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Newsom puts the brakes on CA high-speed rail boondoggle

Sbbruin

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Sbbruin

Sbbruin 21737

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While not completely abandoning it, he essentially is killing it.  Will only complete Bakersfield to Merced section, which will be the train to nowhere.  But better than shoveling good money after bad.  This was the biggest fiasco ever conceived in a state notorious for boondoggles and fiascos.  Continuing this farce was foolhardy at best, fiscally catastrophic at worst.  Let it die and chock up the wasted billions to the stupidity of Sacramento.

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(Reuters) - California Governor Gavin Newsom said on Tuesday the state will not complete a $77.3 billion planned high-speed rail project, but will finish a smaller section of the line.

“The project, as currently planned, would cost too much and take too long. There’s been too little oversight and not enough transparency,” Newsom said in his first State of the State Address Tuesday to lawmakers.

 “Right now, there simply isn’t a path to get from Sacramento to San Diego, let alone from San Francisco to (Los Angeles). I wish there were,” he said.

Newsom said the state will complete a 110-mile (177 km) high-speed rail link between Merced and Bakersfield. In March 2018, the state forecast the costs had jumped by $13 billion to $77 billion and warned that the costs could be as much as $98.1 billion.

California planned to build a 520-mile system in the first phase that would allow trains to travel at speeds of up to 220 miles per hour in the traffic-choked state from Los Angeles to San Francisco and begin full operations by 2033.

Newsom said he would not give up entirely on the effort.

 “Abandoning high-speed rail entirely means we will have wasted billions of dollars with nothing but broken promises and lawsuits to show for it,” he said. “And by the way, I am not interested in sending $3.5 billion in federal funding that was allocated to this project back to Donald Trump.”

U.S. House Transportation and Infrastructure Republicans cited a recent Democratic clean energy proposal in noting the project’s demise, tweeting that “the plug gets pulled on the frequently delayed, over-budget San Francisco-LA (high-speed rail) project. Reality: 1, #GreenNewDeal: 0.”

The Obama administration awarded the state a total of $3.5 billion in 2010 and California voters in 2008 approved nearly $10 billion in bond proceeds. The U.S. Transportation Department’s inspector general’s office noted in August 2018 that the state had only identified $30.7 billion in funding, or less than half the project’s needs.

A spokesman for U.S. Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao did not immediately comment.

 

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Sbbruin

Sbbruin 21737

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38 minutes ago, Born to Run said:


Basically one end of the Central Valley to the other and not connecting major cities.
Huntsville to Waxahachie

Not sure about these places, but my guess is that sounds about right.  Connects Oblivion to Bolivia.

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Thetexashammer

Thetexashammer 1062

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1 hour ago, Telegraph_it said:

My California geography is not that great. Would this be comparable to a train between Snook and College Station? 

Moscow to London.

Paris to Normandy.

Rhome to China.

Atlanta to Miami.

Scotland to Egypt.

Paradise to Eden.

Earth to Venus to Mercury.

 

Detroit to Memphis.

Cut N Shoot to Dimebox.

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RDCanecutter

RDCanecutter 26281

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To hell with high-speed rail. I'd like me some low-speed rail, little one-car trains chugging through county seats, and when you're headed off to the Big City, your gal runs along the platform, professing her love, secretly dreading the news that she will lose you to a hash-house redhead named Ruby who does wicked things in the back seats of Pierce-Arrows.

Hell, I'd like local zoo trains. Serious as a heart attack, you know that mini-gauge train that runs past the tiger cage 20 times a day? Put those all over suburban neighborhoods-- the zoo trains, not the tigers-- have them toot along at 15mph steady-eddy, hop on, hop off. Put a reader in them to automatically bill your phone, so the Uber goobers will like them. No idea what it'd cost but I bet you could run a shit-load of them for the price of one high-speed boondoggle.

Zoo trains!

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tucker

tucker 238

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3 minutes ago, Pokemon said:

I traveled them extensively. CalTran was fucking fantastic. You could go from Palo Alto to the heart of SF in an hour or less. Everybody rode it. 

I have too, and they are horrible. And yes, there are homeless on them all the time specifically the BART

 

https://www.sfgate.com/local/article/how-dirty-is-bart-cleaning-crew-train-cars-station-13276134.php

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tucker

tucker 238

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1 minute ago, Pokemon said:

Amway is also a fantastically enjoyable ride. These options are far better choices than commuting by car. Highways into big cities are abysmal. 

Thus the joke: Austin is only an hour away from Austin.

Europe has no problem with trains. America kills it with propaganda (like yours) and sabotage (by the car and oil industry). 

I am pro mass transit but using the BART or Caltran as the example doesn't help as they are filthy and woefully inadequate in their scope. 

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RDCanecutter

RDCanecutter 26281

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34 minutes ago, David Dennison said:

I just want pop in and say that high speed rail in Texas would be wonderful.

 

Texas is already wonderfully served by clean efficient buses. I don't mean the Greydog, I mean all the Mexican bus lines. If you don't see a stop listed, I bet any reasonable request would make it a stop, for that trip.

http://www.elexpreso.net/

https://www.turimex.com/en/

https://www.tornadobus.com/

Sure, they get shitty Yelp reviews, but that just means you won't have to ride with Yelp Reviewers. I've ridden with some of these lines, they always stop at the best Mexican restaurants wherever they may be.

 

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Born to Run

Born to Run 6567

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I am pro mass transit but using the BART or Caltran as the example doesn't help as they are filthy and woefully inadequate in their scope. 


Both are awesome. I’ve never had an issue. It’s a blast catching BART to an A’s game then into the city for dinner. I enjoy cities that don’t require a car.

Newsflash nice places have homeless people.
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David Dennison

David Dennison 18659

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9 minutes ago, RDCanecutter said:

Texas is already wonderfully served by clean efficient buses. I don't mean the Greydog, I mean all the Mexican bus lines. If you don't see a stop listed, I bet any reasonable request would make it a stop, for that trip.

http://www.elexpreso.net/

https://www.turimex.com/en/

https://www.tornadobus.com/

Sure, they get shitty Yelp reviews, but that just means you won't have to ride with Yelp Reviewers. I've ridden with some of these lines, they always stop at the best Mexican restaurants wherever they may be.

 

The problem is the stops and the speed. 

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Sbbruin

Sbbruin 21737

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1 hour ago, RDCanecutter said:

Hell, I'd like local zoo trains. Serious as a heart attack, you know that mini-gauge train that runs past the tiger cage 20 times a day? Put those all over suburban neighborhoods-- the zoo trains, not the tigers-- have them toot along at 15mph steady-eddy, hop on, hop off. Put a reader in them to automatically bill your phone, so the Uber goobers will like them. No idea what it'd cost but I bet you could run a shit-load of them for the price of one high-speed boondoggle.

Zoo trains!

Agreed.

jerk01.jpg

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Guest Lobo

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Ah yes, the oil industry's fault that trains can't be built efficiently.  Nothing to do with private property acquisition.  It's the train's fault our country is one of two that has subsurface mineral rights.  That does cover the hyperloop though, so let's go with underground pneumatic tubes man!  everybody wins! 

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David Dennison

David Dennison 18659

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Just now, Lobo said:

Ah yes, the oil industry's fault that trains can't be built efficiently.  Nothing to do with private property acquisition.  It's the train's fault our country is one of two that has subsurface mineral rights.  That does cover the hyperloop though, so let's go with underground pneumatic tubes man!  everybody wins! 

That didn't seem to be a problem when it benefited the O&G and auto industries.

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DCA_HORN

DCA_HORN 725

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Both are awesome. I’ve never had an issue. It’s a blast catching BART to an A’s game then into the city for dinner. I enjoy cities that don’t require a car.

Newsflash nice places have homeless people.
Why do nice places have typhus, measles and plague outbreaks?
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Guest Lobo

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Just now, David Dennison said:

That didn't seem to be a problem when it benefited the O&G and auto industries.

That was my point all-star.  You can't take land and jack up taxes all in the same narrow area.  You can do one or the other as has been demonstrated time and time again.  

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DCA_HORN

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Ah yes, the oil industry's fault that trains can't be built efficiently.  Nothing to do with private property acquisition.  It's the train's fault our country is one of two that has subsurface mineral rights.  That does cover the hyperloop though, so let's go with underground pneumatic tubes man!  everybody wins! 
What does subsurface mineral rights have to do with building a railroad track?
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David Dennison

David Dennison 18659

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2 minutes ago, DCA_HORN said:
7 minutes ago, Lobo said:
Ah yes, the oil industry's fault that trains can't be built efficiently.  Nothing to do with private property acquisition.  It's the train's fault our country is one of two that has subsurface mineral rights.  That does cover the hyperloop though, so let's go with underground pneumatic tubes man!  everybody wins! 

What does subsurface mineral rights have to do with building a railroad track?

I'm guessing it makes condemning the land in question more expensive and litigation more complex. 

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David Dennison

David Dennison 18659

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2 minutes ago, DCA_HORN said:
3 minutes ago, David Dennison said:
I'm guessing it makes condemning the land in question more expensive and litigation more complex. 

Ignorant or russian?

You asked. That's an answer. That land has to be purchased. I'm guessing mineral rights that attach to the property makes acquisition more difficult.

 

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RDCanecutter

RDCanecutter 26281

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Purchasing land for rail lines is easy if you do it in 1850. Wait much longer than that, and it gets headachey. In 2001 in Northern France people were protesting a new TGV line, finally they were helped out by "one dead British soldier", ie the line would have cut through a small war cemetery, of which there are one or two in France. I think they eventually built the line anyway, but it wasn't tangle-free.

Last time I rode Amtrak I was in the station yakking, wishing there were more trains. Fellow passenger turned out to be a freight line employee of some sort, he told me everything was running full-capacity on lines that had been cut 100 years ago, didn't seem to see any easy additions.

Thus my attachment to zoo trains.

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berlinerbaer

berlinerbaer 670

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3 hours ago, atomheartbevo said:

Lubbock to Amarillo.  

Geographically, this is the most accurate, or maybe Lubbock to Abeline with the intention of eventually making it to Dallas.

1 hour ago, tucker said:

Caltran and BART are infested with homeless people and drugs. They also only go North to South not East and West.

Um... every BART line serves the East Bay. To get there, you have to travel east from SF. Pittsburgh/Bay Point and Danville lines make it quite a ways inland, in fact.

You should go back since it seems you've forgotten a lot.

16 minutes ago, Lobo said:

Ah yes, the oil industry's fault that trains can't be built efficiently.  Nothing to do with private property acquisition.  It's the train's fault our country is one of two that has subsurface mineral rights.  That does cover the hyperloop though, so let's go with underground pneumatic tubes man!  everybody wins! 

Los Angeles had an extensive system of rail lines back in the 40s. The land was bought by the auto industry and the lines were closed down and built over into freeways and new roads.

Roger Rabbit was based on a true story, brah.

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