January 13, 2012

Shakeup in Calif. bad news for high-speed rail?

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By  Alex Roman

• Bill Hough[ January 13th, 2012 @ 11:53am ]

  It’s time to cancel the California high speed rail project and disband CHSRA. This is due to the ballooning project costs and continuing dishonesty on the part of the California High Speed Rail Authority. The latest revelation is that claims that high speed rail would create a million jobs have been proven false. The San Jose Mercury explains “The 1-million figure came from the project's technical studies. It actually was the number of "job years," a statistical term that counts years of work rather than actual jobs. One person working for five years adds up to five job years in this parlance.” The high speed rail project now being pushed by the Governor and the High Speed Rail Authority is not the same project that the voters approved in 2008. The Authority is guilty of pulling a “bait and switch” on taxpayers, who live in a state in deep denial of its financial problems.

• Jan van Eck[ January 13th, 2012 @ 11:57am ]

  These are projects that only work if the bonds can be issued with an effective zero-interest coupon, and even then, the project has running-cost issues. With a $50 billion budget deficit, I just do not see how the math works out.

• Frank[ January 13th, 2012 @ 1:30pm ]

  I am a Rail-fan, trust me. however, we are not in Europe, Japan, China, or even on the NE Coast. this Article is talking about CA. I am not totally sure that we can get people out of their cars, or even off airplanes for that manner. in fact. one wastes just as much time screwing around with Post 911 Airport Security (which must be done)., vs being on the Plane its self. and I fine that is the point. i.e. that the Eur-star Works from London to Paris. even with Edited Security. and so on. its still Downtown London to Downtown Paris. And to finish, the High-Speed would had been build over 3 earthquakes faults. What would it cost? would it be run by Amtrak?

• Robert Schrecengost[ January 15th, 2012 @ 7:30am ]

  It's sad that as a society we don't place more value on HSR. We surely need to find alternatives to the auto only approach. To see the system really work you need to approach transportation as a total system, not just High Speed Rail as a stand alone. It really doesn't do any good to board a train in LA and arrive at San Diego an hour later if it is going to take another hour to find a bus/trolley, or whatever to reach your final destination. The systems that truly work in other countries are integrated systems that combine trains, buses, light rail, steamship lines, and air transportation using end to end schedules that are reasonable in price and easy to achieve the individuals total transportation needs. Lets do the research before we spend billions on HSR running through the least populated portion of the State going where?

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