Posted on 08/06/2010 10:11:24 AM PDT by Willie Green
It became clearer Thursday that the state's high-speed train will run above ground in the Peninsula and South Bay -- including on so-called "Berlin Walls" that some cities fear will divide their communities and demolish homes and businesses.
The California High-Speed Rail Authority, at a packed board meeting in San Francisco, unveiled its most detailed engineering plan yet for the section of the $43 billion rail line that will run along the Caltrain tracks on the way to Southern California.
Some of the cities along the line will receive aboveground tracks, either next to the existing Caltrain tracks or on structures similar to freeway overpasses. These cities include South San Francisco, San Bruno, Belmont, San Carlos, Redwood City and San Jose.
Other cities on the Peninsula will receive the same treatment unless the state is willing to go about $1 billion more than its budget to build below-ground rails that would reduce the property acquisition and blight some communities fear the tracks will create. Those cities include Burlingame and San Mateo and cities from Atherton to Santa Clara.
The final two cities -- Millbrae and San Francisco -- will receive a combination of above- and below-ground tracks.
There are essentially three types of tracks the train will run on through the Bay Area.
(Excerpt) Read more at mercurynews.com ...
I strongly urge California FReepers who are directly affected by these decisions to read the entirety of this article at the San Jose Mercury News website.
Based solely on what I know of California’s fiscal situation, it seems like California should cancel this stupid project and not spend as much of that $43+ bilion as possible.
California can afford it... they’re much better off than Michigan.
California can't afford anything. Our taxes are already sky-high and you want to impose more socialism on us. I HAVE HAD IT WITH YOU AND YOUR SILLY CHOO-CHOO POSTS. If you want a train, buy one. Stop taking my money and spending it on unconstitutional, wasteful projects like this.
That's why your governor was trying to put all state workers on minimum wage? That's why your state employees' pensions are going to crush you pretty soon.
Whatever. Why don't you just go buy some toy trains?
That’s the equivalent of saying the workers of the Deepwater Horizon are better off than those of the Piper Alpha.
*including on so-called “Berlin Walls” that some cities fear will divide their communities and demolish homes and businesses. *
Is there anything more delightful than socialist NIMBYs?
You voted for it, so enjoy it.
My nephew lives on the SF peninsula near the RR tracks where the high speed train is proposed. Existing tracks now carry slower speed passenger trains. To carry the new trains the tracks will have to widened. These tracks go through the middle of some of the most expensive residential RE in the bay area. In some cases it literally goes through people’s backyard. Thus people will lose yard space. I can assure you these home owners are going to fight this tooth and nail. It will be interesting to observe because these people are predominately liberal and I am sure support rapid transit. But not in their backyard.
Whatever. Why don't you just go buy some toy trains?
Because Lionel doesn't make toy trains in Michigan anymore.
For a while, it looked like Michigan had a chance when Mexican outsourcing was so crappy back in the '89s.
But then Lionel outsourced all production in 2001... and finally went belly-up in 2004.
The financial vultures (lawyers) feuded over Lionel's dead carcass for a few years, and somebody won the "right" to the Lionel name. But they don't really make any trains anymore... they just slap a Lionel label on whatever crap they import.
Good ‘un.
I HAVE HAD IT WITH YOU AND YOUR SILLY CHOO-CHOO POSTS.
So quit abusing your CapsLock, get off your lazy butt and post your own threads, sharky.
You've certainly been here long enough to know that you're not the FR censor.
You've been here almost as long as I have, and yet have only contributed 24 threads for FReeper discussion.
(My current tally is 8,452, so you have a long way to go to catch up.)
Have you posted any threads that didn’t support a Communist world-view? I’d say your net contribution to this forum has been negative, and gets more negative with every post.
That statement alone places you 3 standard deviations from the norm on the sanity scale.
California can't pay its bills now. Who do you think would pay for this useless debacle?
$43 billion dollars. Assuming an average plane ticket price of $500, that amount of money would sustain all domestic air travel (all, not just CA) for 8 years. Let’s give the north to south California routes an overly generous 5% of that air travel pie, and you could subsidize flights for 160 years.
Or, to put it another way, you could fly the entire population of San Carlos, CA to LAX and back each day for 27 years at today’s SFO/LAX fares. What a debacle.
Have you posted any threads that didn’t support a Communist world-view? I’d say your net contribution to this forum has been negative, and gets more negative with every post.
And I'd say that yours reflects the adolescent and irresponsible dumbed-down idiocy of the libertarian point of view.
I don’t even trust the murky news to tell the truth in the obituary section...
I don’t advocate (ad nauseum) the theft of other people’s money for my little pet projects that have no basis in the Constitution, or in common sense. That is the very definition of adolescent irresponsibility. “Mommy, can I have a billion dollars to buy a train?”
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