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Re: Will Adriana Gianturco return to inaugurate....
Author: OldPoleBurner
Date: 11-04-2010 - 01:21
Adriana Gianturco's heart may or may not have been in the right place. But neither Caltrans nor her had any particular positive effect on California passenger railroading. By the end of her term, we had not much of anything to show for it - other than medflys and moonbeams. The so-called Spirit of California was started and stopped by Gov. Dukmagian, not the Brown administration.
Besides, she was thoroughly incompetent in governing the "highway department" as well - and we've had crappy roads ever since to prove it. It was during her term that California started closing selected country roads rather than to fix them after storms.
While Caltrans did start the Capital services and took over the SP commute (only because they were forced to), they promptly ran both into the ground. The SP commute lost almost have its ridership in those years, and Caltrans kept threatening to shut down the two capitals as a "failed experiment".
It wasn't until "Joint Powers Boards" were formed to provide independent subsidies, who then formed Caltrain as its own entity, and assigned the management of the Capital Corridor to BART, that these services began to flourish.
The Capital Corridor is still flourishing (ridership still increasing). Whereas, Caltrain has lost ridership (about the same rate as the regions lost jobs). But most of Caltrain's problem is again, the greedy tyrannical thieves in Sacramento that keeep on stealing local funding. So what's new.
So why be surprised - its same reason local governments everywhere are laying off cops and firemen - Sacramento. Someone once said that a sure sign of insanity, is in doing the same thing over and over; while expecting the consequences to change. So, apparently, none of us should really expect this crap from Sacto to get any better any time soon! I do believe California is a lost cause - it is ungovernable!
And as far as high speed rail or any other modern industrial enterprise goes - all we will ever get is more moonbeams and medflys. Oh I know, why don't we harness the wing power of those medflys (they had a large wing to body mass ratio) to levitate those trains! Maybe there's hope yet!
OPB
Besides, she was thoroughly incompetent in governing the "highway department" as well - and we've had crappy roads ever since to prove it. It was during her term that California started closing selected country roads rather than to fix them after storms.
While Caltrans did start the Capital services and took over the SP commute (only because they were forced to), they promptly ran both into the ground. The SP commute lost almost have its ridership in those years, and Caltrans kept threatening to shut down the two capitals as a "failed experiment".
It wasn't until "Joint Powers Boards" were formed to provide independent subsidies, who then formed Caltrain as its own entity, and assigned the management of the Capital Corridor to BART, that these services began to flourish.
The Capital Corridor is still flourishing (ridership still increasing). Whereas, Caltrain has lost ridership (about the same rate as the regions lost jobs). But most of Caltrain's problem is again, the greedy tyrannical thieves in Sacramento that keeep on stealing local funding. So what's new.
So why be surprised - its same reason local governments everywhere are laying off cops and firemen - Sacramento. Someone once said that a sure sign of insanity, is in doing the same thing over and over; while expecting the consequences to change. So, apparently, none of us should really expect this crap from Sacto to get any better any time soon! I do believe California is a lost cause - it is ungovernable!
And as far as high speed rail or any other modern industrial enterprise goes - all we will ever get is more moonbeams and medflys. Oh I know, why don't we harness the wing power of those medflys (they had a large wing to body mass ratio) to levitate those trains! Maybe there's hope yet!
OPB
