Free Republic

Jerry Brown’s dream of constructing a high speed rail line connecting the Bay Area with Southern California suffered a major setback this week, but rest assured every effort is being made to spend enough money quickly enough to make pulling the plug seem unreasonable. Construction costs of the project have escalated so rapidly since the times state voters narrowly approved a bond issue that instead of constructing new tracks in the Bay Area and Los Angeles, the trains will share existing tracks with conventional freight and commuter trains, drastically increasing travel time, and making the trains half-fast at best. But...

The report noted that "the Bakersfield to Palmdale section includes a variety of constraints that pose significant technical and environmental challenges, including seismic faults, steep grades through the Tehachapi Mountains and flood plains." The route could require as many as 59 grade separations for highways.

The California High-Speed Rail Authority will officially break ground next month in Fresno on construction of its statewide bullet-train route. The Jan. 6 groundbreaking ceremony, announced Friday afternoon, comes about a year and a half after the agency awarded its first construction contract, a $1 billion deal to design and build the first 29-mile section from Madera to the south end of Fresno... ~~snip~~ California voters approved Proposition 1A, a $9.9 billion bond measure to help finance a high-speed rail system, in November 2008. But it wasn’t until the fall of 2010, when the Obama administration and the Federal Railroad...

It’s okay, the 1 percent only pays 41 percent of California’s income taxes. And half the state pays no income tax at all. No one will even notice they’re gone. Prop. 30, approved by voters in November 2012, raised state income taxes retroactively to Jan. 1, 2012, on singles making more than $250,000 and married couples making $500,000. It raised rates by one, two or three percentage points through 2018, bringing the top rate on incomes above $1 million to 13.3 percent, the highest in the nation. Bryan Goldberg, who founded the Bleacher Report sports website and sold it to...

Amtrak announced a $151 billion improvement plan on Monday that includes 37-minute trips from New York to Philadelphia at speeds approaching 220 miles per hour (354 km per hour). However, the U.S. passenger railroad will need substantial financial support from both state and federal governments to make its ambitious plan to transform rail travel in the Northeast a reality. The railroad predicted that super-fast train trips along the East Coast could be a reality by 2040. Travel times from New York to either Washington or Boston—both about 200 miles (350 km) in distance—would also be slashed, to 94 minutes, the...

California's politicians have until Aug 31 to give a final green light to an initial $6 billion, 130-mile section of track in the Central Valley Ambitious plans for a fast track linking Los Angeles and San Francisco at speeds of up to 220mph in just over two-and-a-half hours were slimly approved by 53 per cent in a statewide ballot in 2008. That allowed the state to raise $10 billion from bonds and secured an injection of $3.5 billion in stimulus money from the Obama administration. There is currently no direct train route between the two. Construction is expected to begin...

San Francisco (AP) -- The authority overseeing efforts to build a high-speed rail system in California approved its revised business plan on Thursday, sending the ambitious project to an uncertain fate in the Legislature. The California High-Speed Rail Authority voted 6-0, with two members absent, to approve its latest plan. Two hours of public comment preceded the vote, most of it favorable toward the bullet train.

California has a budget deficit north of 10 billion dollars a year, a debt that's over 600 billion dollars, and businesses are already fleeing the state because of the ridiculous regulations, high taxes, and unfriendly business climate. So, is California buckling down and starting to do the tough, but necessary work needed to get the state back on track? Well, only if you consider spending almost 70 billion dollars more on a high speed rail project that's practically guaranteed to be a disastrous money pit before it’s ever built to fit that definition. State transportation officials have slashed the price...

Critics have called it the train to nowhere and a $98 billion boondoggle. As concerns mount over the practicality and affordability of California's plan to build a high-speed rail system, even many former supporters are beginning to sound skeptical. Not so Gov. Jerry Brown. He has emerged as the most vocal cheerleader of a project that is as risky as it is ambitious. Building a first-in-the-nation project would provide a lasting legacy for the 73-year-old Democratic governor as he moves into the twilight of a long political career. His father is revered for promoting the construction of California's comprehensive water...

High-Speed Rail Project in California Under Scrutiny By William Lajeunesse December 23, 2011 The Obama administration's plans for a bullet train could be headed off the tracks in California, the one state where its high-speed rail initiative is still alive. Since the project was first unveiled in 2008, officials tripled its projected cost, delayed its start of service 13 years, downsized ridership projections and increased ticket prices. Almost two-thirds of Californians now say they'd vote against issuing bonds to pay for a project they narrowly approved just three years ago. "It is not viable. It is not the best use...

The California High-Speed Rail Authority has an obvious financial problem as it seeks to build a statewide bullet train system. Its latest "business plan" says that it would cost nearly $100 billion to build the backbone of the system, but so far it has only $9 billion in state bonds and a little more than $3 billion in federal money. The CHSRA also has a political problem. The Legislature, which first proposed the bullet train bond to voters, is turning sour on its prospects, which means that it may not give the agency any more bond money to spend. Meanwhile,...

Is there hope yet for the Golden State? While Governor Jerry Brown attempts to push through a tax increase that will make the state’s income tax even more progressive — and therefore more vulnerable to economic fluctuations — the state’s voters seem inclined to put the brakes on a high-speed boondoggle whose costs have tripled before ground has even been broken (via JWF): Four weeks after the news that the cost of California’s high-speed rail project has tripled since voters approved it, the struggling project is taking another hit: waning public support.A new Field Poll shows that 64 percent of...

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...

The California High-Speed Rail Authority has created a set of models and scenarios to answer the objections to its earlier models and scenarios. These will be parsed in much more detail than I can do here, but it is best to note the assumptions. First, its model assumes that the rail passenger fare will always be cheaper than airfare or driving. A ticket from San Francisco to Anaheim will be $72 in 2005 dollars. This is projected out to 2030. Second, the ridership will be immense — anywhere from 28.6 million to 37.1 million. This admittedly may appear realistic compared...

With the Golden State nearly broke, it now plans to secure funding largely by borrowing more, the Associated Press reported, though specifics were unclear. About 20 percent would come from the private sector. Until now, the state had been relying on more than $15 billion from the federal government, $10 billion from private investors and $5 billion from local governments. But the state hadn't gotten any closer to raising the money in the three years since voters approved the plan. The bullet train project, which would link San Francisco and Los Angeles with the nation's first high-speed rail line, has...

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...

NORFOLK Construction of Norfolk's starter light-rail line is running as much as 41 percent over its original budget, and that has angry local leaders demanding an explanation from Hampton Roads Transit, which manages the project. HRT officials said this week they need $38 million to $40 million more to finish the 7.4-mile transit system, which is just over 50 percent complete. When construction started in October 2007, the budget was $232 million. That figure escalated to $288 million in December 2008. The latest cost estimate is $326 million to $328 million, HRT President Michael Townes said. Officials said the complexities...

Not everyone's drinking the Kool-Aid these days. Larry Carlton, a guitar player's guitar player, happened to be doing a series of shows in Chelsea this weekend, at the Blue Note.He played masterfully for an hour and a half, with a pick-up bassist (can't recall his name) and drummer (Billy Kilson, "one of the world's best," according to Mr. Carlton) . It was a rather smoothy-jazzy affair, without the ass-kicking solo work I'd hoped to hear, but after all it was a Sunday night, 8pm show (for those unfamiliar with Larry Carlton, he's the ace that played the great solo on...