Quentin Kopp, the man who more than any other single person is probably most responsible for the California high-speed rail project, now says the project is illegal and has filed a declaration in court saying so. In response, the California High-Speed Rail Authority–which was created by a law Kopp wrote and which Kopp later headed–is suing Kopp, California farmers who oppose the project, the Antiplanner, and, well, any other skeptics in an effort to get a court order giving it $8 billion to start construction on the train to nowhere.
Kopp’s argues that the authority has “mangled” the original plan for a 220-mph rail line in order to keep costs down. That original plan, which was supposed to cost $45 billion, is now expected to cost somewhere closer to $117 billion. Since the authority doesn’t have that money, it has adopted instead a $68 billion plan to build a “blended” system that uses some existing tracks and some new tracks. But the trains on this system won’t go from San Francisco to Los Angeles in 4 hours and 40 minutes as the law requires.
Of course, the authority doesn’t have $68 billion either, so the likelihood of this blended plan ever being completed is slim. But it needs a plan of some kind in order to justify spending the $8 billion it does have building a line in California’s relatively thinly populated Central Valley.
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Meanwhile, in order to make the project more politically appealing, the authority has promised at least 30 percent of construction jobs will go to workers from low-income areas, including at least 10 percent to disadvantaged workers, meaning people who live in very high unemployment areas or who have “barriers” such as being homeless, no high school diploma, or a criminal record.
Naturally, some people have a problem with this, saying that the authority should hire “the people that are most qualified, not the most disadvantaged.” However, since the original purpose of high-speed rail was to “stimulate” the economy, hiring low-income people might be the best way to do this. After all, if transportation were an issue. high-speed rail would make no sense at all.
The real problem is not that they may hire poorly trained workers but that few of the people in charge really have any idea what they are doing. This would be by far the most expensive state public works project in history, and it is dubious whether any public bureaucracy can effectively handle this much responsibility. California’s annual budget of $146 billion is about 33 times the $4.4 billion budget of Montgomery County, Maryland. Montgomery County can’t even build a $112 million transit center without screwing everything up, so how can anyone expect California to build something a thousand times more costly without huge scandals and construction problems?
The Antiplanner wrote: “After all, if transportation were an issue. high-speed rail would make no sense at all.”
Your wit is evident, you should try to convert it into cartoons on the subject.
Isn’t anybody concerned about the huge environmental impact of building part of the California High Speed Rail, in the middle of farm and rural areas, and then never getting the funding for the rest of it? All that land damage, CO2 emissions, and material would be just wasted with no benefit.
Why does California get to burn money to create CO2 while the rest of us cannot even get portable gas cans that work properly?
NEWSFLASH:
“California agency gives back $8 Billion Dollars. deciding HSR won’t work and they didn’t want to waste the money.”
APRIL FOOLS ( a few days early)
“The state of California has filed a civil case against everyone — literally, the whole world — seeking to validate $8.6 billion in voter-approved bonds for its $69 billion high-speed rail project.”
http://www.mercurynews.com/california-high-speed-rail/ci_22885008/california-high-speed-rail-sues-everybody-invites-people?source=rss
OK, this is my one time:
How to make California HSR work
First forget people, think rail, high, speed.
Second move the line out into the boondocks about 20-30 miles, out where land is cheap, people are scarce, and environmental reports thin. Use an existing right of way and save money.
Third, forget train stations, just build a straight track the goes up the valley. Forget LA and SF, they do not want a HSR.
Fourth, build a robot that travels up and down the steel rail at 280 MPH max, and 250 MPH average.
OK, so far so good, the idea is HSR, as in high speed rail, no people, no train stations. So how do we fill it? Slow the train down to 140 MPH, and drive the bus ultra rapid transit up next to it, and open both parallel doors. 100 passengers, entry and exit at 140 MPH!
There you have it, for a few billion bucks we can commute anywhere in the central valley with a median time of one and a half hours. The bus ultra rapid transit can reach the track from any metropolitan curbside with a 15 minute trip. The rail serves as a backbone for ultra rapid bus transit.
This is a desperate act by a desperate public agency. Instead of fending off lawsuits, as they have been doing for the past couple of years, they are actually inviting lawsuits. This strategy may backfire on them severely and effectively cripple the project. I wouldn’t ever dare the Sierra Club or another similarly litigious organization to sue me. That is courting trouble.
Kind of funny to watch Quentin Kopp trying to kill the Frankenstein he has created, though. Fitting, I guess.
I do like Matt’s bus ultra rapid transit (BURT) concept. Kind of reminds me of that hilarious Onion video clip about the federal “high-speed bus” plan.