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Re: High-speed rail critic involved in heinous conspiracy to tell the truth?
Author: BOB2
Date: 08-31-2016 - 13:59
It's an interesting aspersion you seem to suggest, which may say more about you, than me.
I have been following the CHSRA fiasco, as a paid professional assigned to monitor it, an advocate for rail, and as a retired planner, who in also a citizen and taxpayer, for about 20 years. I have been to countless meetings on the CHSRA since almost its very inception. It is now, and was then, a farce in the "planning", travel demand analysis, modeling, economic assumptions, costs, ridership forecasts, revenues, technology choices, stemming from poor leadership and management, with essentially no real accountability.
It was a farce, that is, until the voters approved putting the taxpayers on the hook for 10 billion in bonds to "build" "it", and the Federal government made the politically directed mistake of thinking that responsible folks were in charge of this, and gave us the HSIPP funds. These "precious" HSIPP "high speed and intercity passenger program" funds were requested by Governor Arnold Scharzenegger, as part of the stimulus.
Then this "farce" became a tragedy, when the Governor ignored the request of over a billion dollars for the local rail passenger corridor infrastructure projects, that were truly "shovel ready", already on funding priority lists, cleared, and many which are still waiting to be built, today, and refused to submit any for funding. Later Caltrans would actually claim in public that no other funds were requested except High Speed, a bald faced lie, as I was at the meetings with this person when those requests were, in fact, made, and submitted.
That's when I went from someone who actually supported the bonds and voted for them, being a professional that assumed that adults would be put in charge, real planning done, and projects funded based on a sound operating and business plan, and prioritized by incremental utility, consistent with such a sound plan.
Well, golly jee, guess what happened at the CHSRA, once the taxpayer trough was filled, the hogs were at it.....and any sound recommendations for straightening out much of the poor work in planning this fiasco, by Kopp and cronies, was ignored in the contracting feeding frenzy that ensued, to build this first vital HSR project segment, from nowhere to nowhere.
When I looked at the state of our economy (back then and still?), and all of the jobs that could have been generated more quickly, and all of the improvements we would be enjoying on our current services from improved reliability, safety, and efficiency. That's when I became outraged.... a long time before any switch from an early connection to LA, but that does make for a good "conspiracy theory" about my secret motivations, don't it?
There is still no real plan on how to finish this "high speed" line from "nowhere to nowhere", there is no funding, there is no real cost estimate, there is no real engineering over most of it, there is still no realistic operating plan or business plan that would meet the any serious test of credulity.
And, finally, you are actually right about one thing, much of this is really about access to the urban cores, and between them, on our overcrowded 60 year old freeways, built for urban areas with half the population density as we already have. Aside from your motivational analysis of me, you get at least one question right on my Transportation Planning 400 final exam.
Yeah, I do stick up for the 60% of Californian's being ignored and short changed in the South, but who will see their taxes taken to pay for it none the less, while they are sitting in the worst congestion in the nation, what of it? As a matter of fact, I'm even kind of pissed off about it myself, maybe that's because I'm one of them?
I have been following the CHSRA fiasco, as a paid professional assigned to monitor it, an advocate for rail, and as a retired planner, who in also a citizen and taxpayer, for about 20 years. I have been to countless meetings on the CHSRA since almost its very inception. It is now, and was then, a farce in the "planning", travel demand analysis, modeling, economic assumptions, costs, ridership forecasts, revenues, technology choices, stemming from poor leadership and management, with essentially no real accountability.
It was a farce, that is, until the voters approved putting the taxpayers on the hook for 10 billion in bonds to "build" "it", and the Federal government made the politically directed mistake of thinking that responsible folks were in charge of this, and gave us the HSIPP funds. These "precious" HSIPP "high speed and intercity passenger program" funds were requested by Governor Arnold Scharzenegger, as part of the stimulus.
Then this "farce" became a tragedy, when the Governor ignored the request of over a billion dollars for the local rail passenger corridor infrastructure projects, that were truly "shovel ready", already on funding priority lists, cleared, and many which are still waiting to be built, today, and refused to submit any for funding. Later Caltrans would actually claim in public that no other funds were requested except High Speed, a bald faced lie, as I was at the meetings with this person when those requests were, in fact, made, and submitted.
That's when I went from someone who actually supported the bonds and voted for them, being a professional that assumed that adults would be put in charge, real planning done, and projects funded based on a sound operating and business plan, and prioritized by incremental utility, consistent with such a sound plan.
Well, golly jee, guess what happened at the CHSRA, once the taxpayer trough was filled, the hogs were at it.....and any sound recommendations for straightening out much of the poor work in planning this fiasco, by Kopp and cronies, was ignored in the contracting feeding frenzy that ensued, to build this first vital HSR project segment, from nowhere to nowhere.
When I looked at the state of our economy (back then and still?), and all of the jobs that could have been generated more quickly, and all of the improvements we would be enjoying on our current services from improved reliability, safety, and efficiency. That's when I became outraged.... a long time before any switch from an early connection to LA, but that does make for a good "conspiracy theory" about my secret motivations, don't it?
There is still no real plan on how to finish this "high speed" line from "nowhere to nowhere", there is no funding, there is no real cost estimate, there is no real engineering over most of it, there is still no realistic operating plan or business plan that would meet the any serious test of credulity.
And, finally, you are actually right about one thing, much of this is really about access to the urban cores, and between them, on our overcrowded 60 year old freeways, built for urban areas with half the population density as we already have. Aside from your motivational analysis of me, you get at least one question right on my Transportation Planning 400 final exam.
Yeah, I do stick up for the 60% of Californian's being ignored and short changed in the South, but who will see their taxes taken to pay for it none the less, while they are sitting in the worst congestion in the nation, what of it? As a matter of fact, I'm even kind of pissed off about it myself, maybe that's because I'm one of them?
