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Re: CA HSR Update-Planning History and Plan B.....?
Author: BOB2
Date: 08-21-2018 - 16:58
I was sent to some of the very first the first meetings, and reviewed much of earliest "planning" for this misbegotten cluster-f#ck, way back in '95, and before that the utter nonsense coming out of "Project California", from which the "runaway money train" was born. So unfortunately, I do know much of the real history of the dubious planning behind the CHSRA, all too well.
There was never any real or rigorous O&D analysis, nor any real alternative analysis process done, or required, even for the USDOT-FRA funds (which would have been required of any other highway, transit, or even some federally funded State rail projects).
As a planner and economist who managed the largest all day "observed" vehicle freeway travel behavior/O&D survey in the US, I saw almost all of what the CHSRA tried to "pass off" as their so-called "demand" "analysis" which was used to justify this bloated costly fiasco.
My favorite CHSRA "demand" "survey" was the one CHSRA had conducted of air passengers at LAX and SFO right after the "shoe bomber" incident, where they asked folks taking their shoes off, if they'd prefer a magical choo-choo to whisk them away in "about" the same travel time (lie). And would you believe it, low and behold, many actually said yes. I suggested at the time I heard this, that if they had offered to have Scotty "beam them up" to the Enterprise, they'd probably have said "yes" too...
It's been bull$#it planning from DAY ONE, and it wasn't ever anything but politicians (Kopp, Pringle....) having "visions" from DAY ONE, either.... And, as the great philosopher George Carlin often noted: "it's bull$#it and it's bad for you...."
Plan B....? We go back in a time machine, and take away their drugs away, before they start having so many "visions"...…? Nah, can't do that, can we?
How about we stop the damage, before more is done, and more money wasted and start spending our scarce taxpayer dollars on projects and/or project components that meet real needs, while we do a "forensic" review of what we've wasted and/or committed to waste, to see if it can be "salvaged" for use in an "affordable" (to build, operate, ride on, and maintain)rail passenger network that would actually meet some of our real inter-regional travel needs?
There was never any real or rigorous O&D analysis, nor any real alternative analysis process done, or required, even for the USDOT-FRA funds (which would have been required of any other highway, transit, or even some federally funded State rail projects).
As a planner and economist who managed the largest all day "observed" vehicle freeway travel behavior/O&D survey in the US, I saw almost all of what the CHSRA tried to "pass off" as their so-called "demand" "analysis" which was used to justify this bloated costly fiasco.
My favorite CHSRA "demand" "survey" was the one CHSRA had conducted of air passengers at LAX and SFO right after the "shoe bomber" incident, where they asked folks taking their shoes off, if they'd prefer a magical choo-choo to whisk them away in "about" the same travel time (lie). And would you believe it, low and behold, many actually said yes. I suggested at the time I heard this, that if they had offered to have Scotty "beam them up" to the Enterprise, they'd probably have said "yes" too...
It's been bull$#it planning from DAY ONE, and it wasn't ever anything but politicians (Kopp, Pringle....) having "visions" from DAY ONE, either.... And, as the great philosopher George Carlin often noted: "it's bull$#it and it's bad for you...."
Plan B....? We go back in a time machine, and take away their drugs away, before they start having so many "visions"...…? Nah, can't do that, can we?
How about we stop the damage, before more is done, and more money wasted and start spending our scarce taxpayer dollars on projects and/or project components that meet real needs, while we do a "forensic" review of what we've wasted and/or committed to waste, to see if it can be "salvaged" for use in an "affordable" (to build, operate, ride on, and maintain)rail passenger network that would actually meet some of our real inter-regional travel needs?
