California high speed rail

[buzz456]

Can anyone from out there help the rest of us to understand if the high speed rail project is off or on or just back to going from nowhere to nowhere or what's happening with it? News reports are confusing to say the least.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/death-of-a ... zi7xhEUk_k

[AmericanSteam]

This boondoggle/shagnasty has been scaled back. Only the central valley portion will be finished. It would have never been completed. IMHO it has been a demonstration in corruption and waste from the beginning. It is severely over budget and there is no working section. It will never recoup costs and will be a money hole subsidy forever. Like the bridge to nowhere in Alaska.

[cnwfan]

Yea... California politics at it's best. It's been working now for 10+ years, and they still don't have a train running yet. Many warned the state government that the project would bankrupt the state. They didn't listen. Many tried to convince them to invest the same money into existing rail infrastructure. They didn't listen. Spend... spend... spend... raise taxes... give the money to pet projects like this. One of the many reasons why I left that corrupt state back in 2011.

[Fireexplorer249]

Yea out here in Cali, politics is far from our strong point. They cancelled the project outside of the Bakersfield to Merced line. It has been such a waste of money. Its hilarious how when the government gets involved in a project and it doesn't get done. While on the other hand, Brightline got finished a lot quicker and Florida is still a step ahead of California as far as faster rail travel.

[AmericanSteam]

Do not get me started on the no carbon movement here.

[GSkid]

The plan is to complete the central valley section from Merced to Bakersfield, but to continue the environmental study of the canceled northern and southern legs that go to San Francisco and Los Angeles respectively. Presumably so they have that data on hand in the event they ever decide to complete the route sometime in the distant future.

Some opinion writers have speculated that if a Democrat is elected president in the future, there is the chance they could get more funding from the federal government to ultimately help complete the entire route. Currently Trump is demanding $3.5 billion in federal funds be given back. The Democratic California governor is refusing to give it back. Technically California doesn't have to return the money if they stick to the original agreement. The agreement is they need to complete the tracks for the central valley by 2022 or they owe the money back.

The messed up part about this deal is that they only need the tracks to be completed by 2022.... it doesn't require them to have trains bought by then. So they could theoretically have just tracks laid and never run a single train on them EVER and they still wouldn't have to return the money.

Of course if a Democrat becomes president and California doesn't complete the tracks by the agreed time frame, presumably that president would be able to and would likely instruct their appointed Federal Transportation Secretary to not collect the money owed or at least give them an indefinite time to pay it back.

What adds insult to injury is that the central valley of California where the 1st section is to be completed is heavily Republican. They were always against it and will now be stuck with something they never wanted that was started by a political party they don't support.

Another thing that is ludicrous is that the Governor says this rail line will help draw technology firms to the central valley. I don't see that happening much.... if at all. Most millennial tech workers are liberal and want to live in big metropolitan cultural cities like Los Angeles or San Francisco. It's the reason McDonald's moved it's headquarters from the suburb of Oak Brook to Chicago. They were having a hard time finding workers that wanted to live in or commute to Oak Brook. A lot of companies have moved their headquarters to big cities for just this reason. I just don't see tech workers living or commuting to a city like Fresno that's smack in the middle of miles and miles of agricultural farm lands in every direction.

[AmericanSteam]

From Trains Magazine:
http://trn.trains.com/news/news-wire/20 ... 0215_00000

[Chacal]

They were having a hard time finding workers that wanted to live in or commute to Oak Brook. A lot of companies have moved their headquarters to big cities for just this reason. I just don't see tech workers living or commuting to a city like Fresno that's smack in the middle of miles and miles of agricultural farm lands in every direction.

Can't blame them. I'm a tech consultant, I live in the city and I accept contracts based primarily on commute time and proximity to public transportation. I refuse to spend a significant part of my life stuck in traffic.
Anything more than 12 minutes is too much for me. That's by bus, I never use my car for work.

[buzz456]

I would slash my wrists before I would live in a city but I guess that's what makes the world go around. Different strokes for different folks.

[Chacal]

Don't get me wrong, I'd love to live in the country, but then I'd need to find a job in the country.

[PapaXpress]

...
What adds insult to injury is that the central valley of California where the 1st section is to be completed is heavily Republican. They were always against it and will now be stuck with something they never wanted that was started by a political party they don't support.

Another thing that is ludicrous is that the Governor says this rail line will help draw technology firms to the central valley. I don't see that happening much.... if at all. Most millennial tech workers are liberal and want to live in big metropolitan cultural cities like Los Angeles or San Francisco. It's the reason McDonald's moved it's headquarters from the suburb of Oak Brook to Chicago. They were having a hard time finding workers that wanted to live in or commute to Oak Brook. A lot of companies have moved their headquarters to big cities for just this reason. I just don't see tech workers living or commuting to a city like Fresno that's smack in the middle of miles and miles of agricultural farm lands in every direction.

Agreed, and I am looking to get out of CA completely. I don't mind living away from all the light pollution et all. The tech job pickings are just not as good as in the major CA cities.

[Ericmopar]

The high speed rail was doomed to failure for one reason above all others.
The fact is, that L.A. and San Francisco just aren't that far apart and no one in their right mind, would have paid the ticket price and then had to rent a car at the other end, when they could drive down in 4 hours.

That money would have been better spent on expanding popular and heavily used things like BART in the San Francisco Bay Area, to get the line from Pleasanton to Livermore as an example, or even over the Altamont pass finally to connect Tracy etc to the Bay Area.

There is one positive that has come out of the mess. Caltrain did get badly needed upgrades and station work done along their line on the San Francisco Peninsula, which will help Cal Train out in the long run.

Now if we could just get people to recognize other budget disasters in the country, like the states along the Mississippi trying to control every foot of that river, when the Army Corps of Engineers has said for years, it would be far cheaper to take the people living in the low areas and move them out to new housing etc on higher ground and let it flood naturally...

[PapaXpress]

Nope... BART is full of corruption too. It's a complete and total joke. I have the fine privilege of riding BART for hours daily. Like a sardine.

[Ericmopar]

Nope... BART is full of corruption too. It's a complete and total joke. I have the fine privilege of riding BART for hours daily. Like a sardine.

They can only put so many trains on the line, about every 5 minutes is the limit.
You just admitted just how successful BART actually is when you said "Packed like sardines"
The main problem with BART is that idiots in different counties didn't want to be part of it early on and now they have to buy back property at hugely higher prices to expand where they were supposed to go originally. But that isn't BART's fault, that is the fault and shortsightedness of the local county governments back in the 60s.

[AmericanSteam]

They sold all the Pacific Electric right of way years ago.
https://www.pacificelectric.org/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pacific_Electric