Posted on 01/06/2015 8:49:34 AM PST by george76
Ready or not, Californians - and America - here it comes.
After a two year delay, during which the cost nearly doubled, California's high speed rail system will break ground this week. The project - said to cost $68 billion - will link Los Angeles to San Francisco by 2028.
There's only one teentsy, tiny problem: They have no idea how they are going to fund it.
...
What of that 200 MPH boast? The original design of the project called for railroad tracks totally dedicated to the high speed rail system. But that proved even more ruinously expensive than the current guestimate. So now, the plan calls for a "blended" arrangement where the HSR will share the tracks already used by commuter rail systems. That will slow the train down to around 60 MPH through the cities and towns already serviced by ordinary railroads
(Excerpt) Read more at americanthinker.com ...
Willie Green Ping!
The Choo-Choo Express To Nowhere.
They are digging the hole they will pour money into.........................
Will be ready to whisk your future relatives to SF in three hours by 2060 ....
It won’t ever be built.
I’ll be long gone by the time 2060 rolls around.
What’s wrong with a flight from one city to another?
“What’s wrong with a flight from one city to another?”
It doesn’t shovel money to Democrat contributors
This is not about getting the line built, this is about getting the line started. Once they break ground and make a reasonable effort towards construction, the federal dollars will come into the state coffers. If the project is later cancelled (as it likely will be), the funds will remain with the state, as the friendly feds will say: "Well at least you tried"
This whole thing is a scam, and the Dims are leading the parade.
So, they are breaking ground on a rail project that will travel through earthquake zones, cause incalculable damage to the environment and pretty much not have too many riders and this is ok, but building a pipeline is out of the question?
now THAT, it a nice post.
Part of Obama's plan to bankrupt the nation and each of the 57 states.
Crony capitalism...Democrat style.
And remember, California has a quarter million lawyers.
You need lawsuits to keep them gainfully employed.
Please stop with the ‘road to nowhere’ argument because it makes us look silly. The Federal funding that accompanies HSR funding requires that the project be built according to the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act (Public Law 84-627) model. This requires rural segments of the routes to be built prior to the urban segments of the routes.
That’s because with the failed US Route system what typically happened was the politicians would build the urban segments of parkway/thruway and then at the county line the concrete roads became gravel or cheap macadam. The idea of four lane US Routes connecting the country never happened. So the NIDHA required that Interstate Highways be built in the rural areas first and then the urban areas would then connect to finished highways.
It’s a building method that wisely takes our politics into mind and the idea is illustrated by a few LA politicians who proposed building HSR in LA first and then maybe someday thinking about building the rest of it. Which they never will.
On the other comment from the article there is no proposal to build a rural high speed route and then just run trains on regular commuter rails. The proposal I heard on TV last night was to start running trains on existing rails and as the HSR segments are completed to then start using them. This way the system could start paying for itself at least in part as opposed to waiting ten years before the first paying passenger uses the system.
I think that part makes fiscal sense and is about the only fiscally sensible thing I’ve heard in connection with this project.
Don’t get the idea I support this project because I don’t. I think California was stupid not to let the French consortium build HSR on their own...I think the Democrats were afraid it might have been profitable and that offended them.
I oppose this but I’m really getting tired of the non-arguments against it such as the train-to-nowhere and the absolute argument of last resort: ‘boondoggle’.
FRegards,
Megan
Didn’t I read this scenario in Atlas Shrugged?.....................A lot of people died..........................
Ahh, but the money doesn't go into a hole. It goes into the income statements of those contractors who contributed generously to the campaigns of the corrupt idiots who pushed this thign through.
This must be contagious because I have started to see TV ads about a new high speed rail line to connect Buffalo, NY, Erie, PA and Cleveland, Oh similarly with rail line. The ad says it will do all kinds of wonderful things for the region...
The only purpose of this train-wreck is to enrich the players.
It will be waaaay behind schedule.
It will be waaaay over budget.
It will be waaaay under used if it even gets completed.
It will bankrupt the state of Aztlan...................
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