Do or Die for Calif. High Speed Rail

[marmar]

from Transportation Nation:



Do or Die for Calif. High Speed Rail — Here’s a Refresher
By Alex Goldmark | 07/06/2012 – 3:31 pm


[font size="1"]A rendering of a California bullet train (image courtesy of the California High-Speed Rail Authority)[/font]


Today’s the day of reckoning for America’s most ambitious high-speed rail plan. While we wait for the verdict, here’s a recap of the rocky road to laying rails from Los Angeles to San Francisco.

Let’s start with the news: Last night the California State Assembly approved Governor Jerry Brown’s $8 Billion proposal for a California high-speed rail plan. Today, the State Senate has to approve that plan or the project will almost certainly fade away into failure, if reports from the Sacramento Bee are accurate.

Failure is more common than success with high-speed rail plans in the United States. Wisconsin and Florida already scrapped their HSR plans at the behest of Republican governors. Ohio, too, rejected federal money after crafting a plan. California’s proposal — more ambitious and expensive than any other — has been rescued from declining public support and rising costs by a supportive Democratic governor. But today’s vote is out of his hands.

Brown hand-picked Dan Richard to be chairman of the California High-Speed Rail Authority board after an embarrassing high-profile resignation of the previous board chair. On Thursday, Brown told The Sacramento Bee and other outlets, “If the Legislature doesn’t move forward with the project this week, then the secretary of transportation has made it very clear that they need to look at withdrawing the money from California and putting it some place else.” In other words, if the project loses political support, Brown will scrap the whole thing. ...............(more)

The complete piece is at: http://transportationnation.org/2012/07/06/background-info-for-the-do-or-die-vote-on-calif-high-speed-rail/

[slackmaster]

1. It's a lemon of a project that is timed poorly. Way over budget, original assumptions all wrong.

We can start another high-speed rail project at a later date.

[Firebrand Gary]

2. This better get done. Period. nt

[Auggie]

3. I voted against this

Local transit upgrades and expansions should take priority, IMO.

[Brother Buzz]

5. Word!

Expansion and develop feeder routes into the existing system. We need to walk before we can run.

[slackmaster]

7. I'd put K-12 schools at an even higher priority

[Auggie]

11. Yes, of course. And let's not cut MediCal either.

[Raine]

10. TOTALLY agree. nt

[NYC_SKP]

4. K/R. Needs to be done YESTERDAY, and local projects need to be done, too.

In reply to two of the first replies against the project:

We have to start somewhere and the impact of waiting for a better package is too dire for us to wait.

Local projects must also be completed, it doesn't have to be one or the other.

Do it.

[haele]

6. Problem is they're planning to start in Barstow vice nearer LA -

That makes it more than a bit of a waste of effort- it's a five or six hour drive to Barstow, and you'd only be taking two or three hours off your drive to Las Vegas. Start it in Riverside or San Bernadino (trying to get HSR out of LA proper would be a nightmare) for the take-off, add a "Sprinter" commuter train line from, oh, Union Station to whichever city they decide to pick up to get out to Las Vegas, and you might have a better reaction from the Californios.
An hour or so ride on a comfortable "Sprinter" train from Downtown LA to Riverside, then an hour and a half to two hour HSR from there to Las Vegas, depending on how many stops you want to add (San Bernadino and Barstow?). This configuration would take a good five to six hours off a LA/Las Vegas drive, depending on when you plan to start out from near the LA area.
Riverside or even Hemet or Redlands would be a good starting station; if San Diego ever gets it's proposed I-15 commuter train line off the drawing board, you could drop a LA/SanDag/Las Vegas hub there and seriously improve the area economy. And you can probably add a Phoenix/Palm Springs run along the I-10 later on, if your engineers were really planning a comprehensive mass-transit system.

Haele

[slackmaster]

8. The latest plan is even less ambitions and claims to be better, faster, and cheaper at the same time

The realistic rule of thumb is that you can have any two of those at the same time, but never all three.

http://www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/

The first segment would run from the San Fernando Valley to Merced with a completion date in 2021, and is now estimated at $31 billion.

[FarCenter]

9. Actually from north of Bakersfield to between Fresno and Merced!

California
High-Speed Rail Program
Revised 2012 Business Plan
APRIL 2012
Building California’s Future

http://www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/assets/0/152/431/72e92f77-014b-45a0-ad04-6cfd6d79c778.pdf

See Exhibit ES-2. Early investments/statewide benefits.

Page ES-13. Phase 1 San Francisco to Los Angeles, 520 miles, planned for 2029 at a cost of $68 billion!

It's completely daft.

More at http://www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/Business_Plan_reports.aspx

[slackmaster]

12. The link to San Diego, where I live, isn't even detailed in the current plan

It's on the map shown as "Future HSR" meaning some time after 2029.

I'm 54 years old now. So I'll be paying for the rest of my life for something that will never be of any use to anyone who lives in my major city. By the time you add a road trip to L.A. you might as well fly all the way to your destination, wherever that may be.

[FarCenter]

13. I'm surprised that north and south Californians want all that much to do with each other

Both the Bay Area and Los Angeles seem to think they are the center of the real California.