Free Republic

Gov. Jerry Brown is scaling back the state's highly controversial bullet train project to keep it alive. Just three months ago, his administration unveiled – with great fanfare – a revised "business plan" for building the north-south bullet train system to answer the embryonic project's many critics. The project would be slowed down and stretched out timewise with a new and supposedly more realistic cost structure, officials declared. It would be, California High-Speed Rail Authority chairman Tom Umberg said at the unveiling, "a new time, a new day and a new beginning." But the revised cost, about $100 billion or...

(CNN) - Herman Cain said Tuesday he could feel the pressure from his fellow 2012 candidates ahead of the CNN Western Leadership Conference Debate in Las Vegas. "The way it feels is that you got this big bull's-eye on your back, and it keeps getting bigger," Cain told CNN's Wolf Blitzer on "The Situation Room." Programming note: GOP presidential candidates next face off at 8 p.m. ET Tuesday, October 18, in the CNN Western Republican Presidential Debate in Las Vegas, Nevada. Submit your questions for the debate here. "It feels great, but as you know, the challenge is 'how do...

Herman Cain deserves credit for proposing a tax-reform plan that is specific, promotes economic growth, and has captured the imagination of conservatives nationwide. His 9-9-9 plan builds on the insight that one of the chief defects of the current tax code is its bias toward consumption over savings. But his plan’s peculiarities of design, substantive weaknesses, and political naïveté render it unworthy of conservative support.

During construction of the Hiawatha Line, the joint venture in charge of the light-rail project told federal authorities that minority and disadvantaged subcontractors were being included. Now it has agreed to pay the government $4.6 million to resolve allegations that those claims were false. According to the Justice Department, Minnesota Transit Constructors Inc. violated the federal false claims act by telling federal transportation officials that it hired companies qualified as Disadvantaged Business Enterprises to work on the light rail. The program helps businesses owned by minorities, women and other disadvantaged individuals obtain work on federal construction projects.

Gov. Jerry Brown said this afternoon that California's embattled high-speed rail project should move forward, despite growing criticism about the project's management and cost. While the nation is in a "period of massive retrenchment," Brown told The Fresno Bee's editorial board, "I would like to be part of the group that gets America to think big again." The Democratic governor has said little publicly about the project since it came under fire this year in Sacramento, with cost estimates rising and lawmakers questioning its oversight. The project, to connect San Francisco and Los Angeles, was once expected to cost about...

When Jerry Brown began his first stint as governor in 1975, he soon became embroiled in an intense controversy over setting aside lanes in Los Angeles of the extremely congested Santa Monica Freeway . . . This bit of history is offered because Brown is once again occupying the governorship, once again he has a big, high-concept transportation project that may be a debacle in the making, and once again he has a way out.It's the high-speed rail project to link the northern and southern halves of the state. Voters have approved a bond issue for the project, which is...

THERE IS nothing that epitomizes California's dysfunctional government more than the state's pursuit of a high-speed rail fantasy that is headed for all-but-certain failure. The latest criticism of the rail scheme comes from the independent Legislative Analyst's Office, which strongly opposes Gov. Jerry Brown's request for an appropriation of $185 million to keep the project moving forward. It's past time for the state to do what it should have done more than a year ago -- cancel the project and stop wasting any more of the taxpayers' money. The High-Speed Rail Authority has bungled the project from the start with...

California's chronic inability to govern itself has made it an international laughingstock with a blistering article in the Economist, a highbrow British magazine, only the latest manifestation of that unfortunate status. The state now has another opportunity to either cement its image as a civic buffoon or begin acting like an adult. It is the disaster-in-waiting known as the high-speed rail project. On a whim, politicians and voters decided a few years ago that a bullet train connecting the northern and southern halves of the state would be a jim-dandy thing to have, even though nobody knew how much it...

California's high-speed rail project is threatened by erratic financing, the state's precarious financial situation and management shortcomings and should be overhauled, the Legislature's budget analyst said Tuesday. The highly critical report by Legislative Analyst Mac Taylor's office concluded that management of the project be shifted from the state High-Speed Rail Authority into the Department of Transportation and the entire program undergo reevaluation -- especially the decision to build an initial segment in the San Joaquin Valley. The report details "a number of problems that pose threats to the high-speed rail project's successful development" and adds: "The Legislature faces some challenging...

TALLAHASSEE — High speed rail in Florida may not be totally dead yet. U.S. Department of Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood on Friday announced he will make the $2.4 billion originally earmarked for the state available through a competitive process. That means a coalition of local governments, including Tampa, Orlando, Lakeland and Miami, could attempt to win the funds to build an 84-mile line between Tampa and Orlando. They would have to compete with other states for the money.

Commuters are saving an average $9,904 annually and $825 per month, based on current gas prices, by riding public transit systems instead of driving their cars, according to the American Public Transportation Association (APTA). Gas prices increased 28 cents per gallon in the 10 days leading up to March 4. The current savings by using public transportation are the highest in the past two years, APTA officials said. "As gas prices rise, using public transportation is the quickest way people can beat high gasoline prices," said APTA President William Millar in a prepared statement. APTA releases a monthly "Transit Savings...

Freshman Rep. Jeff Denham, R-Atwater, caught some of his fellow California lawmakers by surprise this week when he authored an amendment to block federal funding this year for California's high-speed rail program. . . . In practice, there could well be some legal impediments to taking federal funds provided for one purpose and turning them to another; as a symbolic gesture, though, the bill makes a statement over what Denham termed the "ever-escalating costs" of California's high-speed rail project..

The federal government already has more than $10 billion in stimulus and other money set aside for high speed rail projects. To date, it has made commitments to spend $4.5 billion of that. Obama has made infrastructure a centerpiece of his presidency, calling for $53 billion in additional funds for high speed rail in his budget proposal this week. California: The state has captured the lion's share of these funds... Chicago-St. Louis: This route, which passes through Springfield and Bloomington, Ill., received $1.1 billion ... Orlando-Tampa: ... Vermont: The state was one of the first to win federal money, and...

A few days before this month's election, the federal government announced that California would receive an additional $715 million for its high-speed rail project, contingent on the money being spent quickly on a segment in the San Joaquin Valley. Why? You'd have to be terminally naive not to believe that the splashy announcement, made personally by an Obama administration official in Fresno, was to help an embattled local congressman, Democrat Jim Costa, stave off a very stiff Republican challenge. Costa, a longtime bullet train advocate, did, in fact, eke out a narrow re-election win. And last week, the California High-Speed...

Is a proposed passenger train line from Minneapolis to Duluth on course for a $700 million derailment? Or is it merely headed toward a $300,000 detour that could delay plans a year? Faced with competition from nine other routes seeking federal funding as well as a possible rerouting of the line's Twin Cities starting point -- to St. Paul, instead of Minneapolis -- proponents of the Northern Lights Express (NLX) have shifted gears.

Thousands of Tube passengers were trapped underground in packed, airless conditions for two hours as a power failure brought rush-hour trains to a stand-still. Around 2,400 passengers were forced to walk for 20 minutes along the track of the Jubilee Line. Some were left traumatised by the incident and video footage taken by a commuter showed one man in an oxygen mask being treated by paramedics at St John's Wood station. Five Tube trains were caught in the chaos - three between Baker Street and St John's Wood, the fourth at Swiss Cottage, and the fifth at Westminster. Commuters on...

In Delaware, 50 union workers, including 20 Electrical Workers (IBEW) members are at work and paying their bills and mortgages thanks to economic recovery money that is also saving Amtrak millions of dollars in new equipment.Those jobs are part of the as many as 3.3 million jobs that President Obama’s  American Recovery and Reinvestment Act saved or created since it was signed into law in February 2009. In the three months prior to passage of the legislation, the nation had lost 2.2 million jobs–more than 8 million jobs disappeared during the Bush administration. The Delaware workers are converting old and abandoned dining...

Washington, DC, September 29, 2010—A new report, Infrastructure Construction and Equipment Finance Opportunities, issued by the Equipment Leasing & Finance Foundation (Foundation), provides an outlook on infrastructure construction and offers a review of the current situation as well as an analysis of future trends. In addition, the study discusses current legislation or policies that may impact infrastructure construction, provides insight into the impact of infrastructure construction on equipment demand, and examines the opportunities this landscape presents for equipment finance. The study was conducted at the request of the Foundation by IHS Global Insight, a global economic and financial forecasting company....

The Leading Innovator in the Industry Presents New Solutions and Products Which Are More Energy Efficient, Environmentally and Passenger Friendly BERLIN, GERMANY--(Marketwire - September 20, 2010) - "The fastest way to save the planet" is Bombardier Transportation's motto at InnoTrans 2010, to be held from September 21 to 24 in Berlin, Germany. The company will again this year present new products and technologies focused on energy efficiency and environmental performance. This includes, for example, the highly efficient BOMBARDIER ZEFIRO family of high speed trains and three new BOMBARDIER ECO4 solutions as well as many other innovations in the areas of...

The city of Ramsey needs congressional help to get $3.5 million in federal funds to help build a new passenger rail station for the Northstar Commuter Rail service, a necessary component of a 400-acre transit-oriented commercial development. To finance the rail station, the city first applied unsuccessfully for $1.4 million in federal transit funds. Officials said the $1.4 million funding request was not in Sixth District Congresswoman Michelle Bachmann’s final list of appropriations. They are soliciting her support for this latest request of $3.5 million they hope will be part of the next authorization bill. “She was more than happy...