California Hi-Speed Rail Appears to be DOA

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It appears this 'Green' project is going to be done in by 'Green' laws or issues. Washington Examiner: California High Speed Rail is Dead
That's an odd way to put it. There is little chance that an EIS would derail the CAHSR project all on its own, in fact this is exactly the sort of project that should be able to legally mitigate most environmental concerns. The vast majority of green groups fully support HSR, despite whatever the "Washington Examiner" has to say about it. These "green" laws didn't show up yesterday. In many cases they've been on the books for decades. Why should they suddenly be sidestepped now? If the CAHSR project is killed it will be due to the arbitrary December 31, 2012 cut-off for federal funding, which has absolutely NOTHING to do with "green" laws or "green" issues or "green groups" of any sort. Full stop.
 
Living in the DC area I'm familiar with The Examiner. IMHO it is a step above the NY Post... barely. So I don't take it too seriously.
 
Has there been any update on the legislative side of things lately?
A couple of days ago there was an article on the LA Times to the effect that the Senate vote to approve the sale of the bonds for CAHSR was going to be very close to get the 21 required. They must have the approval by July 1st. Jerry Brown, Ray LaHood, the FRA , the Unions are twisting Senators arms as hard as they can to get the approval.
 
It appears this 'Green' project is going to be done in by 'Green' laws or issues. Washington Examiner: California High Speed Rail is Dead
That's an odd way to put it. There is little chance that an EIS would derail the CAHSR project all on its own, in fact this is exactly the sort of project that should be able to legally mitigate most environmental concerns. The vast majority of green groups fully support HSR, despite whatever the "Washington Examiner" has to say about it. These "green" laws didn't show up yesterday. In many cases they've been on the books for decades. Why should they suddenly be sidestepped now? If the CAHSR project is killed it will be due to the arbitrary December 31, 2012 cut-off for federal funding, which has absolutely NOTHING to do with "green" laws or "green" issues or "green groups" of any sort. Full stop.
There are plenty of people trying to use the environmental laws to stop the Calif HSR. Teh whole problem with the environmental laws as implemented is that they do not look at things globally. If a "significant" environmental feature is affected by the HSR project, that is a show stopper, even if the alternative would have a far greater environmental effect. That project would also have to be dealt with on its merits/demerits by itself. Those opposed to the Calif HSR that have pockets dee enough to do so fully intend to turn this into the lawyers full employment program for years to come.
 
It appears this 'Green' project is going to be done in by 'Green' laws or issues. Washington Examiner: California High Speed Rail is Dead
That's an odd way to put it. There is little chance that an EIS would derail the CAHSR project all on its own, in fact this is exactly the sort of project that should be able to legally mitigate most environmental concerns. The vast majority of green groups fully support HSR, despite whatever the "Washington Examiner" has to say about it. These "green" laws didn't show up yesterday. In many cases they've been on the books for decades. Why should they suddenly be sidestepped now? If the CAHSR project is killed it will be due to the arbitrary December 31, 2012 cut-off for federal funding, which has absolutely NOTHING to do with "green" laws or "green" issues or "green groups" of any sort. Full stop.
There are plenty of people trying to use the environmental laws to stop the Calif HSR. Teh whole problem with the environmental laws as implemented is that they do not look at things globally. If a "significant" environmental feature is affected by the HSR project, that is a show stopper, even if the alternative would have a far greater environmental effect. That project would also have to be dealt with on its merits/demerits by itself. Those opposed to the Calif HSR that have pockets dee enough to do so fully intend to turn this into the lawyers full employment program for years to come.
 

And even where something isn't a show-stopper, those EIS rules add years to projects. Look at virtually any project scoping report, and you'll often see between a third (for a major project) to far over half (for a smaller one) of the time swallowed up in studies. The frustration here comes from the fact that this isn't engineering work (I do understand the delays involved there), but basically "studies to allow further studies" in some cases.

 

Not only that, but IIRC the exemption that was being sought for CAHSR was only to disallow minor deficiencies in the study from being showstoppers. Basically, it was only going to require that a suit have to actually show harm rather than just a technical deficiency to stall things.
 
Copied from Trainorders:

The California Assembly, on a 51 to 27 vote, today approved, in S.B. 1029, more than $8 billion in state rail bond funds and federal funds to start construction of high-speed rail. The project plan includes the 130 miles of new alignment in the Central Valley between Madera and Bakersfield, as well as work on the urban ends of the line, San Francisco-San Jose and Palmdale-Los Angeles-Anaheim, including Caltrain electrification. The state bonds were approved by more than 2/3 of the State Legislature in 2008 and by 53 percent of the voters in November 2008 with Proposition 1A. The state bonds will generally be repaid from transportation revenues, including truck taxes and gas taxes, rather than the General Fund. $3.2 billion of the amount was made available by the federal government. Another $4 billion in state bond funds remains available for future construction, and the state’s plan relies on substantial future funding to continue construction. The Senate votes on Friday. The high-speed rail project is a top priority for Governor Brown.
 
Looks like the Senate vote will be today! Looks like 6 Democrats are on the fence about this. If you live in California its crucial to call your state senator today!

Christine Kehoe (San Diego)

Noreen Evans (Santa Rosa)

Michael Rubio (Bakersfield)

Curren Price (Los Angeles)

Jean Fuller (Bakersfield)

Bob Huff (Walnut-LA County)

Lou Correa (Santa Ana)

Loni Hancock (Berkeley)

Gloria Negrete McLeod (San Bernardino)

Leland Yee (San Francisco)

Fran Pavley (Santa Monica)

Wish I could call, but I don't live in California.
 
Looks like the Senate vote will be today! Looks like 6 Democrats are on the fence about this. If you live in California its crucial to call your state senator today!

Christine Kehoe (San Diego)

Noreen Evans (Santa Rosa)

Michael Rubio (Bakersfield)

Curren Price (Los Angeles)

Jean Fuller (Bakersfield)

Bob Huff (Walnut-LA County)

Lou Correa (Santa Ana)

Loni Hancock (Berkeley)

Gloria Negrete McLeod (San Bernardino)

Leland Yee (San Francisco)

Fran Pavley (Santa Monica)

Wish I could call, but I don't live in California.
You don't need to live in California to call. You just need to be willing to donate to the campaign(s) of whoever you're interested in lobbying. Now, more than ever, money speaks louder than registered voters.
 
Here is the article from SacBee on the assembly vote.

I suppose now we could start a thread on "The California High Speed Rail to be DOA is DOA"? :lol:
Close, but not quite. The Senate has yet to vote and the headcount seems to make the 21 votes necessary a VERY close vote.
Right. If the Senate votes it down then we can go for the "The California High Speed Rail to be DOA is DOA is DOA thread" :lol:
 
According to the posts at the California High Speed Rail Blog, the CA HSR project passed the state Senate on a 21-16 vote. IT LIVES!

DOA? Not quite.
 
Here is the article from SacBee on the assembly vote.

I suppose now we could start a thread on "The California High Speed Rail to be DOA is DOA"? :lol:
Close, but not quite. The Senate has yet to vote and the headcount seems to make the 21 votes necessary a VERY close vote.
Right. If the Senate votes it down then we can go for the "The California High Speed Rail to be DOA is DOA is DOA thread"

:lol:
They voted it up six minutes ago 21-16, bare majority, you can take off one DOA! :D : :D ::D:D
 
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Nothing will ever come out of this. More gestures and wasting tax payers money.

Either start building or dont ever build one at all. stop wasting money and time.
 
This is good news in my view and I'm very glad to hear it. The honest truth is that it's been one hell of a negative week for me and any little bit of positive news is very, very welcome. I'm still not sure why some folks here are so against this project. I guess they want free multi-billion dollar improvements paid for with pennies from heaven. Personally I see lots of potential mistakes and pitfalls with this system, as I'm sure anyone would with a project of this magnitude, but that's still not preventing me from supporting it at this time. Flawed though it may be, this project in California was the one and only true HSR development left standing after America's mass transit wars knocked out multiple HSR projects over the last couple years. This has been a surprisingly dark era for what many had hoped would be the long delayed dawn of HSR here in the US. There may come a time to curse and trash this project, but that day is not today. Today we hope for a better future and watch with great anticipation of what may come tomorrow.
 
This is good news in my view and I'm very glad to hear it. The honest truth is that it's been one hell of a negative week for me and any little bit of positive news is very, very welcome. I'm still not sure why some folks here are so against this project. I guess they want free multi-billion dollar improvements paid for with pennies from heaven. Personally I see lots of potential mistakes and pitfalls with this system, as I'm sure anyone would with a project of this magnitude, but that's still not preventing me from supporting it at this time. Flawed though it may be, this project in California was the one and only true HSR development left standing after America's mass transit wars knocked out multiple HSR projects over the last couple years. This has been a surprisingly dark era for what many had hoped would be the long delayed dawn of HSR here in the US. There may come a time to curse and trash this project, but that day is not today. Today we hope for a better future and watch with great anticipation of what may come tomorrow.
Thank you, couldn't have said it better. All large projects take a lot of time, engineering up front is far better that in the middle.
 
This is good news in my view and I'm very glad to hear it. The honest truth is that it's been one hell of a negative week for me and any little bit of positive news is very, very welcome. I'm still not sure why some folks here are so against this project. I guess they want free multi-billion dollar improvements paid for with pennies from heaven. Personally I see lots of potential mistakes and pitfalls with this system, as I'm sure anyone would with a project of this magnitude, but that's still not preventing me from supporting it at this time. Flawed though it may be, this project in California was the one and only true HSR development left standing after America's mass transit wars knocked out multiple HSR projects over the last couple years. This has been a surprisingly dark era for what many had hoped would be the long delayed dawn of HSR here in the US. There may come a time to curse and trash this project, but that day is not today. Today we hope for a better future and watch with great anticipation of what may come tomorrow.
Well said. +1
 
According to the posts at the California High Speed Rail Blog, the CA HSR project passed the state Senate on a 21-16 vote. IT LIVES!

DOA? Not quite.
And now we hear the sound of $68 BILLION Toilets flushing at the same time!
no worse than the many hundred billion toilet flushes that have happened and continue to do so on various other programs, including many other transportation programs. Just imagine without those toilet flushes in the past we would not have a interstate highways system, an air traffic control system, electrified Pennsylvania Railroad etc. etc. etc. Why would one want such a world to live in?
 
It would be different if it were actually going to be high speed, like what voters approved. But the unions will say "Well, we can't stop now". Flying will still be faster.
 
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