Posted on 05/26/2013 3:10:47 PM PDT by neverdem
NOTHING FITS the Obama administration’s economic project better than high-speed rail. It’s based on visions of a utopian future, employs gobs of union labor in its construction, can be used to reward political allies and donors, and makes use of analysts eager to churn out dubious studies justifying it on economic grounds. Call it Solyndra on steroids.
The poster child for high-speed rail is California’s proposed 500-mile bullet train from Anaheim to San Francisco. Since it would begin at Disneyland and end at cultural la-la land, critics can’t resist snarking that the train would be on a fast track from “Fantasy to Delusion.”
--snip--
Even in California, several staunch supporters of high-speed rail are having second thoughts. In order to avoid environmental opposition, the high-speed rail authority has abandoned plans to lay the entire route with new track. Instead, in the Bay Area, the new trains would share tracks with local commuter lines. This so-called “blended system” jeopardizes the legal commitment made to California voters in the 2008 bond measure they approved: that a trip between Los Angeles and San Francisco would take no more than 2 hours and 40 minutes. In addition, money given to local commuter systems by the high-speed rail authority violates pledges that no bond money would be diverted to such purposes.
Quentin Kopp, a former San Francisco state senator and judge who served on the rail authority, has turned against the current plan. “They have just mangled this project,” he told the Los Angeles Times. “They distorted it. We don’t get a high-speed rail system. It is the great train robbery.” He is joined in his skepticism by Jim Mills, a former state senate leader who once ran the rail authority, and Lynn Schenk, a former San Diego congresswoman who currently sits on the board...
(Excerpt) Read more at spectator.org ...
Forget abusing any minority's rights.
It's in your face criminality outright.
Whenever the majority wants utopia,
the very best you get is abject dystopia!
Well it WOULD probably be more efficient than windmills.
Still, it is a heart breaking boondoggle.
His Arrogance - a special kind of stupid!
And the democrats are blaming republicans for a bridge collapse.
This seems to spell "court injunction" to me. And maybe it won't ever happen at all.
So how effective the projects are depend entirely upon who you ask. :)
How is it possible to use the same tracks as SF?
BART (for some reason even THEY don’t know) runs on NON-STANDARD track of 5’6” wide compared to 4’8.5” for standard (that is a quote from http://www.bart.gov/about/history/facts.aspx).
Ping
Here is what SHOULD have been done.
The governor of Cal should have gone to Nevada and met with the Mayor of Vegas, Governor, and Casino owners.
He should have proposed a hotel tax of $5 per night in Vegas to build a high speed train from Burbank and Ontario to Barstow and then one train from Barstow to Vegas.
If you have seen the mess on Fridays and Sundays you recognize the need.
The government should just pave the way with right of way and quick permit processes.
Very little government funds and 99% private enterprise.
The only place in the country high speed rail makes sense is the Northeast, where we already have it: one needs European to Japanese population densities for it to work, and that’s the only place we have them.
This is another nitwitted scheme, like broad-based recycling, that’s not so much leftist delusion as urbanite delusion: it’s a good idea in densely populated areas but completely stupid for the rest of the country.
Almost all of that route is over expansive soils in an earthquake zone. In other words, if it is ever built, it will remain a "high speed" train for only a few years, thereafter to be one wild ride.
Taxing Las Vegas for a high-speed train from Ontario to California?
Well, all right!
Could you extend a link to Alberta?
This is nothing more than a heavily subsidized rapid transit illegal immigrant farm worker venture HSR rail-job to the future.. and into the abyss...
High speed is about distance between stops as well. If you’re stopping every hundred miles or less, you’ll never really be able to utilize the speed to its peak efficiency.
In my opinion the only high speed rail that makes any kind of sense would be a couple of coast to coast lines with 3 or 4 total stops for connecting routes. That is only worth talking about in a booming economy like we haven’t seen for 50 years.
What really pisses me off about this blatant theft is that if you ain’t one of “them” then don’t bother applying for a job building any of it.
Ontario ca or Ontario ca. Works for me
Senator Feinstein needs the money
Senator Feinstein’s Husband Wins $35 Mil Per Mile Rail Contract from California
http://frontpagemag.com/2013/dgreenfield/senator-feinsteins-husband-wins-35-mil-per-mile-rail-contract-from-california/
Btw all lines go to vegas
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.
