With California’s High Speed Rail (HSR) debacle straggling along, there’s a fair chance they could be losing monies that was going to be slated for them.
Of course, as it stands, voters who didn’t read the entire proposition voted in the High Speed Rail Project, back then touted with a $10B bill, has now hit new estimates of upwards of $99B. Nice sales pitch on the proposition. If anything, this sad fight for our future says we need to read our voter pamphlets. The whole thing!
But as it stands, Union Pacific chimed in a few weeks ago, sounding like they weren’t going to play ball with the HSR project… and rightfully so. (It’s up to them to grant passage rights or not.) And the worst possible aspect is starting to raise its head….
The HSR committee doesn’t know where they’re going to get most of this money they need, so they’re only going to build, at one section at a time.
The federal government has pointed just over $3B to the project, with the disclaimer that construction has to start next year. So to make sure they get the money, the HSR project will start building their highly technological new transportation avenue in the Central Valley of CA, from Borden to Corcoran.
[click to continue reading…]
For the moment, as of a week prior to this article, there’s a plan afoot that will keep all eighty-six Caltrain vehicles in motion, and as the text of the article says, keep all Caltrain stations open. (ZEJN92D67ZW4)
This will come with another dig into the consumer wallets with a 25 cent fare increase and an additional $1 tacked on to the daily parking fee. That, and an additional boost of operating funds from the MTC (Metropolitan Transportation Commission) that will add up to another $3.5 million.
This is only a stop-gap, being that this is a one-time deal and it’s been urged that Caltrain needs to find a dedicated funding source to stay alive. It’s been suggested that like other rail-transit systems in the United States, that Caltrain look at dedicated sources such as revenue from state sales taxes, rental car taxes and car leasing taxes.
In the newspaper article I was reading (The Daily News, 4-22-11, Section A) they said riders were glad the closures were staved off.
[click to continue reading…]
The Califnornia High Speed Rail Soap…
- -The plan: Electric Bullet Trains connecting Los Angeles to San Francisco
- - State voters approved the $10 billion bond in November of 2008. (In reality, $42B) (First mistake… voters did not thoroughly read it through)
- - The project received a $2.5 billion pot from the feds in May.
- - Estimated cost is now at more than 2x CA state deficit, at $42 billion.
- - Recent estimates are that the HSRA already has $11B in subsidy funds.
- - 31 states are eligible or will get part of a $31 billion pot to invest in and build high-speed rail, connecting all major cities. [Obama Admin Awards High Speed Rail Funds]
-
Then Why are Peninsula residents of Northern California fighting it?
It’s how the local consumers, Peninsula residents, are being treated. We’ve been told what’s going to happen from day one. Not asked. Told. As Diana Diamond reported in the August 9th Daily Post Opinion section [pg 8] in an article titled “Rail plan was a ‘done deal’ from the start”
She notes that18 months previous to her report that Rod Diridon told Menlo Park and Palo Alto city councils that the high speed rail configuration for the peninsula was a “done deal.” She went on to detail how Diridon went on saying at that time that HSRA didn’t need any input from local cities because the board had already decided how the tracks will run through Peninsula cities.
[click to continue reading…]
Did you know that the proposed High Speed rail project that is going to cut through hundreds of homes in the San Francisco Bay Area’s Peninsula region, the one that is still under scrutiny, is a done deal?
Yea… me too.
On 11-4-08, voters did not read their voter pamphlets on the High Speed Rail Initiative and passed it happily. Now lawsuits, delayed studies and what not are in the mix.
The High Speed Rail Initiative would widen the rail corridors BY 4 to 5 TIMES, where by eminent domain, (Which seems imminent) hundreds of homes will be taken from home owners.
Every time I read something about Quentin Kopp, who is the Chairperson of the California High Speed Rail Authority, he seems to speak as if no one’ else’s opinion matters. He’s got a one-track mind that is set on getting this project pushed through, regardless of citizen concerns.
Even though the cost of this project could pay off the debt of California a few times over, Kopp has been quoted to saying this project is a “Done deal.“
In a Bay Area, local Peninsula newspaper, The Daily Post, an interesting article popped up.
[click to continue reading…]
