Posted on 06/04/2012 1:27:54 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
LOS ANGELES — A new poll finds California voters are experiencing buyers' remorse over a proposed $68 billion bullet train project, as the number of lawsuits against the rail system grows.
....In Southern California, 67 percent of voters said they would reject issuing high-speed rail bonds if they could vote again.
If the bullet train system is built, 69 percent said they would never or hardly ever ride it. No respondents — zero percent — said they would use it more than once a week.
Just 33 percent of respondents said they would prefer a bullet train over an airplane or car on trips between LA and San Francisco...
(Excerpt) Read more at galvestondailynews.com ...
Jerry Brown moves to protect high-speed rail project from environmental lawsuits
With the EPA constantly stepping in to slow the Texas economy, I wonder, will the EPA do likewise in CA or will Gov. Brown and his pet train get special treatment?
If you asked an independent source to review the whole thing and then project the cost of a round-trip....I think the sticker shock of the trip ticket would be enough to make people laugh and forget about this whole mess. The truth is that you can’t deliver the train....without the price of the ticket being subsidized by the government...which means the tax-payer pays on and on for years....for something that the regular consumer can’t bring themselves to pay for.
In fact, they may need *TWO* "bullet trains"!
Well, a high speed train *does* sound pretty cool, in a futuristic science fictiony kind of way. It *would* be cool to jump on a train in SF and reach LA a half an hour or so later, no airport security, no traffic, etc. Wasn’t it sold that way?
Of course, when reality sets in, with the realization that there’s no useful place to put such a train (how much does real estate in LA and SF go for these days?) and that you still need to park on one end and rent a car on the other, and that the trip itself won’t be any faster than a plane ride (accounting for travel to and from the airport, parking, going through security, etc.)—not to mention all the wildlife killed—the romantic view of easy long-distance travel kind of evaporates.
Somewhere, Willie Green is still angry.
Bwahahahaha
So would that make this a Willie Green Sad Choo Choo Thread?
……California’s politicians have until Aug 31 to give a final green light to an initial $6 billion, 130-mile section of track in the Central Valley, and they are expected to approve it. Only a simple majority vote is needed in the Democrat controlled legislature.
Jim Nielsen, the Republican vice chairman of the state’s Assembly Budget Committee, who opposes the project, called it “an idea that gets worse the more information we get about it.” In April the state’s own Legislative Analyst’s Office called the funding plan vague and speculative.
Supporters say the California economy, the world’s ninth largest, will recover in the long run and the remaining money will be found from private investors, the federal government and fees from the state’s cap-and-trade programme to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
They say the rail line will prove crucial to the state’s economic future, linking north and south as airports and freeways reach capacity. But critics suggest the money will dry up and the state will instead be left with an “orphan track” linked to neither major city…….
…….There was also disillusion with the handling of the project so far. It was initially projected to cost $45 billion and deliver passengers between the two major cities in a few hours by 2020.
Last autumn the state-run California High-Speed Rail Authority, which is overseeing it, disclosed the cost had more than doubled to $98.5 billion with a finish date of 2033.
After an outcry $30 billion was shaved off that estimate, but only by reducing the speed of the trains and using sections of existing slow track. ……..
Sure, the economy will recover. IIRC, CA's economy was 6th or 7th largest back in the 80s; it appears that it's sinking under the strain of too many liberal tax-a-lot, spend-even-more policies. I wonder how long it will be until it hits bottom?
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