Trump administration halts California's plans for high-speed rail & infrastructure improvements
Daily Kos
February 20, 2017
The orange-Republican administration has said all kinds of things it will do to make the United States "great again."
Anyone with half a brain cell knows that this administration has very little interest in actually coming through on any of his campaign promises.
It's almost like he is pathologically compelled to do the opposite.
For example, rebuilding our infrastructure.
In the first big hit to the Bay Area from the Trump administration, newly minted Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao has put the brakes on $647 million for Caltrain to go electric - and in the process pretty much killed hopes for high-speed rail coming to San Francisco anytime soon.
"It puts the (electrification) project in serious jeopardy," Caltrain spokesman Seamus Murphy said Friday.
The hope in California was to begin creating jobs through much needed infrastructure work and upgrades.
Our country's infrastructure, as many already know, is not only an issue of needing basic maintenance, we need to modernize virtually everything.
California has already spent $150 million on planning to go electric, but without the federal and matching funds, the overall $1.98 billion project will go into limbo.
As for high-speed rail, a $64 billion (and counting) endeavor that is still not fully funded, it's viability would take a big hit if bullet trains went no further north than the South Bay.
As a community member pointed out over the weekend, the issues concerning infrastructure programs and this new government are endemic to how fast this administration has been at turning our government into an even slower-moving entity.
At best, Chao is impeding progress and at worst, she is politicizing our country's transportation system.
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/2/20/1635876/-Trump-administration-halts-California-s-plans-for-high-speed-rail-and-infrastructure-improveme
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