Train pushers vs. farmers? No contest.
Down in California, they're ready to pave over some nice farmland to build a high-speed train from Merced to Fresno. A what? From where to where?
Wait 'til this comes to the Willamette Valley, as it will eventually -- should be quite a political bloodbath. No doubt Ted Wheeler and CH2M Hill will be there to provide the "innovative financing structure" for this "vital infrastructure."
| Posted at 10:00 PM | Permalink |
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Comments (7)
Fresno to Merced means a fast commute for all the UC faculty to commute from Fresno and the even uglier Merced to get to the new UC branch campus. Maybe a few students too. Such a waste
Posted by Mrfearless47 | November 18, 2012 11:44 PM
Don't worry, it'll be run by a nonprofit, like RACC, the Portland Streetcar, and the Portland Family of Funds. What could go wrong?
Posted by Garage Wine | November 19, 2012 6:58 AM
A high-speed rail line route between LA and the Bay Area/Sacramento that didn't go near Merced and Fresno might be worthy of comment.
Posted by Allan L. | November 19, 2012 7:23 AM
Didn't the construction of I-5 pave over some nice farmland too?
Posted by Mag | November 19, 2012 9:42 AM
Don't worry. ODOT is busy trying to sell rebuilding the old Oregon Electric Railway as a high speed rail line - including a route through downtown Milwaukie and Lake Oswego, destroying Tualatin Community Park in the process, and running down the middle of streets in Salem, Albany, and Junction City before reaching Eugene.
On top of it, ODOT is actually alleging that it'll be cheaper to build HSR on this route, than to make a few, small, incremental upgrades to the existing Union Pacific route that already hosts six Amtrak trains a day (three each direction) - one report I've read said that it'll be cheaper to install signals on the OE than on the UP, never mind the signals ALREADY EXIST on the UP and the OE has no signals at all!
Posted by Erik H. | November 19, 2012 11:09 AM
The morons who are in charge in CA won't be satisfied until the State is dead broke. Even then, they'll still be begging for money and coming up with stupid ways to spend it. That state is probably past help at this point.
Posted by Andy | November 19, 2012 6:43 PM
Does anyone else have a problem with the cost of this thing? $68B would buy over 194 million airline round trip tickets from SFO to LAX, retail pricing booking 3 days in advance. And you'd get there faster. Causing less pollution.
Does anyone really think this thing will only cost $68B? Oh, and what's the debt service on that? Annual operating expense?
By the time they're done building it, it's going to be well over $150B with debt service added in, and it still won't be as good, as fast, or as cheap as the air service we already have.
Posted by MachineShedFred | November 21, 2012 6:58 AM