CPR: Reality may finally be catching up with the vision – or pipedream – of a 200-mile-per-hour train connecting California’s northern and southern regions.
A few weeks ago, the High-Speed Rail Authority released its latest “business plan” that was supposed to tell Californians how the brief stretch of track now being constructed in the San Joaquin Valley can grow into a system stretching from San Francisco and Sacramento in the north to Los Angeles and San Diego in the south.
While the latest version of the plan, drafted by the latest of several management teams, appears to be more realistic about cost and construction schedules than its predecessors, it’s still sorely deficient, as its official reviewers pointed out last week during a legislative hearing.
After a decade-plus of cogitation, they said, the state still doesn’t have a complete scenario for raising the tens of billions of dollars it would take to extend the San Joaquin section into the San Francisco Bay Area via San Jose and southward to Los Angeles.
The plan suggests that the northward extension, which is the first priority, might be built with a bond issue backed by the project’s dedicated share of revenues from the state’s “cap-and-trade” auctions of greenhouse gas emission allowances.
And then, it continues, there would be an operable segment that would generate revenues from riders that could be used to finance the southward extension.
However, the plan contains caveats for the scheme to work, such as extending cap-and-trade from its current end date, 2030, to 2050, and offering lenders some guarantees to back up the notoriously volatile emission auctions. more here
There’s a simple solution to this problem. More gas taxes.
Jerry Brown has never been one to let reality, logic, or the constitution get in his way.
Didn’t cap and trade fail to bring in as much money as they thought? This project will be one of the biggest boondoggles in history. People won’t ride it even if it gets finished. Only thugs and illegals will be riding and they don’t pay.
“Notoriously volatile” sums up the entire liberal movement, agenda, and players.
What da fook is it about liberals and trains???
A 200mph train, huh? They can’t even keep the current 50mph trains on their tracks; what makes them think they can do better with a 200mph one? All the jobs will be distributed via affirmative action, so you will have double-digit-IQ, gang-tatted drug abusers driving the train, so what could possibly go wrong?
They could try using that money from the lawyers for illegals fund.
No wait. That’s just crazy talk.
So 30 years from now CA can have a 200 mph train from L.A. to SF, maybe. Think technology may have superseded that by then???
I mean the Hyperloop is only a few years away, right? 😉
I can see it now…
A bunch of illegal Guatemalans climb on top of THAT train by mistake.
Given the official California govt aversion to anything to do with guns, I’m surprised they’re still calling it the bullet train. There’s other stuff that goes fast…
The projectile vomit train
The teenage boy orgasm train
The SJW shouting “Racist!” after hearing “niggard” train
The politician money grabbing train
Wake up California this socialist .http://dailycaller.com/2018/04/15/california-gas-tax-hike/
I’m hoping for a 200 mph bullet train right into Gov. Moonbeam’s skull.
Right about liberals aversion to the word “bullet”. I believe the Washington Bullets of the NBA were forced to change the team name to the Washington Wizards, a name that would not offend anyone except maybe Christians, whose opinions no longer count to marketing sluts and their God-awful stupid slogans and marketing schemes.
With all the money they are spending on this boondoggle they could give vouchers to every illegal in Cali for 1 round trip flight per day for life from LAX to SFO.
This is what libtards do so well, they solve problems that don’t exist with other people’s money. Nobody in this state is going to take a train when it will be cheaper and faster to fly. A typically dumbass idea from the steaming piles of dung in Sacramento. Unfortunately just over half the morons in this state fell for this garbage idea and voted for it. SMMFH.
The bullet train tracks will make a lovely terrorist target. They do not even need explosives to damage the tracks or block them for a catastrophic derailment. I would NEVER ride it.
Braden, good point. Also, the train will need as much security as airports. Add 2 more hours, at least, to the trip between LA and SF on the so-called bullet train.
Just another goofy and costly liberal idea. Nice going, Brown.