Posted on 05/18/2011 5:20:18 PM PDT by george76
The state's plan to build a bullet train has become a monument to the ways poor planning, mismanagement and political interference can screw up major public works. We can do better.
California's much-vaunted high-speed rail project is, to put it bluntly, a train wreck. Intended to demonstrate the state's commitment to sustainable, cutting-edge transportation systems, and to show that the U.S. can build rail networks as sophisticated as those in Europe and Asia, it is instead a monument to the ways poor planning, mismanagement and political interference can screw up major public works. For anti-government conservatives, it is also a powerful argument for scrapping President Obama's national rail plans, rescinding federal funding and canceling the project before any more money is wasted on it.
...
The train's biggest problems can be laid at the feet of the High Speed Rail Authority, which is overseeing its construction. Inexperienced board members appointed by the governor and Legislature on the basis of political patronage rather than expertise have made a host of poor decisions. Not the least boneheaded of these is the board's plan to take a circuitous route from Los Angeles to Bakersfield by veering through Palmdale and Lancaster.
(Excerpt) Read more at latimes.com ...
Must be do to some sand rat or lizard they think will not be smart enough to move out of the way.
If we only had better management we could waste taxpayer money on big government boondoggles even faster.
This project will spend 20 years in the courts because of a field mouse or beetle.
Can you imagine high speed Train Unions?
I am not sure on this one. Commie libs love high speed trains. The only love endangered species when it helps their cause of destroying capitalism, freedom and personal independence. I would be surprised if they even mount a token protest.
In the old days, Chinese coolies provided the inspiration for the looped train tracks. Of course, that part of history is probably not in the current P.C. text book. The Chinese laborer looped his pigtail for the railroad engineer...or so the story goes.
There are big differences between the US and Europe that probably explain why train travel never really caught on here the way it did in Europe.
Europe has a higher population density, and fewer empty areas. With less distance between major population centers, there are fewer tracks to maintain, and more people to ride. People don’t have to spend days on a train to go to their destination, like they would in the US.
Does that matter at all? Probably not. A train wreck has been scheduled and a train wreck they will have. Everything else is negotiation over the price and dividing the spoils.
Oh they will protest.
You know in every discussion related to oil, the libs are always screaming about the only way to solve it is solar and wind farms?
We’ll as a perfect example of how nothing will ever satisfy them. A few years ago, there was a big push to develop a large set of solar farms in the Mojave Desert. That location is one of the most optimal in the United States for solar farms (high desert elevation and year round intense sunshine). Private companies were ready to do this. Then the Sierra Club sues to block it because they claim it could harm turtles and birds. It’s still being held up in the courts right now.
And it’s been the same thing with developing windfarms in California. First the envirowackos pushed for them to be built, then they said to tear them all down because they might impact migrating birds.
If they pull that crap on solar and windfarm projects, imagine what they’ll do over a high speed train.
perhaps we need to mandate environwako groups like sierra club have to post a full bond for the project AND ATTORNEY FEES before filing suit.
Or a FReaking lizard!
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