George Andrews Wrote:
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> Looking at the vehicles on 210, still a majority
> of American makes. Several Datsun pickups visible
> and only a few econoboxes; the Japanese invasion
> had not yet taken hold.
> It still perplexes me that Pete Wilson, when
> mayor of San Diego, would champion the " San Diego
> Trolley ", and yet later as Governer turn down the
> dirt - cheap purchase of Espee's Coast Line.

Pete Wilson was not really that big of a supporter. So I am always surprised by the amount of credit Pete seems to get just for "being there"... Pete was largely useless in any support for Amtrak, or that much more supportive for local projects on LOSSAN in the US Senate. Pete was a big lobbying target during Reagan's attempt to shut down Amtrak, but was considered a "lost vote"... Pete's support was "tepid" at best, in "me too" "support", and when getting "credit" for this project. As Gpvernor he mostly supported the major freeway projects and widenings, and opposed most new rail/transit project funding in his budgets.

It was really the late State Senator Jim Mills who got the MTC going. He just recently passed away.

Jim Mills Passing San Diego Union Tribune

I consider the failure to take Anschutz up on his offer, the biggest State rail/multimodal failure, that I saw up close and first hand in my career.

I did a number of studies on widening 101 from the Hollywood Freeway to Topanga Canyon, and the cost to properly rebuild just the 101/405 interchange, to eliminate the center merge weave and construct a flyover connection (on pontoons basicallly because of the super high water table there and earthquake liquifaction) came in at nearly a billion dollars alone in 2004.

We did a cantilever design (on "outriggers" as poontoons for the same water table/earthquake engineering reasons), over the LA River to avoid the costs (and nimby insanity it would involve) or right of way takes, by using "air rights" over the adjacent LA River, and on just the segment from the 134 to the 405 the costs to add basically one lane and proper transition lanes between ramps, came in at over a billion dollars, as well.

So the cost buying the entire Coast Line, at that fantastic price, and of putting in a Brighline level of service passenger operation, as was envisioned by Neil Petersen, on the Coast would have been, and still is, much less costly on a marginal cost per "seat miles" traveled basis than the multi-billion dollar costs of 101 widening between LA and San Jose to accomodate the same "seat miles" of travel demand in the corridor.

These are American examples of the kind of cost "factors" and demand "factors" "trade offs" we should be using in the US. That even though different from some of the urban design and cost factors in Europe, that still clearly favors a higher level of investment and services, on and in rail systems in the United States. This is especially true on routes that would be very successful time/cost competitive investment alternative, and a less costly/time competive "user" choice, in places like the 101 corridor on the coast of California.

So yeah, it's a shame that we don't look at these things from this more comprehensive scope, and let this "bargain of the century" to buy the Coast Line for $400 million pass.