Let the [blame] games begin !

How ironic that it came first from Mr. Eminence himself, Quentin Kopp,

who is directly responsible for screwing up almost every single transportation project the Bay Area ever had - almost single handed! Being the only independent member of the legislature, he somehow managed to play both sides; and could apply all sorts of pressure to anyone and anything - mostly to do it "His way or else". And his way was almost always the wrong way. Most notable before the great CHSRA fiasco, was E-BART planning, caltrans handling of the peninsula commute, the absurd BART / Airport people mover setup at at SFO; and on and on (but space and time do not permit).

Thanks to him, passengers from the peninsula to SFO must transfer twice, 1st from CalTrain to BART, then from BART to SFO AirTram, to get to the terminal 90% fly out of. A serious loss of ridership is the natural result of this idiocy.

Those arriving via BART have to endure an unnecessary 11 miles of noisy claustrophobic BART subway, thanks to the State imposed (Kopp) requirement to put BART's 11 mile SFO extension underground; a grand absurdity, given that there were already two very suitable existing rail rightofways available to choose from, that would have required little grading, let alone cut and cover subway. This added over $100 million per mile to the cost.

The resultant excessive cost of the airport line then caused the FEDs (FTA) to rightly balk. But instead of cutting costs, the State (Kopp) sold us out, brokering a deal with the airline lobby for their help in getting a congressional override. The price - a royalty charge paid by BART to the Airport for every passenger into SFO, thus a surcharge of $2 to $3 on every ticket in or out of SFO. Between the claustrophobic subway and the surcharge, ridership has been dismal from that direction too.

The original plan for the Airport Station called for the expansion of the SFO Airport Parking area over the freeway to the CalTrain tracks, where a joint CalTrain / BART station was to be built into one of the high rise parking structures. From that joint station, passengers would take the SFO AirTram directly to their terminal, much as they still have to do today from the International terminal. It would have cost $150 million less and been much more convenient; but thanks to his direct vociferous intervention bordering upon tantrum, that plan was scuttled.

Speaking of ridiculous unnecessary transfers, passengers from East Contra Costa are going to have to transfer to a real BART train at West Pittsburg, because some ignorant politician (guess who) demanded (way back when) that those new BART tracks be built to the wrong gauge to match BART as it already is. And are we saving money by using an incompatible track? NOPE - not one thin dime. E-BART in the middle of the freeway is taking $350 million per mile - more than BART itself would have cost. And no one now seems to have the cahones to reverse that stupidity - I've asked!

There are dozens more examples I could give of political interference by this man. It was never a surprise to me, that the CHSRA project ended up going south - since he managed to get himself appointed to head it up. Of course though, with CHSRA he had even more help - from certain San Jose politicians - themselves none too bright.

As to sale of CHSRA bond moneys, Lockyer has already publicly declared that they are unsaleable. His reason - No more California general obligation bonds for any purpose can be sold, as these must be paid back out of the general budget. And there is no budget money available to do that with, much of the budget already taken out of the hands of the legislature by the initiative process.

Not even revenue bonds could be sold, because that would require expected revenue to exceed expected operating costs. And nobody on Earth believes that will ever happen anywhere in the world, let alone in this loony-bin state; except for Mr. Kopp and his minions.

Nope! HSR in not going to happen in California - Though "higher speed" on mostly existing r.o.w. might; but only if @&%#@ politicians such as Quentin Kopp get out of the way - and stay out.

OPB