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Re: Some fear California's high-speed rail won't deliver on early promises
Author: BOB2
Date: 02-28-2010 - 15:06
Like the Big Dig, some people spell PORK-PB?
We need and deserve a first class rail system, just like we needed to build the UP-CP.
We don't need to let the Credit Mobiliere steal the money to build the UP, however? And, this is, without a doubt, the most mismanaged transportation project I've ever seen. And, I've seen some real turkey's! There is no value engineering incentive in this project, the business plans and modeling are/have proven to be incompetent at best, if not deliberately fabricated, to justify building a "cost plus" gold plated system, at what will be extravagant costs and risk to the taxpayer.
We can and should use existing ROW, we should build things like all of the grade separations on LOSSAN between LA and Anaheim and run the existing trains at the 110 being proposed for this segment of the "bullet train", and we can do it at one fifth the cost this "runaway money train" has proposed, without all of the nonsense typified by the ludicrous design alternatives for Buena Park.
We should do this project right, and integrate it fully with our successful intercity rail system, and spend the money on real improvements, not on more planning contracts. But, as long as the CHSRA Board is dominated by political hacks, and they continue to hire incompetents like Mehdi, and let the consultants manage their own cost plus contracts, the waste, possible fraud, and abuse of the public funds will continue.
We've known about the Times story coming for a while, and if this forces the Governator and Legislature to "clean house" pass needed reform legislation, and put in place some semblance of adult supervision, then we might all live to see a first class rail passenger system for CA? Other nations manage to do it successfully without this degree of incompetence and political drama?
We need and deserve a first class rail system, just like we needed to build the UP-CP.
We don't need to let the Credit Mobiliere steal the money to build the UP, however? And, this is, without a doubt, the most mismanaged transportation project I've ever seen. And, I've seen some real turkey's! There is no value engineering incentive in this project, the business plans and modeling are/have proven to be incompetent at best, if not deliberately fabricated, to justify building a "cost plus" gold plated system, at what will be extravagant costs and risk to the taxpayer.
We can and should use existing ROW, we should build things like all of the grade separations on LOSSAN between LA and Anaheim and run the existing trains at the 110 being proposed for this segment of the "bullet train", and we can do it at one fifth the cost this "runaway money train" has proposed, without all of the nonsense typified by the ludicrous design alternatives for Buena Park.
We should do this project right, and integrate it fully with our successful intercity rail system, and spend the money on real improvements, not on more planning contracts. But, as long as the CHSRA Board is dominated by political hacks, and they continue to hire incompetents like Mehdi, and let the consultants manage their own cost plus contracts, the waste, possible fraud, and abuse of the public funds will continue.
We've known about the Times story coming for a while, and if this forces the Governator and Legislature to "clean house" pass needed reform legislation, and put in place some semblance of adult supervision, then we might all live to see a first class rail passenger system for CA? Other nations manage to do it successfully without this degree of incompetence and political drama?
