Re: What happened with California HSR?
Author: Dr Zarkoff
Date: 11-05-2008 - 21:11
>Dr Zarkoff is a completly stupid. He wrote (incorrectly):
>-------------------------------------------------------
Oh boy, another poster in dire need of taking Subject A.
>> Talk about pouring money down a rathole. BARTD
>> started out with directors appointed by the
>> Governor,
>WRONG BART orginally had 12 directors, 4 from each of the three member counties. Alameda & Contra Costa's directors were appointed by the Board of Supervisors, I'm not sure how SF's were appointed, (Mayor? Supervisors? combination of both?)
OK fine, appointed by the county supes or mayor, a minor detail compared to the main point, which is that they didn't stand for election until the public perceived a big waste of money.
> but frittered away so much money it lost
> all credibility with the taxpayers.
>If they lost so much credibility from the voters then why did they recieve 0ver 60% of the vote (in all 3 counties) when the orginal plan was appoved by the voters?
Subject A again. I clearly indicated that the change came after the money had been frittered away, which could happen only after, not before, the election approving the original plan. B. S., excuse me Billy Ray, Stokes was one of the problems.
>> So the law
>> authorizing BARTD was amended by the initiative
>> process to make the directors stand for election.
>The law was amended by the state legislature, at the request of the 3 counties to create an independent agencys with an independent governoring board of directors.
How many agencies? Or is it one agency with a governing board, which is now elected by wards instead of being appointed?
>> If you were ever exposed to the inefficiencies and
>> over-layering of the BARTD buracracy, you'd be
>> absolutely appalled.
>BART certainly has it's problems, but I doubt if the over 400,000 regular riders would agree with you.
My sources were from within BARTD, all safely retired now. One of them started there virtually at day 1. I used to visit him there before the system started running. If the 400 odd thousand riders ever heard any of these stories, the might not be so keen to ride it.
Before the system even started operating, one of the Westinghouse computer whizzes ran a study and figured out that the system was so complicated, that every 20 minutes there would be a major bug somewhere in some system which would bring things to a halt. He turned out to be wrong; it was every 10 minutes (MUX boxes overheating, etc.). For this study, he was fired. One or two computer systems and many layers of redundancy later, things started functioning, and this was with revenue service only from Fruitvale south. When the line to Concord opened, they suddenly discovered that the track circuits were losing trains too frequently. The mere act of turning on the fluorescent lighting in the stations [for the first time] created too much interference in the "track circuits", so along came wheel scrubbers and the SOARS [computer] system (the scrubbers are long gone). A whole second (or possibly 3rd) layer of management came with the GM who was imported from SEPTA 25 or 30 years ago, and on and on.
>> HSR will suffer a similar
>> fate (at your wallet's expense too). The SNCF is
>> part of France's gross national debt.
> So what's your alternative? More cars and highways?
Use the money to upgrade existing lines. The problem with going /fast/ is that maintenance skyrockets geometrically as train speed increases linearly, rapidly beyond the point of diminishing return. This "investment" will never really pay for itself without permanent tax subsidies.
The other thing is that this bond initiative has a very serious flaw: all it does is start the program. A cynical move by these HSR people, they will be back in no time at the polls banging the tin cup in order to make the system function, let alone build the fancy-dancy system they've promoted. More public transportation is needed, but not a money-sucking machine.
Another thing would be to make bureaucrats everywhere accountable for their actions.