Free Republic

Once upon a time, Gov. Jerry Brown’s administration was blithely professing confidence that they wouldn’t need to hit up taxpaying Californians to continue financing his pet high-speed rail project beyond the initial $10 billion in bonds he asked for (not to mention a casual few billion in stimulus funds from the Obama administration), because private investors would almost assuredly come a’clamoring to drop major dollars in what he felt — and apparently still feels — is an amazingly practical and affordable transit project.How’s that working out? Via the WSJ: As envisioned, California’s $68 billion bullet-train system, the nation’s first, would...

Minneapolis Mayor Betsy Hodges .. hours after she lost the Southwest light-rail vote, she visited a Somali mall on E. 24th Street in a blue hijab, accompanied by her Somali liaison, Abdirahman Muse. Hodges’ office said she is fulfilling many of the promises she put forth in a 100-day plan for the Somali community, including asking the city attorney for a review of small business regulations. In an upstairs room, Somali shopkeepers praised her for showing up, and poured out their concerns through translators, telling her they needed more space to park, more opportunities for idle youth, and more Somali...

When California first put the issue of building a high-speed bullet train between Los Angeles and San Francisco before voters, Gov. Jerry Brown made all sorts of nifty-sounding promises about how efficient, convenient, and fiscally sound a choice the rail line would be for Californians. All of those promises have more or less turned out to be a sham by now, as the train’s costs have exploded and its deadlines pushed way back, and now it appears that that less-than-three-hour ride Californians were originally promised… well, probably isn’t. ... who really considers a mounting “wall of debt” and a slew...

It takes a lot of chutzpah for a 76 year old who is sounding increasingly like Grandpa Simpson to make an old people joke. Or maybe it is just a lack of self-awareness. Even worse, it wasn’t funny, even if the audience of labor union stooges laughed. The Sacramento Bee reports: Gov. Jerry Brown has a new argument for high-speed rail: Get senior citizens off the road. "There's a lot of old people who shouldn't be driving," the Democratic governor joked at a dinner hosted by labor leaders in Sacramento on Monday night. "They should be sitting in a nice train car...

There are few things in life that progressive liberals love more than spending other people's money. When ensconced in government, they spend money for freely than a sailor in port who's been at sea for six months. Even when they're not in government, they look for ways to spend our hard-earned tax dollars by pushing ballot initiatives. One type of project in particular seems to excite liberals into a frenzy: high-speed rail. On the surface, you would think that progressive liberals and high-speed rail are an odd mix. You have to use fuel to run a train. You have to...

California’s ludicrously ambitious plan to build a high-speed railway connecting Los Angeles and San Francisco has been besieged with all kinds of problems from almost the moment of its official conception, but let that not restrain California Democrats from doubling down on what they seem to view as their iliadic quest to make high-speed rail happen. Back in August, a judge declared that the project had already violated the 2008 ballot initiative that first authorized the $10 billion in bonds for the 500-mile train, because the state didn't actually having funding sources on the books for the $31 billion required...

Last week, California Gov. Jerry Brown released his headdesk-worthy budgetary plans for divvying up the first round of a planned state budget surplus, largely borne of the temporary tax hike voters elected to add via the ballot measure Proposition 30 in 2012: Namely, to use the ‘extra’ $4.2 billion in revenue to practically gloss over the state’s hundreds of billions in debt while growing their general-fund spending by more than eight percent. Part of that esteemed plan includes a provision to redirect some funds away from California’s cap-and-trade fund and into the high-speed rail boondoggle that Brown insists upon wearing...

California’s ludicrously ambitious plan to build a high-speed railway connecting Los Angeles and San Francisco has been besieged with all kinds of problems from almost the moment of its official conception, but let that not restrain California Democrats from doubling down on what they seem to view as their iliadic quest to make high-speed rail happen. Back in August, a judge declared that the project had already violated the 2008 ballot initiative that first authorized the $10 billion in bonds for the 500-mile train, because the state didn’t actually having funding sources on the books for the $31 billion required...

A few things have happened since California voters approved $10 billion in bonds for a $45 billion California High-Speed Rail project -- which promised to take passengers from San Francisco to Los Angeles in 2 hours and 40 minutes -- in 2008. Most recently, Sacramento Superior Court Judge Michael Kenny blocked the release of $8 billion in bonds because the California High-Speed Rail Authority "abused its discretion" by not complying with the law. Kenny found that the bullet train board failed to show how it expects to fund itself and lacks all the environmental clearances needed for the system's initial...

California's plan to squander potentially hundreds of billions of dollars on a "high speed" rail line that would achieve average speeds no higher than railroads routinely achieved a century ago has hit a serious roadblock. Melody Gutierrez of the San Francisco Chronicle reports: A Sacramento judge put the brakes on California's plans to build a bullet train after dual rulings Monday blocked the sale of $8 billion in bonds and ordered the rail authority to rewrite its funding plans for the huge project. Sacramento County Superior Court JudgeMichael Kenny ruled that there was "no evidence in the record" to support...

PHILADELPHIA (CBS) — Amtrak wants to know how one of its trains took a wrong turn and got lost in the Philadelphia suburbs. Worried and baffled were most travelers at 30th Street Station Tuesday night. Mike Roberts of Coatesville said, “Wow, that’s crazy. That’s not professional at all. How could that happen?” It sounds wild, but Amtrak officials confirm it did happen and what they can tell us so far is this: Amtrak Train 644 that left 30th Street Station for New York City accidentally ended up on the SEPTA tracks. The train actually traveled several miles before the mistake...

Muni passengers were taken for a wild ride this morning after their train car departed the station without the driver aboard. According to the Chron, at about 10:15 a.m. the KT-Ingleside/Third Street train was about to leave the Castro Street station when the operator spotted a problem with one of the train doors. The operator hopped out to fix the issue, and that's when the real problems began. Perhaps the operator forgot to employ the emergency brake, but for unknown reasons the train loaded with passengers took off -- leaving the operator behind. As the train rolled away -- headed...

California continues to go full speed ahead on its high-speed rail project connecting Los Angeles and San Francisco, as construction starts far away from either end of the system in the Central Valley. The engineers have arrived to start the first 30-mile leg to and from a city that few will want to visit on the line, and the locals aren’t exactly impressed. In fact, they’re getting angrier as the project slowly rolls forward: Now, engineering work has finally begun on the first 30-mile (48-kilometer) segment of track here in Fresno, a city of a half-million people with soaring unemployment...

In a Sunday morning report which tries to put the best possible face on a project which appears to be on track to make the $22 billion "Big Dig" in Massachusetts look like a petty cash disbursement, Juliet Williams at the Associated Press claimed that the $68 billion involved thus far "would span the state." No it wouldn't, unless all of the formerly Golden State north of the San Francisco Bay Area — roughly one-fourth of the state's land mass — were to secede. Williams also wrote: "Voters in 2008 approved $10 billion in bonds to start construction on an...

Sacramento -- Dealing a major blow to California's high-speed rail project, a Sacramento County judge ruled Friday that the agency overseeing the bullet train failed to comply with the financial and environmental promises made to voters when they approved initial funding for the project five years ago. Superior Court Judge Michael Kenny said the California High-Speed Rail Authority "abused its discretion by approving a funding plan that did not comply with the requirements of the law" and has failed to identify "sources of funds that were more than merely theoretically possible." Yet he declined to immediately halt funding for the...

AFP - Al-Qaeda is plotting attacks on Europe's high-speed rail network, German mass circulation daily Bild reported on Monday, citing intelligence sources. The extremist group could plant explosives on trains and tunnels or sabotage tracks and electrical cabling, said Bild, Europe's most widely read daily. Bild said the information came from the National Security Agency (NSA) in the United States, which had listened in to a conference call involving top Al-Qaeda operatives. The attacks on Europe's rail network was a "central topic" of this call, Bild said.

SINGAPORE, Aug 3 — Malaysia has finalised its full report on the proposed high-speed rail link between Kuala Lumpur and Singapore. Local television Channel NewsAsia reported Mohd Nur Ismal Mohamed Kamal, chief executive officer of the Malaysia Land Public Transport Commission, as saying that the two sides will meet after the Aidil Fitri celebrations at the end of the month. He said: “The base line alignment and all that is done. But of course, minor changes can still happen. We are just starting the process of engagement and discussion with the Singapore side, with the joint ministerial committee meeting up...

just six percent (6%) of American Adults use mass transit services such as buses, subways, trains or ferries every day or nearly every day. ... three-out-of-four Americans (74%) say they rarely or never use mass transit

there's no reason to believe the Honolulu's rail project will do anything to improve traffic congestion. In fact, it's likely to divert resources from more-affordable solutions. "The one thing about these projects [is that] they are very inviting politically," says former Hawaii Gov. Ben Cayetano. Along with Cliff Slater of Honolulutraffic.com and University of Hawaii's Roth, Cayetano has filed a federal lawsuit against the rail project that's held up construction. They claim the city misled the public about the total cost of the project and didn't deliver fully on a required review of alternative solutions to a rail line. Panos...

A head on collision involving two commuter trains in Switzerland has resulted in the injury of 44 people. The collision occurred between the cities of Moudon and Payerne at about 6:50 p.m. local time, reports said. It is unclear at this point what caused the collision to occur. "We don't know why this crash happened," Swiss Federal Railways spokesman Reto Schaerli told CNN. "There is currently no train service between these two cities until midnight tonight at least."