Free Republic

There is so much wrong with the California High-Speed Rail project, it’s getting difficult to stay up to date as new absurdities are revealed almost daily. . . . But Katy Grimes raises an aspect pretty much overlooked, although we and others have mentioned aspects of this aspect previously. . .

pparently desperate to get spending underway on the California High-Speed Rail project, Gov. Jerry Brown has dramatically cut how much it will cost. No longer will the train cost $89 billion more than state taxpayers have to pay for it. Now it’ll be only $59 billion short. Yeah, that’s like saying you will drown in only 59 feet of water instead of the deep end – 89 feet...

Assemblywoman Diane Harkey, a Republican from Dana Point, has a way with words. She calls her bill to repeal $9 billion in available state debt funding for what we call the Moonbeam Express the “High Speed Rail Lemon Law.” Moonbeam or lemon, it amounts to the same thing: a taxpayer-financed boondoggle California can neither afford to build nor make operate profitably...

California's high-speed rail project has been plagued with cost increases, delays and political shenanigans since 2008, when voters authorized $9.9 billion in bonds to help pay for it. Unsurprisingly, recent weeks have brought more of the same. The independent Legislative Analyst now says the state must repay more than $700 million annually if bonds are sold to build an initial 130-mile Central Valley route. Ultimately, the plan would link San Diego and San Francisco. But to get $3.3 billion in federal funds, train authorities agreed to put the first tracks where populations are sparse, rather than in densely populated areas...

he pro-train constituency has not been derailed by a state report this month that found the cost of the bullet train tripling to $98 billion for a project that would not be finished until 2033, by news that Republicans in Congress are close to eliminating federal high-speed rail financing this year, by opposition from California farmers and landowners upset about tracks tearing through their communities or by questions about how much the state or private businesses will be able to contribute. The project has been mocked by editorial boards across the country — “Somebody please stop this train,” The Washington...

More realistically, Sacramento’s Legislative Analysis Office calls the Central Valley starting point a “big gamble.” In the all-too-likely event that funding for the rest of the system never materializes, the report adds, “the state will be left with a rail segment unconnected to major urban areas that has little if any chance of generating the ridership to operate without a significant state subsidy.” It would be a train to nowhere, but at least it would go nowhere fast. As questionable as this project is, we would have less business objecting if the only money at risk was California’s. But the...

The Frankfurt Motor Show is devoting an entire exhibition hall to electric mobility this year — but truly marketable electric vehicles are conspicuous by their absence. The technology is being developed more slowly than expected. It will be a long time before the world can bid farewell to the combustion engine. … "To me, this electric hype is inexplicable," Fritz Indra, a doyen in vehicle development, recently told the trade magazine Automobil Industrie. The honorary professor at Vienna University of Technology and former head engine developer at Opel and General Motors still sees a good deal of "open questions" —...