Penny Wise, Pound Foolish
High speed rail critics have been trying to use the latest project cost estimates, which total $98 billion in estimated 2035 dollars, to undermine public support for the project. In this effort, austerity politics is their ally. Critics are hoping that Californians are in a mood where they believe the best response to the current economic crisis is to lower their horizons and suffer – to oppose spending new money and hope that by doing less with less, we’ll somehow muddle through.
The problem is that this is not what a majority of the population of California actually believes. In November 2008, as the recession was already under way and two months after the global financial system nearly collapsed, 52% of voters approved spending $10 billion in state bond money on the high speed rail project.
Two years later, voters gave the strongly pro-HSR Jerry Brown a 13 point victory over Meg Whitman. Whitman pledged to slash the state workforce by 40,000 employees, whereas Brown didn’t make any commitments of the sort at all. And yet Whitman still lost by a wide margin.
Today Governor Brown announced a plan to raise taxes on the rich to help close the state’s budget deficit. Brown’s proposal is just one of several circulating around California right now to close the deficit by increasing taxes.
What this means is that Californians have rejected austerity. They no longer believe that simply cutting budgets and spending will produce recovery or even a society that provides a good quality of life. They know now that new revenue is needed to restore the California Dream. It’s now just a question of which revenue sources to use.
That’s a bad sign for HSR opponents. If Californians are turning against austerity, then it means that the political will still exists to build high speed rail. It’s the same logic as in the Great Depression, when California built expensive bridges and dams and aqueducts despite the financial problems the state faced. In fact, California built those things because of the problems we faced at the time. Realizing the need for short-term jobs and for infrastructure that could support long-term economic activity, Californians built new infrastructure that nearly 80 years later is still helping create jobs and support economic activity.
For California to not build high speed rail now could save a few billion in the near future. But at what long-term cost? Estimates have placed the cost of expanding freeways and airports at $170 billion. The annual green dividend of the HSR project for LA alone could be up to $10 billion – meaning it would take just ten years for California to recover all the construction costs of HSR from economic activity in just Southern California. That doesn’t include activity in the rest of the state, and doesn’t include the fact that California would only pay part of the HSR cost, with the federal government and private funders picking up the rest.
California would be leaving more than $100 billion in savings on the table if it abandoned the high speed rail project. Yet that is precisely what HSR critics want us to do, because building the trains could cause short-term inconvenience to a few and because it would not be a cheap thing to do.
California did not become great by being cheap. It did not become prosperous by neglecting infrastructure. It did not become a leader by clinging to a failed status quo.
Yet HSR critics and NIMBYs would have us do exactly those things. Californians once before saw through that nonsense and voted for the HSR project. I am confident they would do so again if asked.
@Robert
New Field poll out — was on TV tonight. You should retract your whole premise of what California voters want and expect.
The numbers: (Nidia reported on this earlier)
Exclusive KTVU Field Research Poll
Public seems to want to put the brakes on controversial HSR project
Do you want another vote on HSR?
64% in Favor
30% opposed
If that happened, would you reject the bond package?
Yes 59%
No 31%
Mike DiCamillo of Field Research Group
“If there were a re-vote, it’s chances of passage given this poll are not very good”
Of those who voted YES in 2008, if they had to vote today:
53% would still vote Yes
37% would vote No
10% undecided
Margin of error is 4.4 + or -
joe Reply:
December 5th, 2011 at 9:42 pm
KTVU is Fox.
http://articles.nydailynews.com/2011-11-22/news/30431182_1_fox-news-results-show-viewers
James in PA Reply:
December 5th, 2011 at 10:19 pm
KTVU may be a Fox station, however the local reporting is the same as it was before it became Fox and is some of the best I have ever seen. Not at all the super-spin contrived and constructed ‘news’ you see on the Fox main feed. If the poll was done locally (it appears to be) it may be of high quality.
Spokker Reply:
December 6th, 2011 at 6:14 am
Yup. This is a common misconception. Your local news show on your local Fox affiliate is not Fox News the cable channel.
James in PA Reply:
December 6th, 2011 at 7:40 am
Then I have been under a common misconception for about 40 years.
joe Reply:
December 6th, 2011 at 6:45 am
Signature Issues for the Dem President. An election year. Tea-bagging Network and Fox has about every GOP Candidate on it’s payroll and chatting on TV.
What am I supposed to think? The local news editor would resign rather than run a pol result completely consistent with the station owners political and business agenda?
James in PA Reply:
December 6th, 2011 at 7:48 am
I have no idea what you are supposed to think. I am only pointing out that I have seen excellent local reporting and it has not changed. I have also seen examples of network Fox’s nauseating spin of the facts to suit their agenda.
YesonHSR Reply:
December 6th, 2011 at 12:01 am
IT still would pass…
Posted to YouTube are some excerpts from today’s joint committee Senate hearing on the project.
Opening remarks from Simitian 4 min 37 sec.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zTp4yTvmao
Opening remarks from Dan Richard 9 min : 51 sec.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0-EoKzRy2Ks
2 questions from Lowenthal leading to long discussion 40 min
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WA8BIi69xds
LaMalfa — what did the voters vote for? 5 min
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S-Yxh8YbcOc
LAO report and discussion 35 min:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aZw2tojhEyQ
a lot of meat here. Discussion on
deadlines led to Simitianl insisting that the
Authority no later than Dec 16th return with hard answer
LAO says funding plan is not in accordance with Prop 1A
joe Reply:
December 5th, 2011 at 9:45 pm
LAO *still* refuses to answer questions.
Maybe when the LAO decides to explain who asked them to do the study and what experts they released on for their findings, the Legislature will take their legal advice seriously.
StevieB Reply:
December 5th, 2011 at 11:13 pm
Simitian requested the exact language that dictates construction start in 2012 because he does not like deadlines. Chairman Thomas J. Umberg did not have the document on hand and the LAO is not aware of a deadline document. Simitian was very insistent in asking if the construction start date could be changed and who at the federal level could change it.
I listened to the entire hearing and heard a senator call for rejecting the $3 billion federal grant and substitute private funding and senator LaMalfa advocate spending on airports and highways instead. This is a group of senators who cannot agree with Gov. Brown that the start of construction with the federal grant money represents “a prudent next step”. They cling to their image of utopia in the automobile reliant suburbs of the 1950s.
StevieB Reply:
December 6th, 2011 at 12:08 am
A competent LAO would look at the final ARRA Legislation under the title CAPITAL ASSISTANCE FOR HIGH SPEED RAIL CORRIDORS AND
INTERCITY PASSENGER RAIL SERVICE to see that there is provided $8,000,000,000, to remain available through September 30, 2012.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
December 6th, 2011 at 12:26 am
I hope Amtrak and the commuter agencies along the NEC along with their respective DOTs are dusting off old plans and figuring out how fast they could be FONSI’d . NJ probably wouldn’t even have to get a FONSI, ARC is fresh enough they could just start digging again. Poof there goes 3 billion dollars, the people of metro New York will be eternally grateful….well except for the ones muttering about Alternative G etc.
Elizabeth Reply:
December 6th, 2011 at 8:25 am
Our understanding is that availability is not about being under construction but under contract to the state, a deadline that has already been met.
Mike Reply:
December 6th, 2011 at 9:01 am
Yes, that sounds correct. It seems that it has come time for a serious conversation between California and the feds about an alternative Plan B for California high speed rail. You gotta think that LaHood and Obama and Pelosi don’t want to watch California pull a Florida and just bail entirely; they’re going to want to work with us on a process and a project that keeps the President’s vision alive in some manner.
joe Reply:
December 6th, 2011 at 6:27 am
I almost feel embarrassed for them.
I propose CARRD adopt “Doubt is our Product” as its motto.
Here are tactics to undermine HSR by adopting climate and big tobacco tactics. See if you can find them in use when questioning the peer review over conflict of interest, or nagging unanswered questions, doubt and need for more studies.
http://www.barnesandnoble.com/w/climate-change-denial-haydn-washington/1100394163?r=1&ean=9781849713351&cm_mmc=Google+Product+Search-_-Q000000630-_-Climate+Change+Denial-_-9781849713351
http://books.google.com/books?id=fpMh3nh3JI0C&pg=PP4
Alon Levy Reply:
December 5th, 2011 at 10:36 pm
The part in the book describing how the main opponents of environmental science were disaffected war-era physicists hit a little close to home. But I still think it’s inequivalent to technical criticism of HSR (and I’m deliberately excluding the kind of propaganda peddled by Reason here), for the following reasons:
- There was expert consensus in the relevant field concerning tobacco, acid rain, and the ozone hole, and there is consensus today about climate change. There indeed are disaffected physicists trying to poke holes in what they consider inferior science, for example Muller, but they’re unable to do so scientifically. In contrast, people with background in German or Swiss railroad planning who are familiar with CAHSR freely quote Clem’s criticisms of the project.
- As Oreskes and Conway explain, the impetus for many of those rogue physicists was a war-imbued view that science should serve Progress and not sow doubt about the greatness of industrialization – in other words, the philosophy of the mad scientist. There is some equivalent here with some researchers who think cars are the ultimate triumph of the market or something like that, like James Moore, but not really with others.
joe Reply:
December 6th, 2011 at 6:34 am
I do want better access to the models and the reasoning behind HSR decisions. I believe the ridership model needs improvement. I don’t trust the contractors for an instant which is why Van Ark’s Peer Review Group is *Good* and not the lavish, conflicted entity CARRD suggests.
CARRD formed a small group of skeptics yet when the HSR Peer Review met, it failed to substantiate the CARRD team’s obvious flaws in the ridership model.
I see deep parallels between the tactics used against the technical pats of HSR and opponents of climate change and even tobacco regulation.
Doubt is Our Product.
YesonHSR Reply:
December 6th, 2011 at 12:13 am
NO they are just Nimbys…blow up as “experts”…remeber these these people have nothing to do everyday except take care of the back yard..because they have thave the money to do it
The Zombie Lie that never dies.
synonymouse Reply:
December 5th, 2011 at 10:24 pm
The political establishment, both Democrat and Republican, are going to expand both freeways and airports no matter whether hsr is built or not. The same corporate interests are behind all 3 campaigns.
Hardcore machine nannys like Barbara Boxer continue to find funds in DC for the Ghilotti Bros. to build new freeway lanes in Marin. So fuggedabout your eco-green crap; these are machine bosses taking care of their key supporters first and foremost. And motoring voters second.
Derek Reply:
December 5th, 2011 at 10:30 pm
The political establishment, both Democrat and Republican, are going to expand both freeways and airports no matter whether hsr is built or not.
Of course. In the same way, they are going to expand both freeways and airports in the future whether freeways and airports are expanded today or not.
Once you understand that, you’ll see that what HSR does is significantly reduce the cost of this round of expansions.
StevieB Reply:
December 5th, 2011 at 11:21 pm
Yet SFO favors HSR as a way to free runway space of short haul flights within California. SFO understands the impossibility of building another runway and the preferred choice of HSR.
joe Reply:
December 6th, 2011 at 6:38 am
What does SFO know ?
Probably they is no way in hell the bay will be filled to expand SFO runways so airport expansion will be elsewhere and not at SFO. Oh and HSR at SFO anchors that airport. Fresno is a little over an hour away by rail. About the distance my car ride to the SFO parking lot and bus to terminal.
Clue The BART/PB/Millbrae rant.
StevieB Reply:
December 6th, 2011 at 9:02 am
SFO is not insignificant. It is the second busiest airport in California after LAX and last year served over 39 million passengers. Market forces have determined
VBobier Reply:
December 6th, 2011 at 8:43 am
Yep. Palmdale needs to be shut down as It’s not worth the powder to blow It to hell, Ontario at best is raw overflow for LAX which couldn’t expand If It wanted to, Bob Hope(BUR) also can not expand, Residents around BUR would probably rather see BUR shut down instead of being expanded, John Wayne also couldn’t expand, Just as SFO probably can’t as It’s cost prohibitive to do so. So I see no way to expand commercial jet capable airports in CA, Not unless one has almost a half trillion dollars waiting to be burned like funny money.
Elizabeth Reply:
December 6th, 2011 at 9:46 am
I am not sure why the Authority keeps talking about need to build more runways in the Bay Area, as one of their reference documents is the Bay Area airport plan http://cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/assets/0/152/302/312/646d29d7-2946-458b-ae64-04c990f11975.pdf
which has a plan to meet all projected demand without an expansion – with or without HSR.
yes, there are benefits to air system in terms of delays if you do HSR but they have developed plan to keep delays at acceptable levels even without HSR.
Richard Mlynarik Reply:
December 6th, 2011 at 11:03 am
SFO’s runways will be under water sooner rather than later.
At which point the world will (not that it doesn’t, today) manifestly have many more pressing issues to address than commercial airline capacity.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 6th, 2011 at 2:14 pm
Issues like seawalls around the major cities of the first world, so that they can keep burning oil and coal and drown what’s left of the Ganges Delta?
Jon Reply:
December 6th, 2011 at 3:28 pm
Quite. The first world will continue to fly as the third world dies of starvation.
aw Reply:
December 6th, 2011 at 4:34 pm
… or drowning.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 6th, 2011 at 5:27 pm
No, not drowning. The Maldives are going to become refugees in India or Sri Lanka – either will treat them like absolute shit and try to deport them and claim it’s not its fault. The people in the Ganges Delta and the Niger Delta will migrate to their respective countries’ urban areas, creating again a massive refugee crisis. Vietnam and Cambodia will have a huge number of internally displaced people. Since by the time this happens China will be a rich country whereas Cambodia and Vietnam may or may not be, there will likely be a huge number of refugees and other immigrants in China, leading to treatment akin to that given to Jews in 1939 in various Western European countries. Expect a war somewhere in that region.
StevieB Reply:
December 6th, 2011 at 5:29 pm
The SFO plan acknowledges that demand will exceed capacity by 2035 so airlines will be encouraged to fly out of Oakland and San Jose airports. Their “demand management” tools are limited. It is possible for SFO to increase landing fees through congestion pricing or have the FAA limit capacity if delays at SFO create delays across the system at other airports. As the airlines using SFO are not regulated what happens will be their choice and not that of the airport. Diversion of millions of domestic passengers to HSR would be to the advantage of the airport and airlines.
mike Reply:
December 6th, 2011 at 11:28 am
In fairness, if they used the same consultants and contractors as CHSRA does (and why wouldn’t they – this is America, we have the most bestest civil engineering firms in the world!!!), the cost would quickly grow to $170 billion.
A link to the KTVU TV video disclosing the Field poll results (about 2.5 minutes)
http://www.ktvu.com/videos/news/palo-alto-field-poll-shows-growing-opposition-for/vFRKg/
Robert, you misunderstand what austerity is. An austere economic policy is one of high interest rates and balanced budgets. A tax hike is a type of austerity; often, the IMF would demand a combination of tax hikes and spending cuts from third-world countries that needed loans in the wake of a financial crisis.
What California has rejected is not austerity, but balancing the budget on the backs of the poor. Like other states, California can’t help but engage in austerity: it legally must balance its budget. (In addition, sometimes austerity is the correct policy, as it was under Clinton in 1993-4.) However, it has a choice of who to stiff, and Brown is wisely choosing to stiff those who can afford to pay more.
Andre Peretti Reply:
December 6th, 2011 at 5:37 am
French humorist Alphonse Allais once said: “the state must look for money where it is, in the pockets of the poor. Of course, they don’t have much, but there are so many of them!”
joe Reply:
December 6th, 2011 at 6:41 am
You need to correct Paul Krugman.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 6th, 2011 at 9:11 am
Wait, what? Where did Krugman ever say that a tax hike is not austerity? Hell, on the contrary, he brought up LBJ’s tax surcharge as a case example showing that Keynesians do austerity when economic conditions require it.
O/T but may be interesting.
Results of a poll conducted by AFR (association française du rail) with 1011 SNCF riders.
1- Do you approve opening passenger rail to private companies? Yes, 76%.
2- Are you satisfied with SNCF services? No, 81% (reasons given: strikes, delays, employees’ attitude).
3- Do you want SNCF do keep its monopoly? Yes, 40%
4- Do you think privately run trains will be as safe as SNCF’s? No, 84%.
Some analysts stressed the conflicting answers and concluded users were somewhat mixed up.
I don’t agree with them. I think rail users hope competition will oblige SNCF to improve service and make unions less strike-prone, but they still want SNCF to be dominant.
By the way, Thello, a company owned by Trenitalia and Veolia, will start running night trains between Paris and Venice on Sunday Dec 11.
LINK to Tello’s TV ad
More on the new Field poll from the SF Chronicle.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/12/06/BA811M8KKJ.DTL
So almost 2:1 against the project.
The full Field poll data is online at:
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2011/12/06/BA811M8KKJ.DTL
Mike Reply:
December 6th, 2011 at 8:38 am
Field’s own results memo is at http://www.field.com/fieldpollonline/subscribers/Rls2400.pdf
As I understand Field Research Corp, this product (“The Field Poll”) is not a paid-for survey done for a self-interested client. Rather it’s a periodic survey that Field does on its own dime as a way to promote Field Research and to contribute to an informed public debate. So unlike previous pro and con polls, I’m inclined to think that this one really does do a fair job of reflecting public opinion. Which is not to say that elected officials should blindly follow, but it is food for thought.
Robert’s article indicates that raising taxes is a done deal. Any of these tax raising propositions have to be approved by the voters.
Governor Brown’s initiative to balance the State’s budget with new taxes is totally in opposition to what is going on in Washington on a bipartisan basis; that being that raising taxes would be a disaster for the economic recovery of the county.
Anyone who thinks that raising taxes encourages more businesses to stay in the State, rather than re-locate has their head in the sand.
Derek Reply:
December 6th, 2011 at 7:13 am
It isn’t the higher taxes that encourages businesses to stay in the state, but the even higher benefits that can be secured through higher taxes. People who are smarter than you and I about money call things like these “investments.”
RubberToe Reply:
December 6th, 2011 at 8:26 am
“raising taxes would be a disaster for the economic recovery of the county”
Yeah, because the Bush tax cuts are working out so well…
Good Economy: “We can’t possibly raise taxes now, it will kill the great economic progress we are making! We need to lower taxes!”
Bad Economy: “We can’t possibly raise taxes now, it will make the economy even worse. We need to lower taxes!”
Beginning to see the the common thread? While I’m no fan of higher taxes, there comes a point where the mantra of “government is evil and must be stopped” being spouted by the wealthy for the sole purpose of lining their pockets with even more money has to be weighed against the idea that perhaps some effort should be made to stop the decline of the state.
I suspect that the tax increase will be passed by the voters.
RT
Andy M. Reply:
December 6th, 2011 at 8:53 am
Maybe the problem is that people want lower taxes because they don’t trust the state to use that money wisely and effectively. And the catch 22 is that they are right because the same imbeciles who want to lower taxes and also responsible for the waste because they are micro-managing things they don’t understand. So the solution is to get politicians into office who use money wisely and create value for the taxpayer, and people’s objections to higher taxes will diminish as they see that value coming back to them.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 6th, 2011 at 9:12 am
Yes, bipartisan consensus is that gutting Medicare and Social Security in order to cut the top income tax rate even further is a good idea. That may be why Congress’s approval rate is at the same level as that of a communist revolution.
VBobier Reply:
December 6th, 2011 at 9:47 am
Then I guess there would be a lot of throat cutting of Seniors, Blind and Disabled people, If this came about and I do mean If. Congress won’t be allowed to do so as long as Good People just say NO!
StevieB Reply:
December 6th, 2011 at 10:27 am
The agenda of Grover Norquist, libertarian lobbyist, who has had his “Taxpayer Protection Pledge” to not raise any taxes signed by 95% of all Republican Congressmen is to shrink government income to the level of 1900. His admitted goal is to shrink funding to such a low level that social programs including Social Security and Medicare would be forced to be eliminated. Polls indicate that the people favor increasing taxes on the top income earners including the top 1% who have seen their income almost triple in the last 15 years. Republican politicians are cowed by Norquist and the money he can spend to oppose them allowing the opinion of a small minority to block compromise.
California voters may well pass a tax increase on the wealthiest residents because the idea enjoys broad support. Although welcome by the state treasury the income stream would be prone to wide fluctuation and is not ideal for a multiple year budget.
thatbruce Reply:
December 6th, 2011 at 11:05 am
‘libertarian’ lobbyist? I wouldn’t classify him as ‘libertarian’.
60 Minutes ran a story on him a few weeks ago.
StevieB Reply:
December 6th, 2011 at 12:03 pm
60 Minutes described Norquist as libertarian.
joe Reply:
December 6th, 2011 at 7:23 pm
He’s a powerful Republican who was fluffed by Viacom’s 60 Minutes TeeVee show.
StevieB Reply:
December 6th, 2011 at 12:06 pm
This is a quote from the 60 Minutes program on Grover Norquist.
StevieB Reply:
December 6th, 2011 at 12:27 pm
Libertarian bloggers write articles about Total Libertarian Badass: Grover Norquist The New Republic describes Norquist this way.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 6th, 2011 at 2:17 pm
Norquist would be assigned to the ashbin of history if Obama hadn’t been weighed down by a depression. (Not that it absolves Obama of his decision to enact an inadequate stimulus, but still.) People don’t like having their taxes hiked and social programs cut in order to reduce taxes on the wealthy, and they don’t like a Congress that cares more about scoring political points than about governing. The problem is that sometimes, there’s no alternative – there’s no political alternative to austerity right now, the question is just whether it’s moderate austerity or complete austerity.
joe Reply:
December 6th, 2011 at 7:22 pm
We have freedom to choose; Coke or Pepsi.
Brown’s proposal is really nothing more than an extension of the tax increases Schwarzenegger agreed to and then could not extend.
If the Governor really wanted a systemic solution, he would do the following:
a) Amend Bradley-Burns to prohibit cities from collecting sales tax for point of sale transactions in their boundaries.
b) Direct this money to schools to satisfy Prop 13 and Prop 98.
c) Have schools swap this new revenue with property tax which would be directed back to the cities.
Why do this change? Because cities control zoning and school districts don’t. There’s no logic in punishing special districts and counties for decisions made at city hall. If municipalities don’t like the revenue stream that their real estate provides, they have all the power they need to change it.
The state could also experiment with ending income tax on labor and instead create an “intangibles tax” that would recover most of the transactions that generate revenue already, in concert with a new, simpler corporate income tax.
Derek Reply:
December 6th, 2011 at 8:34 am
That’s actually a good idea about the property tax. When the same government receives property tax revenue and also makes land use decisions (zoning), it naturally will do what it can to raise property values. After the housing bubble collapse, this is something homeowners could really use right now.
Andy M. Reply:
December 6th, 2011 at 8:57 am
Another spin-off benefit of a property tax is that it creates a disincentive to underutilisation. This could lead to a higher concentration of land use which is good for public transportation.
Elizabeth Reply:
December 6th, 2011 at 3:02 pm
One of the key problems is that because of Prop 13, the valuations only change when properties change hands and the cities only receive typically about 10% of the property tax value so changes in property value take a long time to really make a dent in cities’ finances.
Tom McNamara Reply:
December 6th, 2011 at 3:55 pm
Correct, although there’s an easy way to get depressed areas to change hands: use redevelopment laws to designate the area blighted and bulldoze it.
The opposite of my proposal is essentially the snowball you see in local finance: As property values shrunk, cities created more commercial space which in turn put more pressure on transit, housing, and other needs. But because state special districts can’t control growth, they end up totally reliant on the state to cover the gap….
adirondacker12800 Reply:
December 6th, 2011 at 5:26 pm
Corporations never die. The property never changes hands, even if the corporation is sold. The assessment never goes up.
StevieB Reply:
December 6th, 2011 at 5:57 pm
For 30 years corporations and other commercial property owners have shifted the property tax burden to homeowners. From the May 2010 report System Failure: California’s LoopholeRidden Commercial Property Tax
There have been calls for “split rolls” for years, most recently by L.A. Mayor Villaraigosa, but the percentage of the public aware of the loophole is minimal.
synonymouse Reply:
December 6th, 2011 at 8:44 pm
@ Elizabeth
But in revenge the assessors refuse to lower the values in a recession appropriately as they are supposed to via Prop 13. So the assessments are slightly lowered, but thousands over the current real estate market value, the selling price you could actually get. Total scam.
One way to attempt to get even for the refusal to put Prop 1A back to a revote is to vote against everything. It is all a trick – the rich and the corps always have their way because they are one and the same as the politicans.
Lots of interesting correlated stories in the LA Times today:
1. A story about how teens are putting off getting their drivers licenses, while the Boomers are hanging onto theirs as long as possible. “teenagers think traffic congestio and high fuel costs are the real nightmare”. Gas is up 33 cents per gallon from a year earlier…
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-gas-prices-20111206,0,2458028.story
2. Protesters from the Occupy movement are now voicing their concerns about transit issues. “The groups also said a proposed expansion of the 710 Freeway could be bad for local communities and criticized spending on such freeway projects, saying it would serve more people and be better for the environment to put funds into mass transit.”
http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-march-20111204,0,6610806.story
3. Super secret US stealth drone down in Iran. The bad guys are going to get a big boost in figuring out how to wreak additional havoc in the Middle East, you know, the place where all the “go juice” comes from. “It’s bad — they’ll have everything in terms of the secret technology in the aircraft, the official said. “And the Chinese or the Russians will have it too”…
http://www.latimes.com/business/la-fi-1206-drone-iran-20111206,0,928838.story
This is all just from the last couple days. It’s pretty clear where all this is leading, and Robert has pointed this out here before. Young people get it, they don’t want to be sitting around behind the wheel in traffic. The light rail system in LA has seen “year over year” increases in ridership for 24 consecutive months now, with no end is sight as the system expands:
http://transittalk.proboards.com/index.cgi?board=eastside&action=display&thread=975&page=4
Gas prices are going up, and the first “black swan” that flies over the Middle East could make the spike something that would scare the most grizzled veteran of the 1973 gas lines. It would be supremely ironic if the politicians in the state were so pre-occupied with the recent polls suggesting that sentiment about the HSR system has shifted, that they decided to halt construction of the first segment in the valley right about the time that gas hits $5.00 per gallon this summer.
One can only hope that the confluence of events that gets us moving toward a less “fossil fueled” future picks up enough steam fast enough to offset the daily and weekly shifts in public opinion caused by the current recession. Lets take another poll when gas reaches $5.00 per gallon, and LA/SF flights are $200 one way, and then see what J. Q. Public thinks?
RT
D. P. Lubic Reply:
December 6th, 2011 at 6:42 pm
William Draves of the Nine Shift has been following this, and of course I’ve linked the two:
http://nineshift.typepad.com/
I know I’ve been seeing this generational pattern for many years now, but it still amazes me to see how the politicians remain in such a state of denial about traffic and oil problems, and that younger people want a different future.
It’s one thing to think things should be different, but another to deny seeing what is happening and being documented in front of you.
Jeff Carter Reply:
December 6th, 2011 at 6:42 pm
Are you implying that high gas prices are an inducement to increasing transit ridership?
No it can’t be…. High gas prices have little or nothing to do with increased transit ridership… Just ask Richard Mlynarik or Caltrain…
The House Transportation & Infrastructure Committee is having a hearing right now on high speed rail.
“The Federal Railroad Administration’s High Speed Intercity Passenger Rail Program: Mistakes and Lessons Learned”
http://transportation.house.gov/hearings/hearingdetail.aspx?NewsID=1462
Alon Levy Reply:
December 6th, 2011 at 2:38 pm
Does anyone know why Ross Capon is saying that France has 360 million annual intercity train rides (on page 2)? I was under the impression that nearly all intercity ridership in France was TGV.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
December 6th, 2011 at 6:31 pm
Some interesting testimony there, including some from Richard Geddes (who says a rail system is a “commendable” approach to transportation), but it’s interesting that so much is still stated as if we are going to remain at the “status quo” for years.
O/T item on Florida Gov. Scott’s refusal of HSR stimulus cash:
Scott Refused to Meet With Potential Bidders On High Speed Rail
D. P. Lubic Reply:
December 6th, 2011 at 6:46 pm
What is wrong with the Republican party? What sort of head problems do they have?
Could the anti-fluoride people have been on to something all these years?
What’s ironic is to look at who has been affected!
joe Reply:
December 6th, 2011 at 6:57 pm
Conservatives DNA is hardwired to piss off hippies. If that means walking away from HSR or embracing torture or climate denial, so be it. It’s all about pissing off hippies.
D. P. Lubic Reply:
December 6th, 2011 at 8:01 pm
“Conservatives DNA is hardwired to piss off hippies.”
Ha! And I’m enough of a throwback to say I’m about the biggest square I know!
At least I’m honest about it!
synonymouse Reply:
December 6th, 2011 at 8:35 pm
Not quite – the rural areas picked up on some hippie themes, right away, like weed.
There is conservative Wall St. ritchie rich and there is conservative redneck country. Not the same.
Hereabouts we have apparatchiks who ban burning wood in fireplaces on the coldest nites, like riht now. That should piss off everybody, except of course their buds at PG&E.
Alon Levy Reply:
December 8th, 2011 at 12:25 am
Everybody, except people who breathe air. Traditional wood burning is extremely polluting relative to the amount of energy generated.
adirondacker12800 Reply:
December 7th, 2011 at 12:45 am
dirty farking hippies…. the comments directed at Occupy protesters that they should “take a bath and get a job” are right out of 1968.