High Speed Rail Project Funded: What Do You Think?

Linda Merrill July 19, 2012 at 12:51 pm

I agree!

Dave Aebersold July 19, 2012 at 12:52 pm

Folks, we are being scammed! Ace T is correct. According to the California High Speed Rail Authority in 2008, the estimated cost for Phase One of the project linking just San Francisco and Los Angeles was $34 Billion. This phase eliminated Sacramento, Oakland, the Inland Empire, and San Diego. By early 2012, their estimated cost for this Phase One more than tripled and could reach $118 Billion. Also, it is not all going to be high speed rail which is not what Californians voted for. Now the Govenor wants to increase taxes for one of the country's already highest taxed states? This is a shame and frustrating!

Graham Davis July 19, 2012 at 12:59 pm

Silence, bourgeois peasants! You shall take your new train and bureaucracy, and like it! How dare you backtalk your superiors! You know that California has never worked before, and will not ever work until this train is completed. On your knees and beg forgiveness...but beg now, before you arrive in SF!

Karen July 19, 2012 at 01:00 pm

Let's read 'the giving tree' again. Let's save the earth

Laura Tompkins July 19, 2012 at 01:09 pm

That's just it...it is nothing more than a boondoggle and will never happen. Brown is exercising a political ploy too dated to take seriously. Seriously?
Americans are so stupid it's embarrassing.

Phil Sarris July 19, 2012 at 01:37 pm

John,
I concur! You left out another important fact: And that is it is a big Union project which will inevitably cost the CA tax payer more as there will be over runs and Political paybacks to those who are currently in power. Ca is huge with an estimated population of 30 Million, but the population density here does not even justify this boon doggle project. Hopefully, the CA taxpayers revolt to derail the rail.

Parent in Palisades July 19, 2012 at 01:38 pm

Stop wasting money. I bet you have never been in Germany or France or Japan.
There is only good transportation in those cities...not the entire country. Again I will show some math...lets hope you passed that grade in our crappy school system...where the money should be spent. Paris metro area have 1847 people living there per square miles - Los Angeles have 25.53 people living per square mile !!!!!!! how can you accommodate for that stop living in this pretend utopia and THINK...but I guess you are also a product of the public school system that is filled with pedophiles etc. All you are driven towards is a empty meaningless SAT test. Educate our kids and maybe they can figure out the mess we will leave them with. I was in London a few months ago and went to visit some friends in Paris and took the train - the one under the see - what a nightmare that was. Next time I will fly for sure - like all the other times before. I've been in Germany and Japan many times. Public transportation is all fine - in the BIG DENSE cities. I've taken public transportation in Hong Kong and it rules. It is clean and fast and cheap but people live in 60-100 story buildings - if you want to give up your house and live in a sweat box like that - then go ahead because that is the sacrifice you will have to make be to able to have a functioning public transportation. Travel go to places and do the math. IT WONT WORK HERE IN CALIFORNIA - it is TOO BIG

Parent in Palisades July 19, 2012 at 01:49 pm

Karen should the rest of us hold hands and sing while you give is a really factual and financial sound solution.....waiting

Linda Merrill July 19, 2012 at 02:11 pm

In addition... Can we be sure contract goes to American Company? Can we be sure all employees are American workers? And lastly, I agree union workers will get rich off the back of hard working Taxpayers. Why not let some private company build the rail? Oh, I forgot... Private companies want to spend there money on sound investments.

Linda Merrill July 19, 2012 at 02:13 pm

Your comment is redicousl

lv2bsnwbrdn July 19, 2012 at 02:14 pm

I can only surmise that it's a test run where construction will cost less, given the wider expanse of unincorporated land, and the cost of buying out or relocating land owners. L.A. Is densely populated and possibly more of a political nightmare to deal with. Either way, I believe it's a good start and will "pressurize" the think tank to allocate further funding

Linda Merrill July 19, 2012 at 02:16 pm

Agree... Where are all the activist? How many desert rats or other non essential rodents are going to be destroyed? Isn't that what ruined the logging business?

Paul Glasgall July 19, 2012 at 02:38 pm

Paul G.
Listening to Ted Lieu tell me why he is in favor of the high speed rail made me quiver. An $80 billion project(as of now) that he says will be ready for willing travelers in 30 years, yes you heard it right. That is if they get adequate ridership. Heard a businessman describe his experience using high speed trains in China, the trains leave every 8 minutes and carry 1800 people and they are full. Will that be the case here, you take a guess.

Paul Glasgall July 19, 2012 at 02:44 pm

Having just reread all the comments I thought I was transported to some conservative state,seems like the people commenting are probably the few of us conservatives still alive and well in California. Are you all finally understanding the incompetence of our elected politicians? Off with their heads.

Phyllis Murphy July 19, 2012 at 02:58 pm

This will NOT be a "bullet train." It will NOT be non-stop. It will not go as fast as stated. It will cost MUCH MORE than they say. This is a nightmare.

Jim Smith July 19, 2012 at 03:21 pm

High speed rail to the SF Bay and Sacramento should have been developed a decade ago when it was cheaper. If it's not done now it will be much more expensive in the future.
The lack of high-speed rail is a reflection of the economic weakness and misplaced priorities that have allowed the U.S. to fall behind Europe, Japan and China. We have battleships galore, but Americans have only a car-centric transportation system that is polluting the Earth. And no, the basic infrastructure should not be turned over to money-grubbing capitalists. The interstate highway system was built in the last century without giving it away to the 1 percent. A network of high-speed trains can, and should be, a national asset owned and operated by the public.

Brenda Ramsey July 19, 2012 at 03:24 pm

I would much rather see the 68billion reallocated to our schools, teachers and cities so that we could at least have funding to redo our streets which are in poor condition. All we hear is "there are no funds". We do not need trains and Union Station has not a thing wrong with it.

apmarina July 19, 2012 at 03:43 pm

While I agree with a lot of your comment, the point about "what do they do after that" (meaning how do they get somewhere from Union Station) is a red herring. They do the same thing they would do if they flew down here - rent a car.

apmarina July 19, 2012 at 03:48 pm

I too have my doubts, but I think if they had to start somewhere, they should have picked a route that would have viable ridership on its own if the rest of the project died. LA-Vegas, LA-San Diego, SF-Sacramento. I'm sure a lot of people said many of the same things as Eisenhower was pushing the freeway system back in the 50s, now it seems like a pretty good idea. Of course it has lots of differences, but time will tell.

cindy July 19, 2012 at 04:08 pm

Uhhh....talk to Amtrak. They've been "helped" by the government for decades and have nothing to show for it. We HAVE a network of domestic flights which is doing very well for our current situation, thank you very much. Why do you think we need high-speed trains? Except for cargo and some passenger service. And, by the way, money-grubbing capitalists BUILT this country and drive it forward, not government. Government lives off those money-grubbing capitalists.

Raul Marquez July 19, 2012 at 04:15 pm

I wish those in Sacramento would do something useful, like send us all some of whatever they are smoking!
This is a bald-faced attempt to give away Trillions of dollars to special interests. The State's voters are very tired of this kind of pandering and sleaze! You might as well say we are going to build a stairway to the moon out of imaginerium; that is how realistic this project is!

apmarina July 19, 2012 at 04:36 pm

Yes there are a lot of other places we could put the money, and people are saying "use cars" and "fly". But there is only so much capacity on the roads and people are already screaming about congestion on one side of their mouth while they complain about spending money to widen freeways (405?) from the other side. And no one wants to live near an airport, nor pay to enlarge the airport we have. Yet we're all screaming for economic growth (and reducing pollution). Well, how else to move people around? Taking a few thousand cars off the road and reducing the need for increased plane trips for short runs (LA to SF or SD) seems worthwhile, but I am worried about the cost. Remember, when they built the first railroads private enterprise had to be coerced into doing it by giving them federal land that exceeded the right-of-way for the track. The railroads made money as landlords, not from the trains. In the end, we couldn't have built the country we have without the railroads, but it took some forward-thinking to do it well ahead of the need.

Reba Soffer July 19, 2012 at 04:56 pm

We have to abandon our cars ant the pollution they cause and their dependency upon expensive energy. High speed rail has been a great success wherever it has been adopted and economically viable, as well.

lahope July 19, 2012 at 08:09 pm

I'd much rather have my tax money go to public transportation than to the Pentagon.That said, so far, I'm not getting what would really be useful for me, i.e. a fast train from the Valley/Westside to LAX. Also, a Purple line extension (or is it Red?) into north Santa Monica would be nice.

PixelTreat July 19, 2012 at 09:07 pm

Wahoo! Go Teaparty!
Yeah I took the Eurostar from London to Paris. It was incredibly convenient. It was also impeccably clean. On the train my wife and I took a nap and woke up in Paris. Not to bad. Also we traveled all throughout Europe by train. It was a great experience and there never a place we couldn't get to. This right-wing diatribe nonsense is killing me. There always some reason we can't move forward.

PixelTreat July 19, 2012 at 09:13 pm

I always thought a train along the 1, from Santa Monica to Long Beach with a stop at LAX would be a great idea. Connecting the all the beach towns.

Dennis July 19, 2012 at 09:35 pm

I would love to have high speed transit to several locations; however, this plan goes from nowhere to nowhere; typical of our elected officials. We spend over 40 cents a gallon gas use tax. If the politicians hadn't already unwisely spent that money we could afford to build a high speed train that goes somewhere.
Actually, I think This Gov. Brown is looking for a legacy to match is father's water project, nice to not necessary.

lv2bsnwbrdn July 19, 2012 at 09:43 pm

Phyllis, where are you getting your facts? Or are they mere assumptions?

Susan Griffin July 20, 2012 at 01:53 pm

High speed rail will make more sense in 20 years than it might seem to do now. Why so reluctant to embark on a project for our children' children? Look at what generations before did for us--built the interstate system, developed air travel, invented the Internet! California shouldn't be so miserly with its resources--build the train.

Ace T July 21, 2012 at 01:27 pm

Susan it won't make sense in even 50 years because we have airplanes that are faster and cheaper...they work in Japan and Europe because the cities are closer and faster and cheaper then airplanes in most cases. Here they will be slower and more expensive. They got the model wrong. No one will ride and just give your kids a huge tax bill to pay for nothing. Why would you burden your kids like that. If this was viable the private sector would have made one already. Don't waste your kids tax dollars......