California High-Speed Rail: Later, Slower, and Way Over Budget

Last I heard the Amtrak Coaster in California also made a profit though they've since broken it up into two different services so now I don't know what the current figures are. It used to go from SD to Santa Barbara via LA but now it's just SD to Orange County with a different service covering Orange County to SB via LA.

That is a valid point, however I am looking at the benefits of this project in a few different ways. First, it is a practical alternative to intrastate air travel, which is being encroached upon more and more by the federal government. Second, it does have the possibility to break even and/or make a profit in the future if handled properly. However, because of the heavy politicization of the issue this is seeming like less and less of a possibility. Third, depending on the final outcome of CA HSR it is a cleaner and more efficient mode of travel compared to airplanes and automobiles. I think it's important to have clean air (regardless of one's beliefs about climate change) and to move away from increasingly expensive fossil fuels.

Depending. But even if you took the worse outlook it is not 'massive government subsidy' for operations.

Amtrak has an overall operating loss. This is mostly due to politics. You have legacy routes (trans continental routes) that recover mere pennies on the dollar. But b/c they roll through 20 states, you have 40 Senators that all believe it MUST be saved. Another political problem comes from the founding of Amtrak. At the time, passenger rail was collapsing (tends to happen when the newer tech is massively government subsidized while the old companies have legacy costs) and it was threatening to bring the freight railroads down with them (a big part was the pension liability). Amtrak was REALLY created not to run passenger rail, but as a 'bailout' of the freight rail roads.

Well those pension liabilities haven't gone away. And they are rolled into labor costs, which then get tallied up into operations costs.

However I don't really see how that is a reflection on Acela so much as past political decisions. And as I said at the beginning even with all that excess baggage, still not a 'massive government subsidy' for operations.

I don't care about the hangers on, the Republicans are spearheading it. They oppose it for political reasons and are doing all they can to throw road blocks in the way and derail the project. Combined with the NIMBYs wanting Billion dollar tunnels (how many interstates are tunneled in those areas?) and again being backed up by the Repubs who want to put so many costs on the project it fails, costs are getting out of control.

Damn that commie Eisenhower.

Not so much commie as penis envy of Hitler.

Lovely side effects of this condition are mcmansions, urban sprawl, white flight and fast food.

It's a reflection on the reality of modern rail travel. You can spin and couch it in as many ways as you want, it still comes down to dollar and sense and whether the system can be fiscally viable, and/or it's worth the expense for what it brings to the table.

You can keep spouting the same shit. No matter how many times you say it, it doesn't smell any better or make it so. Many groups on both sides of the aisle are opposed to this. People can oppose the project for legitimate reasons. You just find it politically expedient to blame republicans and call it "for political reasons." Just more political wankery from you.

Around me? It was paid for, not stolen.

Eminent domain also pays for the right of ways; it just compels the party to sell the right of ways at fair market value for the public good (I.E. to build a road, a rail road, a canal, etc...).

I expect upwards of 90% of the right of ways will be granted via private deals but a few parties will refuse all offers and those few hold outs shouldn't get to derail a project of this importance to the state's transportation needs. In those cases I expect eminent domain to be used.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/wor...-for-Californias-bullet-train-to-nowhere.html

By that you mean "Unilaterally forced on everyone whether they like it or not."

You didn't see the first time that article was linked to in this thread?

While the interstate system started construction during Ike's time in office, it was actually FDR's idea.

Kinda. The Robert Moses' of the world (in Seattle he was named R. H. Thomson) had already drawn up plans for massive networks of urban freeways before the Interstate System came along. With all their plans being 'shovel ready', and being very powerful figures in their states, they were able to basically highjack the funding (Ike wanted them not to get around IN a city, but to get BETWEEN cities and around the country). Most of the negative effects associated with the Interstate system come from their urban applications.

Yes. The plan the VOTERS OF CALIFORNIA voted on should be put in place as 'unfucked with' as possible.

And if your property rights are inconvenient to the "I vote for someone else to buy me shit" voters of California, then fuck you, right?

Right... b/c as already discussed eminent domain was created by this project.



And the straighter the track, the less land that is needed for ROW. Funny how those who supposedly want less land taken ALSO want the course to zigzag as much as possible.

And that makes it OK.

So if the voters gave changed their minds as polls indicate, new referendum should be taken and if it is voted down, then the project should be scrapped?

Let's not forget voters approved a $45 billion dollar project, not a $98 billion and growing project.

You are comparing apples and oranges. Lets see how much time and money it would take to build the system the voters approved, not the boondoggle the Republicans and NIMBYs have made and I think you'll see support swing back the other way.

That's why it needs to be depoliticized STAT.

I mean, I don't even support what it's turning into, and I'm not exactly an HSR skeptic.

Putting aside your uber-partisan drooling retardation, virtually all govt projects have significant overruns. Your continuing to ignore the fact that far more than the GOP are against this, just makes you look stupid.

Not necessarily. Since Joni Earl took over as CEO of Sound Transit in 2001, every ST project has been under budget and ahead of schedule. Most of it goes to her great leadership, but partially to a WA Supreme Court case where the state said cities couldn't interfere with regional infrastructure investments. Also the ST Board isn't directly elected, so less political pressure.

And just in case you don't think the projects are comparable in size, the ST2 (2008) expansion alone was Eighteen Billion Dollars. Not exactly chump change.

While there may be hangers on of all stripes, do you deny that the opposition is spearheaded up by Republicans and Conservative Interest Groups?

Depoliticize it? Easy. Just state that the project will get the $68.4 billion from private investors and won't involve eminent domain. Then MY political objections to it will be dropped...

Yet it is fine when the government does it for automobiles, allowing you to live out in the state subsidized sprawl you love so much:

People CHOSE to pay for government funded roads (how many of those interstates were actually voted on by the people?) however when the people actually VOTE for something, then it is being forced on them.

The double standards here are hilarious!

Like I said before, travel back in time and somehow build rail systems into the more attractive alternative. You're not proving anything by pretending this is a choice between the development of two viable options. One of them is developed. The ship has already fucking sailed.

It's developed and near maxed out. What are you going to do, build more lanes? Where does the land come from to do that? Keep in mind that during peak hours (when the capacity is most needed) two rail lines (one each direction) moves more people than six automobile lanes (at 1.3 occupants per vehicle, that's a Seattle average, the rest of the nation is lower for peak period occupancy).

Same is coming true for Airports. We are running out of space. Now you can always use eminent domain to take a couple thousand homes and add runways, but again, that is still a major expense.

OR you can realize that HSR is the most efficient way to move people between medium distance, high demand city pairs, while at the same time taking your head out of the sand when it comes to funding and building expansion of road and airports and do an honest comparison.

But that would require some thought on your side so will never happen. Better to just cling to the status quo as hard as you can, all the while pretending it is natural state of things and any change, even just the government shifting subsidies away from your preferred lifestyle, is SOCIAL ENGINEERING!!!111!

Charge a toll to exclude poor people and hippies.

You mean it would require surrendering some freedom of movement, which you don't care about because a) you have already embraced the "being like european cities is fashionable! we must have rails!" disease, and b) anything that pisses off people who do/have/will live in suburbs gives you a micro-chub.

Part of the solution yes. I'd like to see every expressway into the city tolled (actually already part of the PSRC long range plan) with the money going to road maintenance and alternative modes (walking, biking, and transit).

Only in your little world is providing more transportation options surrendering freedom of movement.

GASP! Yes, how dare me leave my little bubble and see how the rest of the nation and world functions, study them and more, and try and emulate the best practices.

Only in your little world would that be a bad thing.

Only in your little world is taking away subsidies for the suburbs and reducing restrictions on urban living and land use a bad thing.

Well not really. There are tons of little entitled freeloaders like you running around unfortunately.

The question is not if HSR is the most efficient over med distances between cities, it is. The question is if it's the most cost effective system to put in place given the need for all new infrastructure. The second question is does the money exist to build it even if the answer to the above is yes.

In this case, it is highly doubtful if the money exists. Additionally, history is full of more efficient tech that was never implemented because it wasn't cost effective to replace the less efficient tech with it.

Honest studies and evals are needed to answer that. Opposition to the HSR is not based primarily on political expediency, but on valid beliefs that HSR is not viable at this juncture.

No, the alternate modes can pay their own fucking tolls.

How is trying to restrict someone's options not surrendering freedom of movement. Do you or do you not seek to manipulate circumstances so that your commie rail is left as the only practical alternative?

So you don't deny it. Good god, the mockery writes itself.

Don't try to hide your self-serving spin behind paint-by-numbers characterization as "good vs. bad." All you're doing here is whining to mommy about how the kid down the street has a nicer bicycle than you. That other kid will definitely think taking away his nicer stuff is a "bad" thing."

Oh, but you're not entitled, huh? BULLSHIT! You're just arguing for your own turn at the trough. The high ground is not yours to claim.

You don't care who you inconvenience, who's property rights you violate or who is made to pay for your pet project, and you have the audacity to accuse anyone else of freeloading? FUCK YOU.

If you're not willing to privatize all transport infrastructure and let the winner of that private funding be decided in the free market thunderdome, you are completely and utterly full of shit with this portrayal of "Anc and the enlightened rail proponents vs. the entitled urban sprawl parasites." Worse yet, it's obvious. I can't imagine who the fuck you even think you're fooling.

I dunno, everyone loved eminent domain when it was to build the interstate highway system.

Literally loved it.

They all ran out and fucked it.