OPB,

It sickens me to see this kind of waste still ongoing at CHSRA, depite billions in damaged roads which need immediate repair, cost saving transit improvements, and currently designed and cleared rail projects, still unfunded. I have a colleague, formerly with one of the regional operators, who said to me, if you or I had $10 billion to spend on rail passenger in CA, we'd make this place look like Switzerland.

The sheer waste, fraud, and abuse of the Schwarzenegger-Kopp-Pringle era has resulted in a foolish segment, with no real purpose. Now, increasingly, it appears that the CHSRA is responding to addressing these failures with better PR, focus group tested, at taxpayer expense. And thus, CHSRA may not be responding to a failed planning process and flawed HSR project design, that require a substantive major overhaul to deliver a cost effective sustainable rail passenger system to meet real California travel needs.

All of this money continues to be wasted on Coalinga to Oildale, while billions of much needed, properly planned, cost effective, and operationally useful regiional and corridor rail projects sit "unfunded" in California. on lines where the trains are full.

For a while, I thought we were seeing some slight progress in changing this flawed direction. Unfortunately, from some recent things I've witnessed at very close range, it appears that much of the "happy talk" about "blended" system, usable investments, and cooperation with locals may be nothing more than putting lipstick on the pig.

BOB2