Free Republic

California’s bullet train could cost taxpayers 50% more than estimated — as much as $3.6 billion more. And that’s just for the first 118 miles through the Central Valley, which was supposed to be the easiest part of the route between Los Angeles and San Francisco. A confidential Federal Railroad Administration risk analysis, obtained by The Times, projects that building bridges, viaducts, trenches and track from Merced to Shafter, just north of Bakersfield, could cost $9.5 billion to $10 billion, compared with the original budget of $6.4 billion. The federal document outlines far-reaching management problems: significant delays in environmental planning,...

The tenets of suburban life are the oxygen in the economic bloodstream, and the nation is suffering hypoxia. The reason a lot of folks think we're just getting warmed up on an economic swoon is that the global economy has neatly garroted all the drivers that make suburbs flourish. ...America in the early 2000s was a frothy brew of low inflation and cheap houses financed by what we'd later find out were mortgages handed out like those little dum-dum lollipops at the dentist; everybody got one no matter how bad their teeth. Nothing percolates GDP like the need to fill...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. Trains could ascend and descend at much higher speeds One of the big questions concerning rail in the mountains has to do with how to handle the steep grades. The legendary narrow-gauge trains that made their way over Colorado's passes in the 19th and 20th centuries did it by going very slow up and very slow down. But if people are going to be convinced to leave their cars at home and take a train to the ski area, creeping down the hill to Silverthorne or Vail at 10, 20 or...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. The newly reauthorized federal transportation bill allocates $45 million for a super high-speed train connecting Las Vegas to Anaheim, a project that was first proposed over 17 years ago. "I believe the Maglev train will be the future of travel between places like Southern Nevada and Southern California," said Sen. Harry Reid, D-Nev., who helped secure funding. "Airports are overburdened with the amount of short-haul flights and we must start reinvesting in train travel." Maglev (magnetic levitation) uses high-powered magnets to propel trains above an elevated track. Since there is no...

In the early 1970s, I rode the infamous, automated, rubber-tire Skybus as it circled an elevated demonstration track that has since been demolished in South Park. I was in the same car as Common Pleas Judge Anne X. Alpern, who wanted to experience the futuristic transit concept that was the subject of a 60-some-day trial over which she was presiding. A group of skeptical public officials opposed to Skybus had filed suit, successfully, it turned out, to stop the project. After public pressure and the court killed Skybus, the Port Authority replaced its clackety-rackety streetcars between Downtown and the South...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. The Las Vegas monorail passed a tough test during the Consumer Electronics Show last week. The oft-troubled monorail carried nearly 150,000 passengers and generated $450,000 in revenues from ticket sales during CES. That's according to monorail officials. The chairman of the company that manages the monorail says the system performed extremely well. Jim Gibson says he's pleased the monorail turned out to be a reliable and safe transit option during one of the busiest conventions in Las Vegas.

During rush hour recently in Shanghai, China, I traveled 19 miles in 7½ minutes. I wasn't flying, exactly. I was aboard a high-speed magnetic-levitation transportation system. Now I can't help but ponder more efficient ways of moving people into, between, within and around our cities -- especially when I'm stuck in traffic. Let's face it: American transportation problems result from our love of private automobile ownership and the government policies that enable our oil addiction. Driving cars in cities is like using a pair of pliers to bang a nail into a wall -- the wrong tool for the job....

TAMPA, Fla. -- Denise Quenneville drives 30 miles each way to her $7-an-hour job as a cashier at a Krispy Kreme doughnut shop here. With this year's surge in gas prices, she's paying $23 every couple of days to fill up her car, up from about $19 a year ago. "A $4 difference is a lot," says Ms. Quenneville, who now is pouring about a quarter of her take-home pay into the tank of her blue 2000 Oldsmobile Alero. To keep her car on the road, the 19-year-old has run up a balance of about $500 on her gas-company credit...

PRETORIA, South Africa -- Bringing public transport to the sticks is no easy mission. But Department of Transportation officials in South Africa's rural North West province have come up with a breakthrough: the world's first standardized, wheelchair-accessible donkey cart. Province officials, working in conjunction with South Africa's bureau of standards, have developed a donkey cart with reflectors, a canopy for cover and padded bench seats that are removable to accommodate wheelchairs or freight. The idea is to soon have fleets of government-sanctioned donkey carts carrying children to distant schools, farmers and their produce to markets, and the sick to clinics,...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. Mar. 17 - Despite skepticism over bringing a maglev train to Los Angeles, the City Council on Tuesday unanimously approved spending more than $500,000 to join a regional study of a line from West Los Angeles to Ontario Airport. The council voted 14-0 on what many members called a traffic solution for future generations. "We have an opportunity to exert leadership in the region," said City Councilman Antonio Villaraigosa, chairman of the council's Transportation Committee. Villaraigosa said he, too, still had questions about magnetic levitation. "Unfortunately, Los Angeles has been missing...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. PETERSBURG - Imagine boarding a high-speed train in Petersburg and riding the rails to Richmond, Williamsburg or the beach. Project leaders for a proposed Richmond to Hampton Roads passenger train service held a public hearing at Union Station yesterday on the rail, part of a nationwide high-speed rail corridor designated by Congress in 1992. From Petersburg, the local pathway would run north to Richmond and then follow the existing amtrack route east to Williamsburg and ultimately the Newport News-Hampton area. Commuters also could board in Petersburg and head east along the...

The French railway system, long the envy of British travellers, is badly maintained, deeply in the red and a hostage to self-interested trade unions, says a book to be published tomorrow in Paris. SNCF: La Machine Infernale, written by three investigative journalists paints a sorry picture of what many tourists consider the most obvious triumph of the French public sector. French railways, the authors argue, survive only because of £7 billion annual taxpayer subsidies and politicians terrified of confronting a deeply rotten system. Their main thesis is that France's railways are now moving at two speeds. First there is the...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. Britain's busiest inter-city railways will be full by 2015 unless work begins urgently on continental-style high-speed tracks, says the government's key transport thinktank. The Commission for Integrated Transport called on ministers to look beyond the present punctuality crisis and plan for a 200mph national infrastructure. It backed a north-south link to allow travellers from London to reach Glasgow in three hours, Newcastle in two and Birmingham in 55 minutes. Chairman Professor David Begg said: "There's been a lack of long-term planning in the past - that's what's got us into the...

<p>The Port Authority's plan to tunnel under the Allegheny River to extend its light rail system got a dual-track federal blessing this week that could result in a big hole appearing near PNC Park by year's end.</p> <p>The North Shore Connector project was listed as "recommended" on a federal report analyzing more than 100 transit projects, positioning it to receive up to 80 percent of its estimated $363 million cost in federal money. The proposal is one of just five in President Bush's 2005 budget that the federal government plans to fund at maximum levels.</p>

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. A German company which played a big part in pioneering one of the aviation wonders of the 20th century is marketing the new millennium's most modern train system at the Gulf Traffic and Mena Rail 2003 Congress and Exhibition which ends today in Dubai. Renowned engineer Claudius Dornier helped design Zeppelin airships which astounded the aviation world in the 1930s. Now Dornier Consulting is a world leader in magnetic levitation – Maglev – train technology. The world's first Maglev trains have begun to speed passengers from Shanghai airport to the city...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. BOSTON (AP) -- Amtrak said about 600,000 passengers boarded its trains over Thanksgiving weekend, the highest holiday ridership in the company's 32-year history. The week that began Nov. 25 and ended Monday also brought the highest ticket sales for Thanksgiving travel, totaling $30.9 million, Amtrak spokesman Dan Stessel said. Stessel stressed that the figures were preliminary and that official numbers would be released next week. In 2002, Amtrak recorded 545,000 passengers for the Thanksgiving travel week. In 2001 - a big year for Amtrak due to air-travel anxieties following the Sept....

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. ORLANDO, Fla. (AP) -- A proposed bullet train across central Florida will run directly to the Walt Disney World resort from Orlando International Airport, bypassing the taxpayer-funded Orange County Convention Center en route to Tampa, a state panel voted Monday. The Florida High Speed Rail Authority's 7-1 decision ended a debate that has simmered since voters, in a constitutional amendment passed in 2000, mandated the construction of a bullet train network spanning the state. Disney sold the authority on the potential revenue gained if the train's first leg followed the Central...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use. LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Oct. 22, 2003-- Strategic Road, Rail, Transit Investments, Meeting Airport Demand, Developing New Funding Sources Among Challenges Addressed By Destination 2030 How will we get to work in 25 years? How will our airports meet growing demand? How can we make transit a more attractive option? How will we move goods in and out of region? These are some of the questions answered by Destination 2030, the Southern California Association of Governments' (SCAG) 2004 Regional Transportation Plan (RTP). SCAG has unveiled the long-range transportation blueprint for a new round...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.Pitt students, faculty and staff members fill Oakland in the morning, waiting for buses or shuttles, searching for parking spaces or trudging to class on foot. There's not a "whoosh" in Oakland. But at one university in Southwestern Pennsylvania, school officials hope students will be able to hop on a convenient, elevated, magnetically propelled train system. (Lesser-known maglev gets Pennsylvania push ) With frequently scheduled stops, the system would let students commute from one end of campus to the other in a couple of minutes. Unfortunately for Pitt students, this system is...

For education and discussion only. Not for commercial use.Nearly everyone on the commuter railroad platform looks immured in a sense of the coming day or, if it's an evening train, the day just past. Everyone projects a certain composure, an awareness of the unwritten rules of commuting, the cautious self-containment in the hopes that others will remain self-contained. The train pulls in. People board and quickly find their seats, and the wheels begin to rumble and clack. And one by one the commuters drop into sleep. Before long, the entire car is asleep, except for some wide-eyed first-time rider whose...