
Any guesses as to why the cost-benefit is so low? I find it hard to believe that BART to SJ and the BART Irvington station in Fremont perform better than the DTX.
Drunk Engineer Reply:
November 21st, 2011 at 11:24 pm
Garbage in, garbage out.
The model reflects grossly exaggerated ridership projections for BART-SJ. Caltrain numbers are also skewed (though one may argue that reflects the overall incompetence of Caltrain management).
The Overhead Wire (@theoverheadwire) Reply:
November 22nd, 2011 at 5:33 pm
Absolutely agree. Doesn’t anyone think more people would take Caltrain if it actually got closer to BART or the Center of the CBD? Also BART to SJ is grossly overestimated. Downtown San Jose doesn’t even have the most jobs in the valley. They are all north, and you’d have to take that slow VTA LRT to get across the Valley.
Beta Magellan Reply:
November 21st, 2011 at 11:16 pm
As I asked on the previous page (buried at the bottom), is it a complete black box analysis or are there enough notes on the methodology that one could at least follow along?
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
November 21st, 2011 at 11:56 pm
Methodology: what directly benefits MTC head Steve “inexplicably not yet indicted” Heminger’s pals gets sprayed in cash. If there’s a funding gap for any of the projects promoted by his very special friends, Steve reallocates however much cash he wishes from his personal slush pile, the Bay Area State toll bridges, in whatever way he chooses.
The process is very clear and consistent and uniformly followed. There are no mysteries. How did BART get to Millbrae? How did the Bay Bridge East Span get rammed through? How did the Caldecott Tunnel end up being constructed? Freeway widenings everywhere? TransLink(sm)(tm)(c)(r) (rebranded Clipper(sm)(tm)(c)(r)? FasTrak(tm(c)(r)(sm) (whose contract was awarded to the highest bidder per MTC staff recommendation, BTW.)? HSR routed via Los Banos? BART to Warm Springs? etc. etc. The answer is always the same.
It’s all the same story, with the same handful of limitlessly corrupt apparatchiks allocating tens of billions of dollars with no oversight and less than zero accountability.
Nathanael Reply:
November 22nd, 2011 at 4:31 am
Thing is, San Francisco has a record of electing people *when* they’re known to be unaccountable and corrupt, and throwing more money at them. It’s kind of weird actually…. there was a long article describing all the ways this plays out in SF political culture a while back.
Matt in SF Reply:
November 22nd, 2011 at 5:14 pm
What on earth are you talking about?
Nathanael Reply:
November 25th, 2011 at 3:49 pm
I can’t find the article. One tranportation-related example is the way the SFPD and other municipal departments push costs onto Muni (costs which have *nothing to do with* Muni), and Muni sits there and takes it, and the Mayor and City Council decide that the solution is to blame Muni management… and then throw more money at it to cover the problem.
This isn’t how you run a competent city government.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
November 25th, 2011 at 3:58 pm
Your search terms are MUNI and “work orders”.
Another 8 years of Willie Brown (on top of the last 16) means more of the same limitless corruption and public policy failure in SF — not just in Muni. Hooray for democracy!
Andre Peretti Reply:
November 22nd, 2011 at 5:38 am
The unethical truth is that incompetence is far costlier than corruption.
Corruption is naturally self-limiting. If not kept within bounds it may land you in jail. End of career.
Incompetence can be limitless and no one ever gets jailed for it.
Except in “la reine morte”, a play by French author Montherlant, where the king has his own son jailed “for mediocrity”.
Nathanael Reply:
November 25th, 2011 at 3:52 pm
The political culture in SF seems to have an odd combination of both.
What happens is that incompetently thought out projects (Central Subway?), or incompetent and distorted habits of municipal operation (see above), become the political “standard”, and then the incompetence is covered by throwing more money at it, because the city is rich enough to do so.
This isn’t an SF thing in general (outside the city government there doesn’t seem to be the same trend), but I read an article listing off *dozens* of examples of how this happens repeatedly, specifically within the SF city government.
You can’t really argue with the Chronicle on this one. They are building a train box for something that isn’t scheduled to be used for at least 22 more years. Its great to plan ahead and all, but come on.
Joe Reply:
November 22nd, 2011 at 7:47 am
I can agrue with the chronicle because they pretend the terminal is doooomed. Trolling for hits, lazy persons why to do muck-racking.
The terminal is multi purpose. Building it now while the freaking house minority leader is from SF is smart politics.
Tom McNamara Reply:
November 22nd, 2011 at 1:06 pm
Not exactly.
The “train box” is going to get use before 22 years. However, it’s likely to be CalTrain replaced by HSR on said track and then on electrified track.
Robert, though, is distorting the influence that retaking the House would have on matters. The Democrats still control the Senate by less then 60 and of those, not all of them are going to bat for HSR. Quite frankly, the Senate and the Presidency are much more important to Democratic fortunes in general.
Pelosi’s minority is very homogeneous and she is already the “shadow chancellor”. But if Reid goes, that’s a huge, huge, huge problem for HSR and many other Democratic initiatives.
Joey Reply:
November 22nd, 2011 at 1:15 pm
You’re never going to see diesel trains running into the TBT. Electrification is a prerequisite. There’s also the matter of finding the $1.5b for the tunnel, which seems to be a low priority right now, and thus is unlikely to happen without HSR (which in turn seems decreasingly likely).
VBobier Reply:
November 22nd, 2011 at 9:09 pm
We shall see sometime in 2013, as the Fat Lady has yet to sing.
MTC has historically opposed the TBT tunnel. If and when Ring the Bay replaces Caltrain the basement will sit empty.
As far as I can tell the world is generally drifting to the right at this time driven by concerns about printing money to pay for a spending habit. And the patronage machine, whose doddering leaders are at the last hurrah, is so inept and corrupt it can only generate dysfunctional.
Alon Levy Reply:
November 21st, 2011 at 11:09 pm
The world is drifting to the right because and only because the elected left-wing governments embraced or were compelled to accept austerity. The exception is Britain, but in Britain a large majority of the people voted for a non-Tory government, and the Tories won only because the non-Tories split the vote between two parties, and out of ego Nick Clegg decided to go in coalition with the party that won a plurality.
synonymouse Reply:
November 21st, 2011 at 11:20 pm
Both right and left establishment politicians are hopelessly corrupt. The California State Legislature is a particularly noxious example. On the take. The ones who went en masse to Hawaii recently courtesy of PG&E, Chevron and the prison guards union should be flogged thru the fleet.
But the governments of the left seem to suffer from the worst social decay in the streets. Witness the crime wave in Hugo-land.
Alon Levy Reply:
November 22nd, 2011 at 12:10 am
That’s just Chavez. Brazil has seen unprecedented prosperity in recent years. When Lula was about to win the presidency, the market was so scared Brazilian bonds yielded 25% a year. A decade later, they yield 4%, less than Italian or Spanish bonds, and per capita economic growth has been good.
And Argentina, after defaulting and devaluing (and electing Nestor), has seen persistent 10% growth, making it the fastest-growing major country in the Western hemisphere.
synonymouse Reply:
November 22nd, 2011 at 10:37 am
Brazil is huge and has enormous natural resources to be tapped. California’s are already gone.
Argentina is essentially european homogeneous and not comparable to California, which is home to 40% of US welfare cases and much of the mentally troubled from the rest of a very large country.
Mexico, Venezuela or Colombia are more analogous to California.
Andy M. Reply:
November 22nd, 2011 at 11:08 am
“Argentina is essentially european homogeneous and not comparable to California, which is home to 40% of US welfare cases and much of the mentally troubled from the rest of a very large country.”
Have you ever been to Argentina? Just wondering. Buenos Aires may have a homogenous European feel to it, almost like a surreal parallel-universe incarnation of Paris. But how about up in the Andes or down in the far South? You’ll discover myriad languages and cultures and the feeling that Buenos Aires is about as far away as Moscow. There’s nothing homogenous to it.
Donk Reply:
November 22nd, 2011 at 12:23 pm
Well, yes and yes. Technically Argentina has the highest proportion of the population that considers themselves “white” out of any country in the western hemisphere, so from that standpoint, it is the very homogeneous. But yeah, NW Argentina is more like Peru or Bolivia than Buenos Aires.
Andre Peretti Reply:
November 23rd, 2011 at 4:37 am
I suppose you know the famous one-liner:
“Argentines are a nation of Italians who speak Spanish and think they’re British living in Paris.”
And that other one:
“Brazilians descend from Portuguese, Africans and Indians. Argentines descend from ships.”
Buenos Aires is, nowadays, ethnically far more European than Paris. In fact, the parisian-style buildings and predominantly white population give some French visitors the eerie feeling of being flown back to the Paris of their youth.
Alon Levy Reply:
November 23rd, 2011 at 1:44 pm
That’s only because Paris has had sustained economic growth in the last few decades and as a result attracted immigrants, whereas Buenos Aires was stagnant in the 20th century. Argentina was the world’s seventh richest country in 1900; it’s a middle-income country today.
Alon Levy Reply:
November 22nd, 2011 at 12:37 pm
Brazil only discovered natural gas very late in Lula’s presidency (in 2009, I think), well into its recent spurt of growth. So its growth is not resource-based.
You know which Latin American country does have lots of natural resources to sell? Venezuela. That’s how Chavez gets away with what he does – he can just ride high oil prices and mismanage the country all he wants.
VBobier Reply:
November 22nd, 2011 at 9:18 pm
That’s only as long as Chavez stays ahead of His cancer, after He goes, things might change.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
November 22nd, 2011 at 12:00 am
Disaster capitalism. Kiss the glove. Embrace your oppressors. The beatings will continue.
Nathanael Reply:
November 22nd, 2011 at 4:24 am
Don’t blame Clegg alone; all the evidence is that Labour leaders refused to seriously consider a coalition with the LibDems. Due to, yes, ego.
Of course, the fact that half of Labour was controlled by Tony Blair types, who would have been called Tories 70 years ago…. may have something to do with the UK’s problems. What the UK really needed was proportional representation (sigh) as then the electorate’s preferences would have been rather more obvious, and the “rainbow coalition” would have been the only viable one. Short of that, it needed the LibDems to make the difficult decision to not go into coalition with *anyone*, but that was too hard a decision for Nick Clegg, I guess.
Alon Levy Reply:
November 22nd, 2011 at 12:44 pm
Where did you read that? What I read is that Brown considered a coalition with Clegg, but it still would’ve been a minority government, and when the head of one of the regional liberal parties (Plaid Cymru or SNP, I forget which) suggested a grand progressive coalition, he mockingly dismissed the idea. However, from the moment the election results were pouring in, Clegg made noises about going in coalition with the party that received more votes, saying Labour shouldn’t automatically get his support.
New Labour isn’t really to blame. Blair was a warmonger and an autocrat and talked like a centrist, but his domestic policy was surprisingly social-democratic, on such matters as the minimum wage and NHS funding. Brown also engaged in fiscal and monetary stimulus.
Andre Peretti Reply:
November 23rd, 2011 at 11:05 am
One thing the British will never forgive is that Tony Blair lied to them about Iraq WMDs. The Labour Party as a whole also suffered from Blair’s image as Bush’s poodle.
He is now an investment banker with an estimated personal fortune of £20 million ($30 million). He also lobbies for JP Morgan in the Middle East.
Nathanael Reply:
November 25th, 2011 at 3:54 pm
FT and Guardian. It’s all rumors, though; nobody outside the inner circles of party leadership really knows what prevented the “rainbow coalition”.
Nathanael Reply:
November 22nd, 2011 at 4:29 am
The whipsaw of “left-wing government embraces crazy right-wing economic policies, gets thrown out in favor of right-wing government which is just as bad” has now happened in Ireland and Spain and Greece, and to a lesser extent the US and the UK.
(Italy is following a weirder trajectory, where the right-wing media-controlling crime lord got replaced with… someone who is following crazy right-wing economic policies. Germany is following a much more promising trajectory of sane left-wingers winning in every state election, but the federal election isn’t until 2014 IIRC.)
The result of this at the *next* election cycle in each of these “all the major parties suck” countries is going to be interesting to behold. The electoral systems may not survive at all, with revolutions coming instead — but some democracies are surprisingly resilient and capable of electing brand new parties without bloodshed. (The US, with its entrenched two-party system, is not one of them.)
Andy M. Reply:
November 22nd, 2011 at 9:22 am
I’m not sure.
The chances are high that the French presidential election will see a slide to the left. In Spain, the right wing did not win on its own merit but due to the utter failure of the left to come up with workable solutions to anything. Besides which the Spanish PP is fairly centre-ground and balanced compared to the right wing of other European countries or the US for that matter. And as for Italy, history has shown that the country is always good for surprises so just wait for the next election. Germany on the other hand has a split left wing with one part only posturing in a left-wing sort of way but acting more right-wing when elected, and the other part being too freaky and fringey to actually be electable, so I wouldn’t count on statistical gains of the left translating into a chnage of political climate any time soon.
Andy M. Reply:
November 22nd, 2011 at 9:26 am
and I forgot to add … don’t put your hopes on the German Greens either. From left wing beginnings they have increasingly drifted to the right to embrace the bourgeois vote.
Nathanael Reply:
November 25th, 2011 at 3:59 pm
There’s “appease the bourgeois right” and there’s “doctrinaire, help the 0.1% establish feudalism right”.
I simply do not believe the German Greens are *stupid* enough to pursue high-unemployment, low-wage, high-personal-debt, people-losing-their-homes policies. I may be proven wrong; I did not expect so many other political parties in so many other countries to be this stupid. *sigh…*
synonymouse Reply:
November 22nd, 2011 at 10:28 am
Sarko is not a real rightist – that would be Jean Le Pen and his daughter Marine.
It is not not Germany which is the source of the squabble at the heart of the EC. That would be France, which continues to suffer from imperial delusions of grandeur, thinking it can dominate some sort of Mediterranean union. The Maghreb was lost many centuries ago when Rome failed to protect it from what it would have termed an oriental cult. The latter is more on the order of a mass mental illness which is not going to change in this century and probably not the next.
If the little countries like Finland don’t have the smarts or the cojones to get the **** out of the EC right away they will soon find themselves forced to admit all the world’s economic refugees.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
November 22nd, 2011 at 11:44 am
Sarko — he’s not Augusto Pinochet! Or Hitler!
G. H. W. Bush: he’s not G. W. Bush!
G. W. Bush — he’s not Romney!
Romney — he’s not Rick Perry!
Stephen Harper — he’s not Georgios Papadopoulos!
David Cameron — he’s not Robert Mugabe!
Richard Nixon is not a real rightist — that would be, uh, Barack Obama.
Compare and contrast records on environmental regulation, tax policy, macroeconomics, civil liberties, domestic surveillance, contempt for constitutional rights, covert military operations, assassination without trial of foreign and even US citizens, corporate control of state policy, undeclared warfare, extra-constitutional misuse of executive office power, rampant and opaque military spending, institutionalized surveillance, mass tracking of movements of the populance, indefinite detention without trial, …
synonymouse Reply:
November 22nd, 2011 at 12:41 pm
Sarko certainly appears to me to be well to the left of Ronald Reagan, who would be a typically American rightist.
Le Pen might even be to the left of Perry in US terms. France has a serious jihadist and melting pot problem, worst than in the US. Even Sarko realized they had to crack down on immigration.
Alon Levy Reply:
November 22nd, 2011 at 8:49 pm
Le Pen is to the left of Rick “The Arizona law would not be right for Texas” Perry? Excuse me, but are you insane?
synonymouse Reply:
November 22nd, 2011 at 11:55 pm
Mexico borders on the US; Algeria and Tunisia do not border on France.
Andre Peretti Reply:
November 23rd, 2011 at 5:09 pm
The Front National is a populist party. Its electorate is what remains of the white working class. This electorate was dwindling until the crisis struck. There are more and more poor whites who would have voted communist 30 years ago but now add their number to those who would like Algerians to go back to Algeria. Marine Le Pen has persuaded them that the “establishment” (the right+the left) is the cause of their misfortune. She keeps repeating her party is neither right nor left, but French.
The socialist party is now trying to capture some of that electorate and a French flag could even be seen behind the party’s leader at their last meeting. A novelty its left wing didn’t appreciate.
Nathanael Reply:
November 25th, 2011 at 4:03 pm
Finland keeps would-be immigrants out by *requiring them to learn Finnish*.
Even many *Finns* don’t speak “standard” Finnish.
This is a very effective anti-immigration measure; they don’t need to worry about immigration. Their borders are pretty easy to police and they aren’t part of Schengen IIRC (I could be wrong about that).
U.S. Transportation Secretary LaHood Announces $21 Million to Improve California’s Intercity Passenger Rail Service
http://www.dot.gov/affairs/2011/fra3511.html
U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood today announced the award of $21 million for the California Department of Transportation (Caltrans) for engineering to begin on three projects to improve Southern California’s Pacific Surfliner Corridor, one of the nation’s most popular passenger corridors.
“These dollars will help Californians to have better access to faster, more efficient passenger rail service throughout the state,” said Secretary LaHood. “The projects will help relieve congestion, create jobs and help ensure the world’s eighth largest economy continues to grow.”
Highlights of the rail projects include:
Pacific Surfliner Corridor in the City of Oceanside: $4 million for preliminary engineering and environmental work for the construction of second main track and replacement of an aging railway bridge over the San Luis Rey River. This project will help alleviate residual train delays in the area and provide on-time performance benefits to intercity passenger trains. The project will also connect two existing sections of double track.
Pacific Surfliner Corridor in the City of Del Mar: $7 million for preliminary engineering and environmental work for the construction of a 1.1 mile section of second main track, replacement of a timber trestle railway bridge built in 1916 and signal improvements. This project also includes a permanent seasonal rail platform with direct access to the Del Mar Fairgrounds, a major trip generator in San Diego County. When constructed this project will help alleviate current train delays, increase operational flexibility and improve on-time performance for intercity, commuter and freight operations.
Pacific Surfliner Elvira to Morena Double-Track Project: $10 million for design, environmental and engineering work. When constructed, this project will connect two sections of double track, resulting in a 10.3-mile stretch of double track. This is part of the long-range plan to double track the San Diego segment of the corridor that will alleviate train delays, increase operational flexibility, improve on-time performance, and remove a capacity constraint to future intercity passenger rail service on the Los Angeles-San Diego-San Luis Obispo (LOSSAN) Corridor.
——
The platform at the Del Mar Fairgraounds makes a heckuvalotta sense. The Fair/Races have a huge impact on traffic in the summer, and like Charger games and Padre games, will be able to generate lots of ridership.
Andy M. Reply:
November 22nd, 2011 at 9:10 am
I’m alwas surprised how the replacement of existing stuff can be sold as investment and improvement when in realuity its just maintenance or the addresssing of a backlog on maintenance. If a bridge is not up to spec, that means that whoever owns that bridge hasn’t been spending as much as they should on maintaining it. If the government steps in and fixes it for them because they haven’t got the cash to fix it themselves, that’s not an investment or an improvement but a bailout. It’s still okay when it happens (under circumstances) but let’s have a bit more honesty please. If money spent doesn’t lead to a tangible improvement I can’t see that as being an improvement.
Donk Reply:
November 22nd, 2011 at 12:27 pm
Ok, I guess so, but in this case, they are building a second main track in many segments. It is not possible to double track 100+ year old wooden bridges. And if you are double tracking, you may as well redo those bridges.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
November 22nd, 2011 at 2:54 pm
If you are double tracking after 100 years you are doing deferred maintenance.
If you are replacing 100 year old wooden bridges you are doing deferred maintenance.
Jonathan Reply:
November 22nd, 2011 at 6:35 pm
Richard, no. Some perspective, please.
f you are double-tracking after 10 , or 50, or 100 years, it’s because demand exceeded capacity by enough to trigger the investment.l An example near my former home: the Waikanae extension in the Wellington region. The line is part of the North Island main-trunk line, and was double-tracked almost spot on 100 years after the NIMTL was completed.
If you’re replacing 100 year old wooden bridges, then you’re doing deferred maintenance.
(Unless perhaps you have very solid wood, or a very unusual climate, or both.)
VBobier Reply:
November 22nd, 2011 at 9:31 pm
Deferred maintenance is explained Here in the Wiki and It is not as You think, since You really don’t know what Yer talking about.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
November 22nd, 2011 at 11:17 pm
Kthx!
Sobering Reality Reply:
November 25th, 2011 at 7:07 am
And people think HSR will be different after 30 years of operations?
Not unlike the highway system. Once largely built, politicians decided it was okay to raid the Highway Trust Fund of it’s surplus for “other things”. Worked out great didn’t it? Now the “Trust Fund” is underfunded and they still want to raid it. Maybe it’s so certain people can run around saying roads are massively subsidized.
Nathanael Reply:
November 25th, 2011 at 4:05 pm
A lot of this maintenance backlog was created in the 1950s, and some as early as the 19th century; at this point it can’t be considered deferred maintenance because it was deferred by a *previous owner*. To the *current owner*, who bought it in a dilapidated state, it’s a capital improvement.
Nathanael Reply:
November 25th, 2011 at 4:06 pm
Yes, for those of you improving dilapidated houses you have recently bought, this is really a generally correct legal point.
Back to the SF Chron article; these are sincere questions… Is the funding currently available/sufficient to actually begin construction next year? If so by the time the terminal is completed, won’t the HSR project be well underway and at least close to making it up the Penninsula?
Donk Reply:
November 22nd, 2011 at 12:29 pm
No. They are not going to be anywhere close to San Francisco by the time the TBT is finished. Maybe they can let the bums sleep in there in the meantime.
And now for a laff -
I’d like to see this scene recreated on the 3% approach to Tejon:
http://www.altamontpress.com/discussion/read.php?1,66118,66118#msg-66118
But I guess the exhaust would cook the catenary. I think the UP steam crews take oxygen apparatus with them just in case. Cima is 2.2% I believe.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
November 23rd, 2011 at 12:18 am
Naw, in reality it wouldn’t do much, except maybe make the wires bounce a little.
Still would be nice to see steam at work. . .even under wires. . .as seen here in Great Britain:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=75zCi-0OM9U&feature=related
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FY87_flBpFg
Should watch out for sparks, at least with coal-burning power:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sX1P9G9YjPY&feature=related
D. P. Lubic Reply:
November 23rd, 2011 at 12:42 am
Our lady, the 844–listen to her stack, just a rippling sound at just under 70, imagine what she would sound like at 110, which she can do:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=542dJPNNSE0
One of my personal favorites in steam, C&O 614 at 79 mph:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AhGoR1cpdrM&feature=related
People may wonder why some of us may seem so obsessed with the steam era. This clip, featuring reenacted freight trains with 2-8-4 locomotives, particularly its night sequences, will hopefully illustrate the reasons:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SXJ9eKwYSpU
DOT press release issued today:
“WASHINGTON – U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood today awarded a $928.6 million grant to the California High-Speed Rail Authority for initial construction of California High-Speed Rail. Construction will begin next year in Fresno, creating tens of thousands of jobs in California.
“California’s population will grow by 60 percent over the next 40 years,” said Secretary LaHood. “Investing in a green, job creating high-speed rail network is less expensive and more practical than paying for all of the expansions to already congested highways and airports that would be necessary to accommodate the state’s projected population boom.”
Today’s grant, when combined with voter-approved state support and previously-awarded federal dollars, will fund the construction of the first usable segment of the California system in the Central Valley.”
http://www.dot.gov/affairs/2011/fra3711.html
Tony D. Reply:
November 22nd, 2011 at 1:26 pm
Huh? I’m confused: is this project dead or alive?
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
November 22nd, 2011 at 1:28 pm
Brains! Must eat human brains!
Tony d. Reply:
November 22nd, 2011 at 3:23 pm
What I meant was that congress cut funding for HSR but have now (apparently) provides a nearly $1 billion grant for CHSRA? Sorry that one went way over your head.
Peter Reply:
November 22nd, 2011 at 3:36 pm
Morris’ comment below is correct. This is money that had previously been awarded, but is now fully obligated.
morris brown Reply:
November 22nd, 2011 at 2:55 pm
@datacruncher
This press release just reflects that the money is now fully obligated. The grant(2) were announced quite some time ago (the 700 million was obtained by Costa last year when his campaign for re-elections was in trouble.
This is not new money. They like tgo make many announcements for the same funds.
J. Wong Reply:
November 22nd, 2011 at 6:23 pm
Or they know they need to make sure that people still see the project moving forward even though others keep claiming its dead without any money.
Brandon from San Diego Reply:
November 22nd, 2011 at 6:28 pm
One budget year in Washington doesn’t not kill a project of this size. We’re you serious?
Sobering Reality Reply:
November 25th, 2011 at 7:08 am
No, but a plan that lays out an irresponsible cost of $98 billion should.
At this point in time, I would welcome a benevolent dictator. The “just say no” republicans are a turnoff. And, I don’t think the Dems have really gained enough ground since Obama was elected. Granted, he’s been hamstrung due to the Bush economic engine.
Alon Levy Reply:
November 22nd, 2011 at 8:48 pm
Terrible as the GOP is, an autocrat would be worse. Autocrats built the freeways and destroyed the cities. Autocrats are beating protesters and spraying them with chemicals that are banned in warfare by the Geneva Conventions (and that Fox refers to as a food product). People with autocratic power at the ECB are plunging multiple countries into 20% unemployment for an essentially religious dogma. Give someone that power and they will abuse it.
Nathanael Reply:
November 25th, 2011 at 4:09 pm
(1) Benevolent dictators are really, *really* hard to find. In general you get malevolent dictators. The ECB is, as Alon Levy points out, one of the most egregious examples today.
(2) Even if you get a benevolent dictator, you have one *HELL* of a succession problem; the moment he (or she) dies, you generally have a malevolent dictator or a civil war. DeGaulle ruled as an autocrat but deliberately (re)established democracy to follow his rule, and there are probably a few other examples like that (the Portuguese transitional government after the Carnation Revolution?), but they’re very uncommon.
“Terrible as the GOP is, an autocrat would be worse.”
I fail to see the distinction been the two.
Alon Levy Reply:
November 22nd, 2011 at 11:45 pm
Although the GOP controls the White House and both houses of Congress, the branch that President Romney (R-IL) and Senate Majority Leader Reid (R-NV) come from is a more moderate branch than that of the House leadership. So the House leadership is challenging Pres. Romney vigorously, providing a check on executive power, at least when the subject is not indefinite detention of dissidents. In addition, a clone of Pres. Romney as well as several other Republicans are contesting the Presidency, again leading to factions of government that act as checks on one another’s power.
Nathanael Reply:
November 25th, 2011 at 4:11 pm
Ah, but what about the autocratic rule of King John Roberts and his four henchmen on the Supreme Court of Election Thefts?
I guess we don’t have autocracy in the areas they don’t *care* about.
The clown show is on.
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-high-speed-money-20111123,0,3164155.story
This GOP grab at HSR ARRA funding requires legislation and will not pass the US Senate.
I’m glad the partisan attacks are overt, dogmatic and contrasted infrastructure spending as either CV rail vs highways. HSR is going to be a campaign issue in 2012.
Sobering Reality Reply:
November 25th, 2011 at 7:13 am
Good, and no, HSR will not be a 2012 campaign issue. Some people put too much value on how the rest of the country perceives California. Outside the California bubble most people in American view California as a corrupt state with more problems than a teenager, populated by a bunch of self-absorbed morons, led by botox queens like Nancy Pelosi.
Try to absorb that reality then consider what you think people will view as issues in the 2012 election cycle.
Peter Reply:
November 25th, 2011 at 7:16 am
Wait, are you sure you’re not talking about Illinois?
D. P. Lubic Reply:
November 25th, 2011 at 8:32 am
Took a look at the comments following the article, and thought this one interesting (reference to light rail line):
ahblid at 7:08 AM November 25, 2011
“Let me direct you to Salt Lake City where they need 1,023 employees in their bus division and only 314 employees in their light rail division. They need 1 employee for every 20,192 passengers moved on a bus as compared to 1 employee for every 42,627 passengers moved by light rail.
Now if you’re worried about pensions and other union issues, which do you think is a bigger problem?
“Finally, you keep talking about the debt. I agree it’s a big problem. First, consider that our roads easily have caused at least $2 Trillion of the national debt. This is due to the fact that we’re borrowing money big time at the Federal level for highways, coupled with the fact that the Federal fuel tax was enacted to help pay down our national debt. Congress stole it to build Ike’s dream of highways.
“Second, I asked you earlier and you didn’t respond. If you’re so concerned about the debt, how do you propose to find the extra $171 Billion we’re going to need for roads & planes if we don’t build the $74.5 Billion train?
“We have to do something! Not taking action is not an alterantive! So how do you propose to solve the problem?”
Some comments of my own:
One, the note that the Salt Lake City light rail line used half the employees of the bus system to move twice the number of passengers parallels the budget numbers for the Washington DC Metro system, which moves twice the passengers for half the money of the bus operation there. I would guess the money aspect of this holds true as well in Salt Lake City.
Of interest in both cases is that a rail system will also have additional costs (i.e., track maintenance, station maintenance) that a bus system normally doesn’t have.
Finally, I will repeat a question that has been asked by me before, and is asked by “Ahblid” above: What is the best alternative?
This nation imports something like two-thirds of its oil supply, and two thirds of our total consumption is for transportation; something like half of the total oil supply–not the transportation share, but the total–is used for motor fuel alone. We send billions of dollars overseas for this fluid, and a fair chunk of it supports oil dictators, terrorists and others who for reasons real and unreal don’t like us. (A relatively small amount of this goes to those terrorists an dictators directly, but our huge demand also drives up the price globally, and shores them up that way).
In short, looking at this as a security problem, we need to get off oil, and that means we need to get out of cars. Continuing as we are costs too much, and is likely to get costlier in the future. HSR is a part of that solution (though by no means all of it).
And so I ask again, what is your alternative?
D. P. Lubic Reply:
November 25th, 2011 at 8:38 am
Speaking for myself as a resident of the East, I think HSR will be an important campaign issue, at least in California itself; it is not impossible for it to be so for the rest of the country, although it will most likely be a minor one.
As to the opinion of the rest of the nation about California, my impression here is that most people think it’s liberal, loopy and eccentric, along with warm and sunny (they’re obviously not thinking of San Francisco or the Sierras); I don’t hear much about it being corrupt than average.
Certain cities, among them Chicago, New York, and Washington, seem to hold those questionable crowns.
Peter Reply:
November 25th, 2011 at 8:44 am
Nah, HSR is simply a sideshow to the general anti-tax/spending insanity that has swept the right-wing part of the country.
joe Reply:
November 25th, 2011 at 9:13 am
Sobering reality;
HSR is a campaign issue in CA. Than god for CA’s GOP do-nothing Reps for making it a point of contrast.
Nationwide, HSR is an issue as much as HSR is pushed by Pols (like NY and the NE-USA so thank you to Mica for resurrecting HSR ansd that awesome press conference). Polls seeking to distinguish themselves from their do-nothing opponents have an issue.
And thank you to the GOP for attacking HSR while cutting all transportation investments. Congested, dis-repaired and outdated highways and tolls make HSR even more likely.