BOB2 Wrote:
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> As much as I've criticized the failures and gross
> overdesign of the CHSRA, many of these comments
> seem to come from at least a few folks who
> couldn't engineer their way out of a wet paper
> bag. It has been my experience that those who
> seem to be good a sowing ignorance with cheap
> gainsay don't ever accomplish much or fix
> anything, anywhere, at anytime? But it does make
> for amusing reading.

Won't claim to be an expert, but my first job out of college was on a 4-R project rehabbing the Rock Island RR mainline from Memphis, TN to El Reno, OK. Looks like $'s wasted. Haven't been back there since around late '76, but Google seems to show that, at best, a couple of short lines maybe using portions of the re-built trackwork. Also helped build the CTA's Blue Line Extension to O'Hare Airport. Some high tech there, given constraints, ie direct fixation trackwork under the Terminals. After some 35 +/- years the extension is still doing slow if yeoman work, except for the odd occasion when a train decides it wants to climb the escalator.
>
> Several folks did hit on good points. Since there
> was never any "needs" or "cost benefit" based
> planning done to develop a rational and cost
> effective set of alternatives for a high speed
> passenger system, and CHSRA is still flailing
> around to meet poorly defined and conflicting
> goals, without good underlying planning, these
> things will continue to plague this needed but
> mismanaged project. Thank you Quentin Kopp, you
> useless thieving political eunuch.... for your
> brilliant "visionary" leadership on this.
>
> Now, as to the usual nattering nabobs of
> negativism, what is your solution? Because my
> freeways urban, suburban, and rural seem to suck,
> don't seem to be getting any better,

Here, you have nobody to blame but your fellow citizens. Most people want to live where they can afford to live, ideally near their jobs, which usually means suburbs, with their 1/4 acre lots, strip malls and crappy highway infrastructures. You can go the Chairman Mao route, with a mass upheaval of citizens, but, as Mao ultimately showed this doesn't work.

> and if you expect real alternatives, a growing economy, and
> good jobs,

From what I have read about California, the "growing economy" out there basically consists of software engineering positions with Google, Facebook, Apple and etc; basically excluding the large majority of citizens who don't qualify for these positions. If you want a solid economy, you're going to have to come up with well paying work that employs John Doe, average citizen. Machine shops, assembly lines, etc. All that icky post war 1950's stuff that once upon a time made the US economy great.

then it would seem that whining about
> what others are trying to do, is pretty useless,
> unless you have a better idea?

No better idea, there probably isn't one, but...
don't pretend that HSR is going to grow the economy out there. It won't. Sure, for a few years, low/middle class construction dudes will get some work building the thing, and a lesser amount will have jobs maintaining the thing, but don't pretend that it will be a boost to the economy. It won't. The people who could afford to use the system, may use it, if they don't use the phone/internet instead. John Doe, average citizen, he won't be able to afford it.