Posted on 05/22/2017 2:51:08 PM PDT by Drago
SAN FRANCISCO - The Trump administration announced Monday that it will fully fund a $650 million federal grant for electrification of a San Francisco Bay Area train system that also would help California's high-speed rail project.
(Excerpt) Read more at star-telegram.com ...
“I think California should just use overnight sleeper train service between LA and SF.”
They should use buses. Faster and more reliable.
There are two ways by rail, SF-LA
One is by the coast. That’s a slow, rough route, lots of curves and tunnels, very scenic (the Amtrak Coast Starlight is the service on it) but because of the nature of the track and sharing with freight trains, the schedule is extremely variable. Its a nice train for riding, but not a good train to depend on.
The other is the San Joaquin Limited, runs through the Valley to Bakersfield, reliably. But no further. From there to LA its a bus.
That was February, this is now...$650 million in federal funds now approved under Chao (Mitch McConnell).
Absolutely disappointing. Gov. Jerry Moonbeam Brown was blasting the Feds a couple months ago, saying California could go its own way and not rely on Federal money. Brown even said California could build its own satellites. Well, they can't build their own trains. After blasting Wash DC and President Trump, Gov Brown went begging for $650 million for the train project. President Trump should have tied it to ending sanctuary status for illegals.
Truth is, the electrification of the trains was unnecessary. CalTrain was already operating highly efficient hybrid trains that use electric motors, the electrical power provided by onboard diesel engines. In other words, the train was already an electric train. The real story is that Brown's high-speed train wants to share the same rail right-of-way as the CalTrain line, so Brown saw the electrification project as a way to achieve his high-speed project. All the money is going into creating rail infrastructure to handle the high-speed trains.
A huge waste of money all around, done with lies by Gov Brown.
Different train project. The “high speed” project is the train to nowhere one.
Yep, the “high speed” train was dead as soon as the HS Rail Authority bowed to wealthy Palo Alto/San Bruno, etc. residents and “blended” the system with existing CalTrain tracks...will never achieve Prop 1(A) speed or “time to L.A.” requirements. Illegal for the Prop. 1(A) funding to be used since they can’t meet the requirements.
The fare box has never covered the true costs of the train. Highly subsidized, as is most public transportation; usually the fare box covers 1/3rd of true costs. I've ridden this CalTrans train, very nice. The way it was, was nice. The millions and now billions thrown at it lately were unnecessary. All done just for the high-speed pipe dream of Gov Brown. Most of the money spent has to do with altering the corridor to accommodate the high-speed trains simultaneously with CalTrain between Bay Area destinations. They're lowering streets, or building overhead rail, and building stations where none existed. It's a mess, mostly for the high-speed rail which will forever be heavily subsidized.
The "high speed" train to nowhere was "blended" with CalTrain long ago...wealthy Palo Alto/San Bruno, etc. residents objected to new HSR tracks and noise from high speed trains. HSR will run on CalTrain tracks (60-70 mph speed limits) and use the electric centenaries this wasteful funding builds (on the peninsula). Let the Bay Area finance it!
“Does anybody ride trains anymore”
I would if I felt safe doing it. The stations in Cleveland and Akron give me the creeps! I’d love to take a NICE train trip to visit my Sister in Chicago (actually Palatine) but everything about Amtrack has fallen apart! I remember, as a kid, taking the train to visit my Grandparents who were vaxationing at the Wigwam in Arizona. Observation cars! Clean! Great service. I was a little boy traveling on my own, and the conductors and all the other service people took great care of me! A golden age,,,,,GONE! Too bad, as it was a great way to travel and see the sights along the way.
| Bay Area Rapid Transit: | BART |
| Bay Area Train System: | BATS |
| Phoenix Area Rapid Transit: | PHART |
So gay people can pick up their garlic.
Noting that I voted for Trump and do not regret doing so, please consider the following.
Regardless of Trump’s good intentions for the country, as a consequence of constitutionally low-information Trump surrounding himself with advisors who probably don’t know the fed’s constitutionally limited powers any better than he does, Trump is still unsurprisingly clueless that the feds have no constitutional authority to tax and spend for infrastructure like train systems. This is evidenced by the following clarifications of Congress’s limited power to tax and spend by previous generations of state sovereignty-respecting Supreme Court justices.
“Congress is not empowered to tax for those purposes which are within the exclusive province of the States.” —Justice John Marshall, Gibbons v. Ogden, 1824.
”From the accepted doctrine that the United States is a government of delegated powers, it follows that those not expressly granted, or reasonably to be implied from such as are conferred, are reserved to the states, or to the people. To forestall any suggestion to the contrary, the Tenth Amendment was adopted. The same proposition, otherwise stated, is that powers not granted are prohibited [emphasis added].” —United States v. Butler, 1936.
In fact, and with all due respect to the family, friends and supporters of the late President Eisenhower, Eisenhower was likewise clueless that the states have never expressionally constitutionally delegated to the feds the specific power to establish a national highway system.
This is evidenced by the following excerpt from the writings of President Thomas Jefferson, Jefferson indicating that the states would first have to expressly constitutionally delegate to the feds the specific power to regulate, tax and spend for a national highway — something that the states have never done.
"On a few articles of more general and necessary use, the suppression in due season will doubtless be right, but the great mass of the articles on which impost is paid is foreign luxuries, purchased by those only who are rich enough to afford themselves the use of them. Their patriotism would certainly prefer its continuance and application to the great purposes of the public education, roads, rivers, canals, and such other objects of public improvement as it may be thought proper to add to the constitutional enumeration of federal powers [emphases added]”—Thomas Jefferson : Sixth Annual Message to Congress
In fact, President James Madison later vetoed the public works bill of 1817, complementing Jefferson’s words by pointing out that, regardless of politically correct (my term) interpretations of the Common Defense and General Welfare Clause (1.8.1), other than the post roads clause (1.8.7), there are no clauses in Congress’s constitutional Article I Section 8-limited powers that gave Congress the specific power to tax and spend to build roads and canals.
Veto of federal public works bill
In other words, Eisnhower needed to first successfully petition the states for a national interstate highway amendment to the Constitutional before building one imo.
So at this point in time, misguided Trump is inadvertently helping to unconstitutionally expand the already unconstitutionally big federal government’s powers like Eisenhower did imo.
Roy Riegels wrong way run in the Rose Bowl
Outlet malls plus more-affordable housing for South Bay workers.
Actually it’s a different train, the commuter train between SF and San Jose. It’s a line that’s actually full a lot of the time. Of course the diesels work fine. But Trump shares the liberal love of trains.
Not a good move on multiple levels.
Willie Green would approve.
What deal did Trump exact in return? Inquiring minds want to know.
Why would Trump’s administration approve a dollar for SF? Tell their judges to fund the project.
And the stupidity just never ends. Maybe this is fake news.
Never the less - the time of man is running out.
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.