pinky ring wearing union thugs are disappointed.

This is what happens when you spend all your money on tax cuts and social welfare. The state can't even invest in a project that will bring jobs and financial investment to the entire state. Only in California can both sides be so dumb.

spend all you want. sooner or later you meeting the emperor of the north, then you'll know what's what.

Monorail! Monorail! MONORAIL!

I guess Gov. Walker in Wisconsin was right after all.

Now is not the time for any state to waste a bunch of money on something that can be simulated with buses on better roadways. Trains are too expensive per mile versus improving roads and adding dedicated bus lines if the need is there.

Buses are infinitely flexible with route adjustments, versus the permanent and fixed nature of trains.

We can only hope they spent as much money as possible to determine this.

This is not a surprise. I'm a filthy tree-hugging libby libtard and even I thought this was a boondoggle. Can the project, spend the money on infrastructure and schools.

A highly paid special commission, of course - who will revisit the issue again next year, just to make sure they were right the first time.

If only there were a system to collect revenue from its citizenry for such projects.
Oh, Atlantis...

Im just glad they are finally extending the metro here out to Dullas although it will probably take 50 years to get it done

Outrageous Muff: This is what happens when you spend all your money on tax cuts and social welfare.

Social welfare? You mean prisons.

This is what happens when the highest federal tax bracket is only 35%. We need a flat tax of 80% regardless of income. DI DI MAU! DI DI MAU!

I'd much rather see them spend a whole lot less to get plain old low-speed rail working in California. Getting from Sacramento (state capitol) to almost anywhere else on a train is a giant clusterfark. Crazy-early departures, long segments on buses, routes taking twice as long as driving.

Does not make me confident about high speed rail in the state.

Outrageous Muff: This is what happens when you spend all your money on tax cuts and social welfare. The state can't even invest in a project that will bring jobs and financial investment to the entire state. Only in California can both sides be so dumb.

Troll!

Trance750: When you spend your entire treasury on welfare and other 'social entitlement programs' you tend not to have anything in the coffers, for other needs and projects.

Double troll!

We need just one more for the Triple Troll Rampage!

Outrageous Muff: This is what happens when you spend all your money on tax cuts and social welfare. The state can't even invest in a project that will bring jobs and financial investment to the entire state. Only in California can both sides be so dumb.

This project was never about bringing in jobs, at least not in the way you were thinking. It was an easily passed bond measure with a long timeline and a massive budget. Before any shovels touched a bit of earth there would need to be commissions, meetings, committees, more meetings, planning boards, meetings, etc. All positions that could potentially pay into the high 6 figures, and all positions that politicians could fill with their friends and relations. There were never any plans for this to go anywhere, just more of the usual CA politics of giving swanky do-nothing jobs to your political friends and relatives.

And here I thought California saved hundreds of millions of dollars having the new San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge built in China.

/am i wrong?

They were going to put Barney Frank in charge.

The commission is right. What people need to remember is that rail travel worked in this country because of all the secondary infrastructure that supported it. Even towns of 50K people had street-cars and trollies and extensive bus routes that don't exist anymore because everyone has a car. The reason this will fail is that once you get off the train in Fresno or Modesto or Bakersfield or Sacramento with all your luggage you'll have have credible means of transportation except for an expensive cab ride. San Francisco has BART which is great, but even in LA, the subway goes nowhere. Imagine getting dumped off at the railroad station in LA. How are you going to sight see for 3 days? on LA's Public Transportation? Nearly impossible, you'd rent a car, and at that point you might as well drive the whole way.... You're looking at hundreds of billions of dollars in additional costs to restructure the entire transportation network. At this point we're committed to roads, and we should focus on more fuel efficient cars. This is a boondoggle

So what's the financial risk of the freeway system? Oh, right. Freeways aren't expected to turn a profit.

We just need to import some guys to build the railroads for cheap!

Some infrastructure plans are better than others.

There are a lot of "California has teh welfares" comments building up. While there are a large number of so-called "entitlement" programs here in CA, the issue is not welfare alone, nor is it the budget and taxes alone. California's direct initiative process is the real culprit. In order to make a retarded law here, such as slashing taxes to the bone or creating a program to buy the lunches for anyone of Polynesian descent who speaks dutch every other Thursday, all you need is 50,000 signatures and 51% of the voters stupid enough to believe you can cut taxes and increase social spending. Every election, CA passes laws to: a) hamstring the budget and b) create a new costly program.

As much as I hate politicians, I'd rather have them making the laws than the idiots that live here, myself included.

quoingguy: "Now is not the time for any state to waste a bunch of money on something that can be simulated with buses on better roadways."

Maybe Wisconsin was right to pass on the train to Madison, and maybe California is right to pass on this one.
But you sure as fark cannot make universal statements about the efficiencies and costs of buses vs trains.

spentmiles: We just need to import some guys to build the railroads for cheap!

[i43.tinypic.com image 317x444]

that's not the preferred nomenclature.

bdub77: The problem with high speed rail, in general, is that most of it is not actually high speed rail. Sorry, going 85 mph and stopping at 20 locations is not high speed rail.

I'd much rather have some maglevs in this country that work like airplanes, hub to hub, going 150-200mph, than what high speed rail is really proposing, which is nothing of the sort.


You mean like in China.

There are minor debates about the HSR in China (and that accident they had last year), but for the most part they did it right. The system blasts you from city to city and then leaves it up to the local infrastructure to get you around once there. The strategy is more "airplane replacement" than tradition rail service.

The only (by some quizzical definitions) HSR line in America is the crappy Acela Amtrak that links NYC to DC. Besides the super early morning straight shot into DC, all others make a dozen stops giving it an average speed of like 70mph. (forgot the exact numbers)

HSR transport in China is amazing honestly. But we here in America both ceased to dream big and lack the money to do so. I would just forget it until other things are in order.

Trance750: Why am I a troll? Just because I call it like I see it? California is almost to the point of bankruptcy, yet they keep giving welfare to people who have no business being on it.

Nope. Nothing trollsome about this attitude. You're just an asshole. That's all right.

painless42: The commission is right. What people need to remember is that rail travel worked in this country because of all the secondary infrastructure that supported it. Even towns of 50K people had street-cars and trollies and extensive bus routes that don't exist anymore because everyone has a car.

I know this is an imaginative leap that you're probably not capable of making, but perhaps these cities could invest in public transportation infrastructure.

Money?

Sorry, that's going to the prisons and prison guards.

Who has the strongest lobby? Why the prison guards of course

In 2010, 32.62% of Californians were receiving welfare assistance. The state with the second highest number of participants was Michigan at 4.08%. The majority of states, as seen here, have rates below 1%. So yeah, I'd say California has a small problem that everyone here is justified in criticizing.

At one time, California had the best schools in the world, world class infrastructure and was the envy of people from London to Samarkand to Brisbane

Then came the proposition system and Governor Reagan - two disasters the state has yet to recover from.

Trance750: The Larch: Outrageous Muff: This is what happens when you spend all your money on tax cuts and social welfare. The state can't even invest in a project that will bring jobs and financial investment to the entire state. Only in California can both sides be so dumb.

Troll!

Trance750: When you spend your entire treasury on welfare and other 'social entitlement programs' you tend not to have anything in the coffers, for other needs and projects.

Double troll!

We need just one more for the Triple Troll Rampage!

Why am I a troll? Just because I call it like I see it? California is almost to the point of bankruptcy, yet they keep giving welfare to people who have no business being on it.

It's nowhere near that simple. They spent like idiots because they thought the tax revenue they were pulling in during the housing bubble would never end. Then they were left with insane obligations after the banking sector crashed the world economy. But by all means, keep blaming poor people who had nothing to do with the economy taking a shiat and the politicians assuming the days of milk n' honey were limitless.

painless42: "At this point we're committed to roads"

In for a penny, in for a pound?

You do realize projects like this are compared against the alternatives over timelines of several decades?
And that building more and wider roads is, in many places --particularly places in California-- already bumping up against the edge of sustainable?

It might be cheaper/better to build roads for the next 10 or even 20 years. And that is *irrelevant*.
If your infrastructure is going to fail spectacularly in, say, 30 years - now is a great time to fix it. Because it will never be cheaper or easier than it is now.
And with so many resources that you need being otherwise idled by the recession, it would be a *hell of a great time* to start.
That is, if, in fact, the project makes sense over its lifetime. I don't know nearly enough about this train to say, so I won't.
But I can and will say that your logic is hella broken.

ringersol: quoingguy: "Now is not the time for any state to waste a bunch of money on something that can be simulated with buses on better roadways."

Maybe Wisconsin was right to pass on the train to Madison, and maybe California is right to pass on this one.
But you sure as fark cannot make universal statements about the efficiencies and costs of buses vs trains.


In virtually every case, yes I can. Hyper-dense localities, like Chicago and New York are obviously excluded. I love trains in those situations.

But that's not what we're talking about.

The real problem is that the original estimate was 10 Billion, only a tenth of the real cost was determined to be.

And this was a bond measure across all california. AKA Direct Democracy, AKA asking every forward thinking progressive "High speed rail, Y/N?" OF COURSE they all said yes. Many people here have the philosophy that we should be breaking new ground with new technology and that high tech will save us all. There may be some truth to that.

But the HSR project immediately started to suck. Instead of a real superfast highspeed train from SF to LA, it was decided to do it in stages. WIth stops. First stage would be a highspeed train from bakersfield to Fresno. With many stops in podunk towns who were more than happy to have the highspeed rail. And then every single suburb in the way to SF demanded NOT to have the rail line go through their town.

What a piece of shiat. Who wants to stop in Bakersfield or Fresno? NO ONE. Eminent domain the shiat out of everyone for a STRAIGHT LINE from SF to LA. RIGHT THROUGH MOUNTAINS.

I truly believe we can make Highspeed Rail cheaper than keeping an airplane aloft. it won't be at first, but that's the price of progress. I just don't think CA is in any shape at all to do this project now, and this particular implementation was absolutely horrible.

I just now have to suffer my "progress at any cost!" friends biatching and moaning that this thing is going to be rightfully axed.

The Iraq War: At least $1 trillion. California taxpayer contributions to federal revenue: At least 10 percent. So for the cost of the Iraq War to California, we could have funded this farking thing.

spentmiles: In 2010, 32.62% of Californians were receiving welfare assistance. The state with the second highest number of participants was Michigan at 4.08%. The majority of states, as seen here, have rates below 1%. So yeah, I'd say California has a small problem that everyone here is justified in criticizing.

That's not percent of the state population, dumbass. that's percentage of all FEDERAL welfare from TANF.