Rather than fight the plans of governors-elect Kasich and Walker to cancel high-speed trains in Ohio and Wisconsin, Secretary of Immobility Ray LaHood has preempted them by redistributing the $1.2 billion in federal rail grants to those states. Not surprisingly, most of the money is going to to California ($624 million) and Florida ($342 million). Washington state will get $162 million, Illinois $42 million, with smaller amounts to other states.
That brings the total of federal grants to California’s project to $3.2 billion. With state matching funds, it now has about $5.5 billion, or slightly more than 10 percent of what it says it needs to build the proposed San Francisco-Los Angeles line. Of course, the actual cost is likely to be much greater.
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These two governors elect haven’t even taken office yet, and LaHood had earlier vowed that their rail lines would be built even if they won their elections. So what is his hurry to redistribute the funds? Perhaps he wants to let the voters of those states know he will punish them for not following his party line. Or, more likely, he just wants to get the funds committed before the new Congress decides to take some of them back in January.
Incidentally, the Cleveland Plain Dealer decided to check up on Governor-elect John Kasich’s claim that the “high-speed train” that the federal government funded would go only 39 mph. They decided it was only half true because the state says it can probably “take out some curves and switching” to boost average speeds to 50 mph. If so, why didn’t the state build that into its grant proposal? Page 4 clearly states that the average speed will be 38.5 mph. The real question is why the federal government agreed to fund such a slow train.
What a massive waste of money. It’s basically fraud at this point. Anyone want to bet that the usual rail trolls here (Dan, Highwayman, etc) will be on board this plan without a single objection?
Well, metrosucks, you RoadTroll(tm), I DO object, and this the California HSR needs a reboot, e.g., such as upgrading the existing San Joaquins rail service to electric 110 mph service, combined with a new 75-mile long, 125-150 mph route over the Tehachapis into Los Angeles.
While this would mean 4-5 hour travel times from Sacramento and the Bay Area to L.A., such travel times would be quite competitive with driving–the largest share of travel, particularly to/from the San Joaquin Valley–and do-able within the $5-$6 billion they currently have. But will they do it??–noooo! Too logical and mundane…no “flash” at all.
You may not believe that a rail advocate like me cares about cost-effectiveness and services that actually work, but then I DON’T CARE if you believe me or not.
Competitive to driving? When people drive, they go to their final destination, not to the dangerous train station in LA where they have to find and pay for a cab to go 20 or 40 miles to their destination. This high speed rail is aiming for a very narrow niche of the travel market — more expensive (and thus higher class companions) than bus, slower and lower class than airplanes, slower and more inconvenient than car. Why does this small niche deserve a $5 billion subsidy (other than most of the costs are extracted from folks far away, such as in Topeka Kansas)?
Borealis,
I think you left out a zero or two. The cost of the California high-speed rail from San Francisco to LA will be closer to $50 billion than $5 billion. Adding Sacramento and San Diego will probably add another $20 billion or so.
Right on Borealis and Antiplanner. As expected, a rail/anti-road troll had to drop in (msetty) and provide a completely fabricated, delusional scenario where rail is actually competitive with driving.
@msetty, while I’d rather not see that sort of thing occur that is a very valid and good point to bring up. Why don’t they work to improve existing service in meaningful ways with this money? It is quite confusing.
That said, I don’t think they can legally use the money from the bonding referendum to simply improve existing routes, can they?
pk166, I’m not sure if they can use the state bonds for upgrading existing lines, but they could use the federal funds that way.
One option would be to use the bonds for new 150-220 mph sections such as a new line into the Bay Area parallel to I-580 between Fremont and Tracy, and another 150-220 mph section (topping out at 125 mph at the summit) between Bakersfield and Santa Clarita, connected by 110 mph sections from Fremont to San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose, between Tracy and Sacramento, Tracy to Bakersfield, and Santa Clarita to L.A., Anaheim, San Diego, and San Bernardino over 110-mph upgraded existing rights of way.
The last phase could be the 220-mph section down I-5 between Tracy and Bakersfield, the part that would match the speeds originally specified in the bond issue and probably could get private funding.
I would have no problem with taking it back to the voters to amend it to allow this approach–provided the revised, more realistic plan is explained in detail to the voters.
There is nothing realistic about the delusion of high speed rail in the central valley.
msetty said: You may not believe that a rail advocate like me cares about cost-effectiveness and services that actually work, but then I DON’T CARE if you believe me or not.
THWM: Mr.Setty you might as well be arguing with the wall, these sociopathic Randroids don’t give a shit about you or the needs of other people.
Just remember that O’Toole is a puppet & that Koch Oil is his master.
Just remember that Fraudman is a rail/anti-car shill, and OBAMA/LAHOOD is probably his master.
“Mr.Setty you might as well be arguing with the wall, these sociopathic Randroids don’t give a shit about you or the needs of other people”- The Highwayman
I can think of nothing more uncaring than advocating spending hundreds of billions of dollars on something like HSR at the very same time a quarter of our kids still fail to graduate from high school, 1 in 7 people in America go hungry, et al.
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You may not believe that a rail advocate like me cares about cost-effectiveness and services that actually work, but then I DON’T CARE if you believe me or not.
You should care. It’s our money you’re planning to spend on these projects.