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Re: Alternatives to CAHSR - How about just adding two lanes to I-5?
Author: BOB2
Date: 08-31-2016 - 19:36
Do you mean the one the AT&SF wanted to build via the route north of Lancaster to alleviate congestion via Mojave and reduce grades in 1917? Wouldn't that be "evil" to go via the Antelope Valley, where those "evil" developers might build housing for real people to freely buy in our capitalist free market system?
We don't live in an alternative universe. We do live in a universe where we are able to observe and measure real travel demands, and our chimp brains, when properly educated, and using good analysis, based on rational principle's, can actually build some pretty neat things, reasonably well, if we have a mind to.
How about a system designed to meet real travel demands and needs in CA? Like they are doing in Florida. How about a cost effective rail passenger "system" designed to penetrate market segments, with fast, frequent, affordable, reliable service, to relieve congestion on our impacted interurban corridors?
How about a system designed to meet those needs, without this testosterone fueled obsession to make "our" train the "fastest" train (Freud might call this fixation with being the "fastest" a substitute for the size of something else politicians might actually really be fretting over...?. How about a project that comes from a need based planning process instead of a project which has been designed without any regard to the enormous "cost is no object" bill to be paid by the beleaguered taxpayer for this fiasco?
Altamont makes exactly the most sense, a double or even triple track tunnel from where it crosses the 580 to a tie in below Jess Road would eliminate half of the most difficult part of the climb and create a straight route capable of easily 110 mph operation. If you are connecting large numbers of folks to the Bay, from the Valley.
Pacheco pass is a difficult and expensive route, which is why it was never used for a RR for 150 years prior to this. The Pacheco choice is a contractors "wet dream" (speaking of Freud) in added costs and potential change orders.
There are no shortage of good alternatives to how this money is being pissed away, but what will it take to stop the "runaway" money train, and spend some of these limited public funds, and sorely tested public support, on cost effective projects like the Union Station run through, which have real merit, improve current service, and could relieve real congestion, as opposed to chasing this dystopian Koppian "vision" that has morphed into a taxpayer nightmare.
We don't live in an alternative universe. We do live in a universe where we are able to observe and measure real travel demands, and our chimp brains, when properly educated, and using good analysis, based on rational principle's, can actually build some pretty neat things, reasonably well, if we have a mind to.
How about a system designed to meet real travel demands and needs in CA? Like they are doing in Florida. How about a cost effective rail passenger "system" designed to penetrate market segments, with fast, frequent, affordable, reliable service, to relieve congestion on our impacted interurban corridors?
How about a system designed to meet those needs, without this testosterone fueled obsession to make "our" train the "fastest" train (Freud might call this fixation with being the "fastest" a substitute for the size of something else politicians might actually really be fretting over...?. How about a project that comes from a need based planning process instead of a project which has been designed without any regard to the enormous "cost is no object" bill to be paid by the beleaguered taxpayer for this fiasco?
Altamont makes exactly the most sense, a double or even triple track tunnel from where it crosses the 580 to a tie in below Jess Road would eliminate half of the most difficult part of the climb and create a straight route capable of easily 110 mph operation. If you are connecting large numbers of folks to the Bay, from the Valley.
Pacheco pass is a difficult and expensive route, which is why it was never used for a RR for 150 years prior to this. The Pacheco choice is a contractors "wet dream" (speaking of Freud) in added costs and potential change orders.
There are no shortage of good alternatives to how this money is being pissed away, but what will it take to stop the "runaway" money train, and spend some of these limited public funds, and sorely tested public support, on cost effective projects like the Union Station run through, which have real merit, improve current service, and could relieve real congestion, as opposed to chasing this dystopian Koppian "vision" that has morphed into a taxpayer nightmare.
