High-Speed Train in California Is Caught in a Political Storm

[FarCenter]

A U.S.C. Dornsife/Los Angeles Times survey of California voters taken in September, before the latest adverse court ruling, found that 52 percent of respondents wanted the project canceled. Just 43 percent continued to support it. The initiative was approved in 2008 with the support of 52 percent of voters.

Joe Nation, a professor of public policy at Stanford University and a critic of the plan, said Mr. Brown would have to grapple with this decline in support, which he argued reflected voters’ growing doubts about the basic competence of government.

“Obamacare has leached over into this,” Mr. Nation said. “You have people saying, ‘The federal government that can’t build a website — how can we expect them to build a multibillion-dollar train?’ ”

The ruling in November by a Superior Court judge in Sacramento blocked the state from using $8.6 billion in bond money to finance the first part of the train line, saying officials had failed to explain where they would find the remaining funds. That, in turn, jeopardized California’s access to more than $3 billion in federal matching funds, which are contingent on a state contribution.

In another setback, the state lost a bid to delay an environmental review of the first 29-mile section of the project, raising the prospect of additional costs and delay.

Before the ruling, California had identified nearly $13 billion in financing for the project, which is scheduled for completion in 2029: about $9 billion in state bonds and $3.5 billion in matching funds. Mr. Brown is expected to propose in his state budget on Friday that some funds collected from carbon producers under the state’s cap-and-trade program be used to help pay for the railroad, state officials said. But it remains unclear how much more money is available, and how far it would go to cover the total $68 billion cost of the project.

“I don’t see them getting any more money from the federal government,” Mr. McCarthy said. “I don’t see $9 billion to build it from California taxpayers, and I don’t see them getting any private investment.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2014/01/07/us/high-speed-train-in-california-is-caught-in-a-political-storm.html

[liberal N proud]

1. Enimies of Progress'

[antiquie]

2. 'splain, please.

Thank you.

[kentauros]

3. At least they're not claiming to be able to build it

in fifteen minutes

[Le Taz Hot]

4. My guess is that it would be much more popular

if they ran a coastal route instead of through the San Joaquin Valley where those people (you know, the "cesspool dwellers&quot live. Seriously, I have seen more bitching and moaning by mostly Bay Areans about that. It doesn't matter that Amtrak southbound stops at Bakersfield and we have to ride buses into Southern California or that the Bay Area and Coastal routes are thoroughly covered by existing trains, they want MOAR TRANEZ!

[hack89]

5. The coast is also where most of California's fault lines are found

I suspect that the high tolerances required for high speed train tracks don't fit well into geological active areas.

[MineralMan]

6. While I was in California visiting my family

in December, we had a discussion about high speed rail in California. After spending hours stuck in traffic on I-405 going to and coming from LAX, we decided that it was greatly needed. In fact, we decided that a dedicated rail line should be built from LAX to my small citrus-farming home town, just 50 miles away from LAX.

That way, I could speed between LAX and my hometown in just minutes, bypassing I-5 and I-405 traffic, thus easing congestion and improving traffic conditions on those beleaguered freeways.

I suggest the highest possible priority for this new high speed rail line, so it can be completed before my next visit to California.

[Egalitarian Thug]

8. It is needed, desperately. Just not where they want to put it, nor is it

the right destination. It is designed to fail, just as this first little kerfuffle has exposed.

As it goes forward, a few people are going to get fabulously rich and some people are going to have good jobs for a few years, and the partially completed project will be abandoned and written off as a bad idea.

[MineralMan]

9. Having lived in Southern California for

much of my life, before moving to Minnesota in 2004, I believe that there is no possibility of any sort of public transit system that actually works well in the Los Angeles area. The most practical solution I can think of is for everyone to move near the place where they work in that huge metropolitan area.

I-405 is, perhaps the best example of the futility of attempting to move massive numbers of people long distances within the LA metro area. No matter how many lanes are added to that slowly-moving parking lot, the traffic grows to keep traffic at a virtual standstill at least twice a day.

Almost impossible to bypass, that particular freeway is an example of failed urban transportation. Other freeways in the area are also disasters, but that one is the most extensive disaster. As the only real north-south route to LAX, one of this country's busiest airports, it has become a daily nightmare for commuters. It is a complete failure of transportation that no amount of high speed public transit can fix.

[Egalitarian Thug]

11. LA is my adopted home town as well, though I left in a fit of dumb almost a decade ago.

LAX is symptomatic of an even bigger problem, that being that about 6 billion people would live there if they could. We've got not one of the busiest airports in the nation there, but three and at least half as dozen smaller commuter fields like Long Beach and Burbank (why don't you fly into Burbank BTW?).

LA's transit problems all stem from this and the single-minded devotion to automobiles that is requisite in SoCal politics, which results in the complete lack of any alternatives. Look at how the light rail system was made to make contractors rich while still failing to function. You can see the examples for yourself on every line, but my favorite is the green line that heads right toward LAX and then turns south about a mile short.

The bus and train systems are a cruel, very expensive joke that is horribly managed and frequently slower that just walking even if you lucky enough to live someplace with the means to get you where you need to go.

[MineralMan]

12. I don't fly into Burbank, because there are no non-stop flights

from MSP to Burbank. I tried it, but didn't care for the long layovers in Phoenix or SLC. I do fly into Santa Barbara, though, sometimes, on United, if the flight isn't too costly. That also means a plane change in Phoenix. That's a lot easier for whomever is picking me up. Usually, though, the best fares are into LAX.

[BuddhaGirl]

13. 605, 105, 210 etc

are good ways to access LAX and/or bypass L.A.

[MineralMan]

14. Depends where you're coming from or going, really.

I'm pretty familiar with the LA freeway system.

[BuddhaGirl]

15. true

over Christmas we had to drive from O.C. back to the Bay Area

405 was a parking lot...picked up the 605, then the 210 and surprisingly the 5 was not too bad...even ditched our plans to take a bypass route from the 5.

Made it home in record time.

[MineralMan]

16. For a long trip north from Orange County, that would

be the best route. But going from towns in Ventura County to and from LAX, it's not the best route. I frequently bypass the 405 by using the 210 to 15 route if I'm heading for San Diego, for example. But, the only practical route between my hometown and LAX involves the 405. There's just no good alternative, especially at some times of the day. The alternative routes all involve downtown Los Angeles, and those are screwed up, too, much of the time.

If you're going to LAX from Ventura County, you're going to be on the 405. I do jump over to Sepulveda Blvd., though for part of the trip. Even though it's a surface street with lots of traffic signals, I can often make better time on it than on the freeway. The traffic signals are synchronized, so if traffic isn't too bad, you can hit green lights most of the way by traveling at the speed limit. At rush hour, though, nothing works.

[rafeh1]

7. How about we put elon musk in charge

and build the HST in the middle of the 5 as he suggests for under $6B
Too much pork for land owners in when the train goes thru the central valley and those folks dont want it in the first place

[Fumesucker]

10. Interstates tend to curve too much for truly high speed travel

The trains can't make the corners at 250 mph or whatever, at least not without some serious G forces on the passengers.

[LeftyMom]

17. I-5 runs pretty much straight down the valley.

It gets curvy in the extreme northern part of the state around Mount Shasta, but so do all of the rail lines because there's a giant volcano in the way.

[LeftyMom]

18. That's because the route is stupid.

We need better transit on the existing commute and highway corridors where people live and work, not a high speed train through sparsely populated parts of the state.