California, doomed by abject stupidity

[Big Don]

1st Calif. high-speed rail segment to be in valley

High-speed rail


December 03, 2010|By Michael Cabanatuan, Chronicle Staff Writer
San Francisco Chronicle EXCERPT:

Sacramento - — California's dream of building a statewide high-speed rail system with trains zipping along at 220 mph will start to become reality with a 54-mile stretch of track deep in the Central Valley, the High-Speed Rail Authority board decided Thursday.
The board, facing a looming deadline to capture $3 billion in federal stimulus funding, voted unanimously to lay the first high-speed rails between Borden, south of Madera, through Fresno, to Corcoran, midway between Fresno and Bakersfield. Stations will be built in Fresno and in the Hanford area of Kings County.

But the $4.3 billion segment will not carry trains until it can become part of a larger system reaching toward the Bay Area or Los Angeles. The initial section will include tracks, trestles and elevated structures, but not the electrical system that powers the trains, nor the rail cars or maintenance facility.
Critics have lambasted the starting segment since it was recommended by the authority staff the day before Thanksgiving. Its location between two small towns has become a joke among opponents who have dubbed the project "the train to nowhere."

END EXCERPT
$4.3 BILLION Dollars, for a train nobody wants, between a unincorporated area of Madera county, so obscure, I've never heard of it, and I've lived one county over for 90% of my life and Corcoran, where 90% of the population lives there because they are serving time in the prison.
Wait! The stupidity doesn't stop there! NO TRAINS or electrical are included in the $4.3BILLION price tag.

Why in the Hell is California still planning to build this? Because if they don't, they will lose $2.5 BILLION of Federal funding for it.
With the financial straits California is in, this is akin to someone who lives in their (non running) car buying $5000 seat covers.
Amtrack might be popular on the East coast, where the population and thus, the cities are closer together. Here, in Fresno county, Amtrack trains run at less than 50% capacity, day in, day out, yet, despite half empty trains, they do not offer any better service, nor, do they cut the number of trains running.
In Field of Dreams, the line was: "If you build it, they will come." That isn't close to being the case with this idiotic utter waste of taxpayer money, that, by the way, WE DON'T HAVE.

 

[billc]

California is stealing this script from the simpsons television show. Parodying "The Music Man" a con man comes to springfield to sell the town on the value of either highspeed rail or a mono-rail, I forget which. Don't worry Big Don, it worked out on the simpsons so I am sure that it will work out for California.

You guys encouraged me to learn how to link, now you have to live with it.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

California reminded me a lot of NY when I visited......

 

[Tez3]

California reminded me a lot of NY when I visited......

Isn't the weather better though? At the moment I'd forgive anything if only I lived in a warm place!

 

[chrispillertkd]

...The board, facing a looming deadline to capture $3 billion in federal stimulus funding ...

My tax money hard at work.

But at least the stimulus money has fixed the economy, right? I mean obviously a state unemployment rate of 12.4% as of October is great! I mean just think how much worse it would be if we didn't dump all that money into CA...

END EXCERPT
$4.3 BILLION Dollars, for a train nobody wants, between a unincorporated area of Madera county, so obscure, I've never heard of it, and I've lived one county over for 90% of my life and Corcoran, where 90% of the population lives there because they are serving time in the prison.
Wait! The stupidity doesn't stop there! NO TRAINS or electrical are included in the $4.3BILLION price tag.

What do you need trains for? This is about stimulating the economy!

Amtrack might be popular on the East coast, where the population and thus, the cities are closer together. Here, in Fresno county, Amtrack trains run at less than 50% capacity, day in, day out, yet, despite half empty trains, they do not offer any better service, nor, do they cut the number of trains running.

But if they cut the number of trains that would mean more people would be out of work and wouldn't be able to draw a tax-payer-based salary. This way everybody wins!

Pax,

Chris

 

[Ken Morgan]

This is no different then departments in some companies that need to spend all their budget, or they lose it.
It’s a system error that needs to be corrected.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Isn't the weather better though? At the moment I'd forgive anything if only I lived in a warm place!

When I visited the San Francisco area in June, I froze. Pants n jacket weather, while NY was shorts and tees.

Part of the 'reminded me of home' bit was all the highway construction I encountered. (And toll booths on bridges).

I can see the logic of building high speed transportation systems between cities and towns. A lot less cars on the road, less road work needed, and environmental savings as well.

The idea of spending 4 to save 2 while doing an incomplete and ultimately poor job though, offends my geeky need for optimum systems planning.

 

[Senjojutsu]

When I visited the San Francisco area in June, I froze. Pants n jacket weather, while NY was shorts and tees.

Bob,

Mark Twain has been wrongly attributed with variations of this quip regarding San Francisco's weather:

"The coldest summer but warmest winter I ever spent was in San Francisco."

The cut below taken from a Twain fan website to what he had actually written (I do not have the book):

"The climate of San Francisco is mild and singularly equable. The thermometer stands at about seventy degrees the year round. It hardly changes at all. You sleep under one or two light blankets summer and winter, and never use a mosquito bar. Nobody ever wears summer clothing. You wear black broadcloth-if you have it-in August and January, just the same....You do not use overcoats and you do not use fans." ("Roughing It" vol. II, chap. XV entitled in the table of contents as "Glorious Climate of California")

 

[chrispillertkd]

This is no different then departments in some companies that need to spend all their budget, or they lose it.
It’s a system error that needs to be corrected.

Except in a company it isn't my money that is being frittered away on idiotic things. The government has no money of its own; it has to take money from the people. A company depends on selling its goods and services to people. If it fails to provide things that the consumers want it will have less money in the first place.

The government, on the other hand, will just take more if it thinks it needs to throw more dollars at a project that would fail on its own in the private sector.

Pax,

Chris

 

[Big Don]

When I visited the San Francisco area in June

Oh please, God, don't judge all of California by the Bay Area.

 

[Bob Hubbard]

Oh please, God, don't judge all of California by the Bay Area.

I don't, but you can keep calling me God.

 

[LuckyKBoxer]

ya this who high speed rail thing is a major screw up.

the calculations to justify it were cooked... this should have never gotten off the ground, and is a perfect example of wizard of oz government at work.... dont pay attention to the deficit behind the curtain... I am the all mighty powerful high speed railway... bridge to the future.....
besides this thing already coming in a short time after it was approved at over 4000% higher costs, the cost to ride it are virtually identical to airfare.

But the thing that is the most disgusting to me is the fact that the fools in our state government are willing to spend 4.3 billion dollars to make 2.5 billion dollars.

I will sit outside the state capital all day long and give them a much better exchange rate if they want... I will give them 3 dollars for every 4 dollars they give me. Then I wont stick them with hundreds of millions of dollars a year in debt that this high speed rail is going to sucking out of the state to stay affloat when or if it ever becomes operational and proves the numbers to justify it were way overcooked and wrong.
Naw, the idiots in this state that elected the idiots running it deserve to built this entire stretch of railways then never ever use, we can rename it the California Trophy of stupidity.. the worlds largest largest monument to wasteful, corrupt, and inefficient government.

 

[LuckyKBoxer]

damn I know I just woke up when I stumbled on this article, and I had a marathon 14 hour training/teaching/testing day yesterday, but my god it sounds like I was trying to type with a concussion and my brain and fingers were not quite working the way they should... sorry for the horrible typing and proofreading... wow...