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California Going Ahead With Bullet Train

Posted by Soulskill on from the not-an-actual-bullet dept.

An anonymous reader sends this excerpt from the NY Times: "[California state leaders] have rallied around a plan to build a 520-mile high-speed rail line from Los Angeles to San Francisco, cutting the trip from a six-hour drive to a train ride of two hours and 38 minutes. And they are doing it in the face of what might seem like insurmountable political and fiscal obstacles. The 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."

4 of 709 comments (clear)

  1. Re:The bond measure was for $98 billion by trunicated · · Score: 5, Interesting

    The bond, Prop 1A from 2008, approved roughly $8.5 billion to begin the project, with a total budget of $33 billion to be used if the project could be shown to be able to run without subsidies from the government. The most recent estimates, which still show a ludicrously high number of riders (between 60 and 90 million per year) show that the budget will need to be $98, which is roughly triple the $33 billion original allocated for the project.

    The project is in no way feasible for a state as deep into the red as California. The *only* logical explanation of why this is still going through is to allow those already riding the $8.5 billion gravy train to keep it going for another $90 billion.

    --
    There's a reason there is no "Disagree" mod...
  2. Portland-Seattle-Vancouver would make more sense. by isaac · · Score: 5, Interesting

    This doesn't make sense. A rider arriving in LA is going to need a car when they get off the train, unless they fancy spending a lot of time waiting for on Metro (formerly known as the RTD - Rough, Tough, and Dangerous.) Total boondoggle.

    It would make a hell of a lot more sense to link the Portland-Seattle-Vancouver, BC corridor with high-speed rail, since these are all cities where one can actually get around reasonably well without a car. It'd be a game-changer to have TGV-speed rail on that corridor - one hour between the downtown cores of Portland and Seattle, or Seattle and Vancouver? I've had regular, daily intracity commutes longer than that.

    Oh well.

    -Isaac

    --
    I am not a lawyer, and this is not legal advice. For Entertainment Purposes Only.
  3. Re:Time by Teancum · · Score: 5, Interesting

    There were no environment studies, real opposition, etc?

    Actually, the Trans-Continental Railroad did have environmental studies (they used different terms in the 1870's) and there was real opposition to the concept.... both from federal money being spent towards the endeavor as well as some groups of people who opposed even the notion of a railroad as anything other than a pipe dream. The environmental concerns were certainly different in the late 19th Century, but it was still an issue.

    The one thing that made the cost tolerable was the granting of land to the railroad companies who built the lines. One "township" of land (a 6 sq. mil by 6 sq. mile block) was given to the railroads on alternating sides of the route, on the premise that the railroad companies could in turn sell the land as a means to partially recover costs and to guarantee a source of revenue. Indeed far more land was given away and sold through railroad companies than was ever actually obtained through other federal land grant programs like the Homestead Act. It is also one of the reasons why the railroad companies emerged by the end of the 19th Century as the primary source of capital for America.

    The building of that railroad also was full of all sorts of graft and corruption, including various games being done to decide where "mountains" began (tracks through mountain ranges paid more per mile than over flat ground), not to mention how the initial investors into the railroad companies literally blew all of their money on lobbying efforts in Washington DC before the first track was even laid down on the ground.

    Not widely recognized either, it was one of the last major acts of the Abraham Lincoln administration, and nearly the last piece of legislation signed by him as well. The politics that went into the Trans-Continental Railroad would easily be recognized today, and really is no different than this railroad to nowhere in California. All that has really changed is the names of the people involved, and oddly even that hasn't changed as much as you would think it should. It even had the entire congressional delegation from California working on this one project in one way or another, and the governor of California even making a trip to Washington in order to secure the funding for that railroad.

  4. Re:The bond measure was for $98 billion by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Exactly, California all by itself is the 8th most productive economy in the world..
    California suffers from 2 things, the money that goes out through taxes to help the other 49 states (shouldn't someone scream communism ? ^_^), and stupid voters that want to pay less taxes all the while keeping the level of public services intact.
    The first one can't be fixed short of a new civil war, the second problem on the other hand can be fixed. There just is no political will to do it.