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Re: Say it ain't so Joe? "Adventures of the Runaway Money Train"
Author: synonymouse
Date: 01-21-2018 - 18:17
"known nitwit" here -
Everything about this scheme is political and designed to benefit and accommodate certain connected special interests. To wit San Jose, Fresno and Palmdale, particular. The route is second rate throughout, gerrymandered to benefit high desert real estate developers, while studiously skirting the Tejon Ranch, the champion NIMBY in California, a pet special interest which spurns HSR as a dangerous potential blight on its vast property holdings. And of course San Jose, to which all roads must lead, directly.
From its inception this thing was meant to be mostly financed by the deep pockets of the federal government. But not even the Obama government was that enthused about it after opposition emerged all along the proposed route. Ironically the Donald might have come up with some more money if the scheme weren't so botched. He is not from the anti-rail transit generation, which au contraire was the WWII generation that had been indoctrinated by the highway lobby in the belief that public transit was obsolete and was to be replaced with private automobiles on freeways. Ergo Ronald Reagan and Dick Nixon.
So Van Ark deserved to be canned for suggesting Tejon be revisited with a genuine objective study not hamstrung by any a priori limits, like Ranch property is sacrosanct?
Everything about this scheme is political and designed to benefit and accommodate certain connected special interests. To wit San Jose, Fresno and Palmdale, particular. The route is second rate throughout, gerrymandered to benefit high desert real estate developers, while studiously skirting the Tejon Ranch, the champion NIMBY in California, a pet special interest which spurns HSR as a dangerous potential blight on its vast property holdings. And of course San Jose, to which all roads must lead, directly.
From its inception this thing was meant to be mostly financed by the deep pockets of the federal government. But not even the Obama government was that enthused about it after opposition emerged all along the proposed route. Ironically the Donald might have come up with some more money if the scheme weren't so botched. He is not from the anti-rail transit generation, which au contraire was the WWII generation that had been indoctrinated by the highway lobby in the belief that public transit was obsolete and was to be replaced with private automobiles on freeways. Ergo Ronald Reagan and Dick Nixon.
So Van Ark deserved to be canned for suggesting Tejon be revisited with a genuine objective study not hamstrung by any a priori limits, like Ranch property is sacrosanct?
