elray
Junior Member
Posts: 84
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Post by elray on Feb 15, 2014 18:24:10 GMT -8
Perhaps now, others will have the courage to put CAHSR up for a vote of confidence. m.pressdemocrat.com/articles/140215-b8a89e74e0.htmlLt. Gov. Gavin Newsom comes out against state's bullet train By JULIET WILLIAMS ASSOCIATED PRESS Sat, Feb 15, 2014 SACRAMENTO — Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom, once a strong supporter of California's high-speed rail project, told a conservative radio show host Friday that he no longer backs the bullet train and would like to see the money diverted to other projects. "I would take the dollars and redirect it to other, more pressing infrastructure needs, and I am not the only Democrat that feels this way. And I've got to tell you, I am one of the few that just said it publicly," Newsom said, according to a recording of the program provided by the station, KTTH in Seattle. "Most are now saying it privately." Newsom's comments make him the most prominent Democrat in California to publicly split with Gov. Jerry Brown on the project, which is one of the governor's top priorities. Newsom was asked about the $68 billion plan during an appearance on the Ben Shapiro Show. The host said many Californians have turned against the bullet train after approving a 2008 ballot measure that allowed the sale of nearly $10 billion in bonds for it. Newsom said he was the first California mayor to support the bond measure and even campaigned for it with then-Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican. Now, he said, "I think I'm where the public was and is." "We don't have the federal dollars that we were hoping for — only about $3 billion has come forward. The private sector hasn't stepped up," he said. "That said, the governor is hell bent on doing the first phase of this in that area you just referenced, the central part of the state." Brown has continued to back the bullet train even as questions grow about how the state will pay for it. Brown's office referred questions about Newsom's comments to the California High-Speed Rail Authority. "High-speed rail is forging ahead because voters backed a statewide rail modernization program that is creating jobs and will provide clean transportation for generations to come," Dan Richard, chairman of the rail authority's board, said in a written statement. A Sacramento County Superior Court judge last year threw out the state's funding plan, ordering it to write a new one, and prevented the sale of high-speed rail bonds. Late Friday, the 3rd District Court of Appeal agreed to hear an expedited appeal from Brown's administration, which said the decisions could cause serious delays and set a bad precedent for other public works projects in the state. |
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Post by culvercitylocke on Feb 18, 2014 15:49:06 GMT -8
Good for Newsome! Building the world's slowest bullet train at the cost of a 100 billion + starting the construction from nowhere to nowhere when there's negligible slack demand for city to city mass transit is incredibly irresponsible. If they were keeping the train fast, separate tracks, on budget and using the 5 corridor+stubs and starting construction with LA to San Diego (which is the only segment where there is city to city transit demand that isn't being met by existing freeway, air travel or mass transit) then I'd still be for it.
And that's not even mention that no one has any plans on how to power the train, which will take 1/4 the daily power output of the Hoover Dam to run. We're already in a massive power crunch, now we'll put this giant suck onto the grid, a grid they don't want to spend a paltry billion on upgrading or repairing (but they'll spend over a hundred billion on this thrice damned train).
As it is, there is almost no positive elements to the current bullet train shenanigans. The sheer staggering scale of the waste of building this is pretty unprecedented.
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Post by masonite on Feb 18, 2014 18:07:11 GMT -8
Good for Newsome! Building the world's slowest bullet train at the cost of a 100 billion + starting the construction from nowhere to nowhere when there's negligible slack demand for city to city mass transit is incredibly irresponsible. If they were keeping the train fast, separate tracks, on budget and using the 5 corridor+stubs and starting construction with LA to San Diego (which is the only segment where there is city to city transit demand that isn't being met by existing freeway, air travel or mass transit) then I'd still be for it. And that's not even mention that no one has any plans on how to power the train, which will take 1/4 the daily power output of the Hoover Dam to run. We're already in a massive power crunch, now we'll put this giant suck onto the grid, a grid they don't want to spend a paltry billion on upgrading or repairing (but they'll spend over a hundred billion on this thrice damned train). As it is, there is almost no positive elements to the current bullet train shenanigans. The sheer staggering scale of the waste of building this is pretty unprecedented. I'll take the opposite side here since there are a lot of inaccuracies in your statements. This situation is very similar to the Red Line when it was proposed and being built. The LA Times had a negative article on the hated subway once a week and even shamelessly blasted Tom Bradley in his obituary for being the father of the subway, people said it was too expensive and that we had a wonderful freeway and bus system so it wasn't necessary. It was considered by these people to be too radical and had never been done in Southern California and couldn't work here even though it does it virtually every other city. Lets just say, those people have magically changed their tunes or somehow disappeared. The cost is expensive but not near $100B as you stated. Compared to local transit, it isn't nearly as expensive in the long run, because it covers operational costs and probably then some, while local transit requires enormous subsidies every day. A ride on Expo should really cost about $7 each way to cover its costs since our light rail covers only less than 20% of its operating costs (it is worse than even the bus system and only the subway brings up the average). Nobody hardly ever talks about this, but as our local system grows, we are going to have to raise fares significantly or use our local sales taxes to cover that cost. In fact it is already happening to some degree. Pretty much most of Prop A and C goes to cover operating costs and not building new rail lines as they were really sold to voters. As far as Bakersfield and Fresno being no where, they are both among the top 60 Metro areas in the US. Of course, they are part of a larger network and even today the San Joaquin is among the top 5 of all Amtrak lines in terms of ridership. The track would become part of the improved San Joaquin Line when first built and won't have electric high speed trains until another segment goes online although it would speed up the San Joaquin trains initially. Calling Fresno and Bakersfield no where is pretty ignorant and offensive to many Californians. Those two Metro areas make up a much larger part of the state than a place like Culver City does of Los Angeles and they are growing pretty fast. As for having space on the freeways and airports for travel, I'll just assume you are joking. The 5 is a mess and the 405 is an even bigger mess and that shouldn't be news to anyone. Do you think spending over a $1B on the Sepulveda Pass portion of the 405 is really going to do any good? I have never met anyone who really thinks it will. LAX is near capacity and pretty much all the neighbors there are opposed to any further increases in flights and so we'll likely never see additional capacity here as lawsuits will likely stop any future development. I know someone in Bakersfield who drives into LA about twice a month. He puts more miles on the local freeways than I do, even though I live here. Not sure if he would take HSR every time, but even if he did only occassionally, it would reduce freeway traffic more than if I moved out of the city. |
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Post by culvercitylocke on Feb 19, 2014 10:23:53 GMT -8
The freeway traffic is within the city metro areas, and other than LA to San Diego, it is not between cities. My father in law drives from LA to various locations in central and Nor Cal every week and there is no traffic commuting between far flung cities, there is more than enough freeway capacity from city to city (except LA to San Diego, which is at capacity).
Sure the connectivity would be nice, but it's a waste in terms of demand for the transit, the train will probably be more expensive than air travel, and much slower. The lack of local transit infrastructure means people taking the train are screwed when they get to their destination, because like air travel, they'll still have to rent a car. The only people taking the train would be us train nuts. Ridership will probably be 10% or less of what they're estimating. The 120 billion or more we'll spend on the world's slowest bullet train would be far better invested developing local infrastructure first. The demand for city to city transit isn't there. And expanding the freeway lanes between cities if the volume of cars does pick up is a much better solution because for the hundreds of miles between cities there is plenty of room to widen them, it's not a built out environment like within the city.
All this of course is mostly irrelevant, self driving cars will make most all transit obsolete and will be impacting traffic long before the purple line opens (much less the 2080 opening of the bullet train). Self-Driving Cars will have all the benefits of trains, all the benefits of cars, and none of the drawbacks of mass transit, none of the fixed track drawbacks of trains and none of the stupid traffic causing behaviors of human drivers. slow speeds on the freeways will gradually vanish, and with the freeway speed increasing, demand for transit will plummet (we'll also see a new suburban sprawl push much further than LA, because if self driving cars can go 90 on all the freeways, you can commute from a lot further).
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Post by LAofAnaheim on Feb 19, 2014 13:40:48 GMT -8
The freeway traffic is within the city metro areas, and other than LA to San Diego, it is not between cities. My father in law drives from LA to various locations in central and Nor Cal every week and there is no traffic commuting between far flung cities, there is more than enough freeway capacity from city to city (except LA to San Diego, which is at capacity). Sure the connectivity would be nice, but it's a waste in terms of demand for the transit, the train will probably be more expensive than air travel, and much slower. The lack of local transit infrastructure means people taking the train are screwed when they get to their destination, because like air travel, they'll still have to rent a car. The only people taking the train would be us train nuts. Ridership will probably be 10% or less of what they're estimating. The 120 billion or more we'll spend on the world's slowest bullet train would be far better invested developing local infrastructure first. The demand for city to city transit isn't there. And expanding the freeway lanes between cities if the volume of cars does pick up is a much better solution because for the hundreds of miles between cities there is plenty of room to widen them, it's not a built out environment like within the city. All this of course is mostly irrelevant, self driving cars will make most all transit obsolete and will be impacting traffic long before the purple line opens (much less the 2080 opening of the bullet train). Self-Driving Cars will have all the benefits of trains, all the benefits of cars, and none of the drawbacks of mass transit, none of the fixed track drawbacks of trains and none of the stupid traffic causing behaviors of human drivers. slow speeds on the freeways will gradually vanish, and with the freeway speed increasing, demand for transit will plummet (we'll also see a new suburban sprawl push much further than LA, because if self driving cars can go 90 on all the freeways, you can commute from a lot further). Wow, this sounds extremely anti-transit; and you're using opinions instead of facts to make a point. 1 - where is it stated that the train would be slower than air travel? When a train takes off the tracks, it starts heading towards its destination, unlike a plane which would have to taxi and wait in line to take off. Let's not forget the take-off and landing. 2 - people need a car when they arrive at San Diego or LA Union Station? Welcome to the 21st century, there is connecting local rail, buses and taxis (yes, taxis are public transit) for their last mile. The only ones who need to rent a car as those who go to far flung areas. If you are chilling in downtown San Diego, the Gas Lamp, Downtown LA, Hollywood, etc... the places most frequented for short weekend or business trip travel, why would you waste your time and money on renting a car from a centralized station. 3 - LA Union Station and San Diego's downtown stations are located in the heart of the city, unlike airports. So the final leg trip to your destination is quicker than airport connection (going along with point #2) 4 - Self-driving cars is a pipe dream. There will be too much hassles with insurance, safety, etc... it won't happen or be available to the masses. The price point will also be way too high for the common individual to own a self-driving car, in the forseeable future. There's still the legal issues surrounding self-driving........don't count on this in the 21st century. |
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Post by culvercitylocke on Feb 20, 2014 12:05:00 GMT -8
ultimately, I'm pro transit because I love trains. However, I'm realistic enough to recognize that the Bullet Train is a terrible and counter productive project. I'm also realistic enough to know that most people taking transit would rather not take transit and if technology advances as it is expected to then transit use and demand will decline.
2, sorry, my post was garbled. I would exempt San Diego and San Francisco from the need to rent a car. I was talking about all the minor cities with much less transit. the vast majority of people traveling to Bakersfield or where-ever-ville are never going to take a train because of the last mile.
4. Actually, Insurance will probably be demanding more self driving during the initial uptake period of the tech. It'll be a 'think of the children' sort of mentality, meaning that you can get cheaper car insurance for your teenagers if they're primarily in self driving cars and not actually controlling the wheel very much. I won't have any children for a few years, but I anticipate that my children will never get driver's licenses as we know them, they'll probably have some 'emergency control' permit training, but teenagers will probably be somewhat legally barred from driving in twenty years, they are so incredibly dangerous, and so much more dangerous than all other drivers, and they don't vote, so 'something' will probably be done. Likewise, legally, most people think there will be some sort of 'hold the car manufacturer responsible' for any accident with a self driving car. But when Self driving cars have an accident rate 100,000 times lower than human driven cars you will QUICKLY have law suits suing human drivers every time they cause an accident, because of the 'utter irresponsibility' of not using the safer driving technology. So while there will probably be lawsuits coming against the technology, the very scarcity of accidents will make the costs absorbably and the volume of lawsuits against the tech will probably be dwarfed by the volume of lawsuits against humans being criminally negligent in not using the tech. Most of these issues have a flip side to the coin than the usual anti-self driving cars fears that are currently percolating. Interestingly, most people already use self-driving technology, an automatic transmission, so we've already ceded enormous autonomy within our cars to mechanical magic, the next steps will not be that difficult, particularly given the gradual rollout of self driving technology like auto braking or auto parking.
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Post by masonite on Feb 20, 2014 19:09:53 GMT -8
4 - Self-driving cars is a pipe dream. There will be too much hassles with insurance, safety, etc... it won't happen or be available to the masses. The price point will also be way too high for the common individual to own a self-driving car, in the forseeable future. There's still the legal issues surrounding self-driving........don't count on this in the 21st century. I don't know if I would go that far. I think 25 years from now, I will be in some form of self driving car. Probably pretty doubtful, I can just take a nap in the backseat while it drives though. There are a ton of legal and technological hurdles to go through before we get there. Of course, cost is a huge issue too. We have electric cars now so why would anyone pay for gas. Are people just idiots? It will be the same with self driving cars. Technology costs a lot of money. Most people can't afford new cars now, much less one that costs many thousands more due to expensive technology. It is pretty naive to think almost everyone is going to be in a self driving car even 20-25 years from now. |
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