California Will Not Complete $77 Billion High-Speed Rail Project (reuters.com) 392
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: California Governor Gavin Newsom said on Tuesday the state will not complete a $77.3 billion planned high-speed rail project, but will finish a smaller section of the line. "The project, as currently planned, would cost too much and take too long. There's been too little oversight and not enough transparency," Newsom said in his first State of the State Address Tuesday to lawmakers. "Right now, there simply isn't a path to get from Sacramento to San Diego, let alone from San Francisco to (Los Angeles). I wish there were," he said. Newsom said the state will complete a 110-mile (177 km) high-speed rail link between Merced and Bakersfield. In March 2018, the state forecast the costs had jumped by $13 billion to $77 billion and warned that the costs could be as much as $98.1 billion.
California planned to build a 520-mile system in the first phase that would allow trains to travel at speeds of up to 220 miles per hour in the traffic-choked state from Los Angeles to San Francisco and begin full operations by 2033. Newsom said he would not give up entirely on the effort. "Abandoning high-speed rail entirely means we will have wasted billions of dollars with nothing but broken promises and lawsuits to show for it," he said. "And by the way, I am not interested in sending $3.5 billion in federal funding that was allocated to this project back to Donald Trump."
California planned to build a 520-mile system in the first phase that would allow trains to travel at speeds of up to 220 miles per hour in the traffic-choked state from Los Angeles to San Francisco and begin full operations by 2033. Newsom said he would not give up entirely on the effort. "Abandoning high-speed rail entirely means we will have wasted billions of dollars with nothing but broken promises and lawsuits to show for it," he said. "And by the way, I am not interested in sending $3.5 billion in federal funding that was allocated to this project back to Donald Trump."
Feature not bug (Score:3, Insightful)
That's usually a feature, not a bug, in government projects. How can you pay off your buddies if people can see who's getting paid?
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This seems to be the same story in many newer projects in the US. Someone is always anxious to undercut to get the bid and then overcharge later to get the money. Proper long term project planning isn't done so that there's inevitably an "overrun" in time and money. And it makes no difference if the project is in a red or a blue state either. It makes me wonder how we ever managed to get big and complex projects done in the past.
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He just doesn't want to say that there isn't enough money, never was, and it was a dumb idea from the very start.
As someone who predicted many years ago that billions would be spent, and then reality would set in and it would be cancelled, I want to take this opportunity to say: "I told you so."
Merced and Bakersfield (Score:4, Funny)
Because EVERYONE wants to be in Merded!
So many other places not served (Score:5, Funny)
The really sad part is it won't even make it to Shelbyville.
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The really sad part is it won't even make it to Shelbyville.
With those billions that they wasted, they could have bought e-scooters for everyone in Shelbyville.
And for everyone in San Francisco and Los Angeles, as well.
Then all those folks could e-scooter their way between San Francisco and Los Angeles . . . via Shelbyville.
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The nieces and nephews are hired. Who cares if it's an endless money pit.
IMHO Mothball the right of way and what's built. Finish those things too far along to abandon. Running it will be cost prohibitive.
Spend the rest of the money buying those parts of the whole system right of way that are currently 'easy', then lease them out. Don't worry that you are buying disconnected chunks.
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They had to start building somewhere though. Eventually the finished line would have passed through Merced and Bakersfield. If they had started in San Jose (uncertain, there were arguments about whether it should be a terminus or not) and then it ended in Chowchilla when the funding was cut, it would have been just as silly if not more so.
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Merced?
This is a question for philosophers.
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Cost overruns (Score:4, Interesting)
Ironically, many of the cost overruns are for dealing with things like environmental impact, routing through areas that don't want it, then routing around those areas that have the political clout to get excluded, etc.
China wins again! (Score:5, Insightful)
Why can China figure out how to construct 18,000 miles of high speed rail [wikipedia.org], and we can't even figure out how to connect LA to SF?
High speed rail... dark side of the moon... mass production of consumer goods... America is failing repeatedly, with or without Trump.
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Re:China wins again! (Score:5, Funny)
Wow, they're both unemployed AND farmers? I bet their farm cats are simultaneously alive and dead, and if you strap a slice of toast with PB to their backs, they spin like a dynamo in midair to power the nation's electrical grid.
Re:China wins again! (Score:5, Insightful)
Let's just say that China takes a very narrow view of property rights. Obtaining the necessary land is much quicker and cheaper when you can just order anybody off of their property at gunpoint with no due process.
Re:China wins again! (Score:4, Interesting)
Although China has a large population, the population density is also high, so there are a lot of wide-open spaces across the country.
Re:China wins again! (Score:4, Insightful)
us: lawsuits, red tape, more lawsuits, elections, more red tape
china: prison, education camps, execution.
basically it's way easier to do large-scale engineering projects if you can jail or bury anyone who speaks out.
Excuses, excuses (Score:5, Interesting)
Three words: Interstate Highway System [wikipedia.org].
It's not the lack of Chinese authoritarianism that's preventing us from making it work. It's our inability to align all our interests and resources to make it happen.
Back in 1956, we passed something called the National Interstate and Defense Highways Act. In 35 years, we constructed over 48,000 miles of dedicated highway, three times as much Chinese high speed rail in only double the time. How did it all come together? Simple: the threat of war. Eisenhower was inspired by the national highway system of Germany and how it served as vital military infrastructure for them during World War II. Investing in that infrastructure for the homeland would be a strategic military asset in case of invasion. So far, it's yet to be used that way, but it's contributed tremendous returns to our nation's GDP.
The only thing preventing us from making it happen is a lack of will.
and WAR (Score:5, Informative)
The USA needs WAR to get them to pay for anything. I should have figured that the highway system was a form of military spending.
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Re:China wins again! (Score:4, Interesting)
We do have a lot more people in prison than China does.
Otherwise, yes, they are more willing than us to break eggs to make omelets. They built 10,000KM of high speed rail in the time it took us to talk about building it. They now have better roads, more solar and wind, etc.
We have democracy - but somehow a government lead by people who seem widely disliked. We have social programs, but many homeless on the streets. We have human rights but around a million ethnic minorities in prison who have never had a jury trial.
The US has great ideals - and that is important, but the reality tends to fall far short.
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Re:China wins again! (Score:5, Interesting)
The Chinese have the political will to modernize their country, and are relatively patriotic, as a byproduct of their propaganda, and information control. We are more individualistic and put ourselves above the needs of everyone else.
Reminds me of a Milton Friedman quote: "I believe the government spends too much money. We should spend less money on everyone else, and spend more on me - Everyone"
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Actually there are more jailed people in the USA than in China per capita.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
HSR is not in American vocabulary (Score:3)
Re:HSR is not in American vocabulary (Score:5, Interesting)
The approach was flawed from the outset. To take a "train" today from San Diego to Sacramento you spend 5 hours in a bus, between Los Angeles and Fresno due to the mountains. Your two options are to hug the coast which doesn't provide value to inland communities, or figure out a way through the mountain, which would be about a 40-mile tunnel through a seismically active area. (Yes, tunnels are safe places to be during earthquakes, unless they cross fault lines, which this would.)
But, if they pulled it off, they would suddenly have a tunnel to Antelope Valley/Palmdale, which would provide a huge economic impact on the region and allow for a metric shit-ton of affordable housing with a 20-minute commute to downtown LA. The problem is that just that section would cost about $20-40 billion.
On the upside, once it is done, (and you have presumably purchased the right-of-way to Fresno already) the rest of the project is easy to make incrementally.
Why can't any government entity (Score:5, Insightful)
create a contract that penalizes the other party for late delivery? If you give the contractor 5x the base price and still have nothing to show for it, you should be jailed.
Government contracts are not supposed to be an endless trough of money.
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The other side of it is that sometimes its other parts of the government that are responsible for the holdups. I'm sure that this thing has been hit with the environmental impact report stick so many times it's cross-eyed.
Badly planned from the beginning. (Score:3)
The original route: Sacramento/LA. Why? California's two big population centers are LA and the SF Bay Area. That should have been the target route from the outset.
Re:Badly planned from the beginning. (Score:4, Informative)
Your not going HSR fast in the Bay area. The urban part is just the Caltrain route, just upgrade that. Besides unless you repurpose the golden gate. SF is a dead end. Even if you do the golden gate, that puts you in Marin, good luck with those nuts. Also note: HSR already paid SF huge bucks to build a terminal. Straight up bribe for political support. Bet the money is gone.
There is already Amtrak commuter from Oakland to Sac, connecting to BART and Sac light rail (kind of expensive vs just driving to the end of BART). Sac has a clear shot north and is already the rail crossroads.
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Caltrain actually has daily ridership already; spending money on it made and makes sense; the improvements boosted system speed and throughput and as I understand has improved ridership, until at least when the transbay terminal beam cracked.
The goal has to be long-term, with meaningful steps forward. The money squandered in the central valley is what is lost.
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This phenomena manifests itself in a lot of rail projects. For some reason, they build less important segments first, under the mistaken notion that no one would cancel it before they get to the meat. Here are some examples:
1. San Juan (PR)'s Tren Urbano - Doesn't go to the airport, the tourist district, or the largest shopping mall in the Caribbean (Plaza Las Americas). The latter two locations are traffic nightmares. Hell most visitors to San Juan have no idea it even *has* a metro!
2. New York City's
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Citation? Because official designations shows San Diego as the 17th most populous metropolitan area, while the SF Bay area is ahead in 12th place, and the definition of the latter doesn't encompass much of the East Bay.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
so many mistakes (Score:5, Insightful)
- Distance of SF-LA being just beyond the edge of air/rail travel decision break point
- Lots of intractable property rights issues along the route (and lack of political willingness to exert eminent domain for a more reasonable route)
- High required labor and engineering cost (union requirements)
- Backwards approach to do the easiest part / least useful segment first
- Management team that kept moving the target (or was deceived) on cost, geotechnical feasibility, political backing
As a result, I concluded that despite how good it would be as a showcase project, this was not anywhere near the top of the list of cost-effective things you would invest in to improve CA transportation issues. And now they've had to embrace reality.
I would even say, the whole thing should be canned rather than continuing to dump money into a stupid central valley rail that no one will use. Bakersfield to Modesto? Tell me who's going to take that train...
The worst thing is that this will set a bad example / leave people burned and resistant to trying it again. Sometimes, we really do need authoritarian-style government to clear out resistance when a good project is identified but individual interests bog it down.
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Unless you're trying to get from downtown Los Angeles to downtown San Francisco during rush hour!
That's true, variable congestion tolling the I-5 and the 101 would be a MUCH cheaper (and permanent) way to eliminate the traffic congestion.
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Unless you're trying to get from downtown Los Angeles to downtown San Francisco during rush hour!
You can get that flight for $100 on a good day through Southwest.
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Unless you're trying to get from downtown Los Angeles to downtown San Francisco during rush hour!
You can get that flight for $100 on a good day through Southwest.
If your flight is on the ground in downtown San Francisco, you are not having a good day.
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Try booking that flight during rush hour in downtown Los Angeles, then leave immediately for the airport and see if you can get to downtown San Francisco faster and cheaper than the train would have been!
Which Rush Hour?? (Score:2)
Unless you're trying to get from downtown Los Angeles to downtown San Francisco during rush hour!
I've got some good news for you, since it takes about six hours to drive from Los Angeles to San Francisco (yes I have done this) you're only going to be in one rush hour.
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Re:so many mistakes (Score:5, Insightful)
They already have rail for San Jose - SF (Score:2)
Not sure about San Diego - LA, but they already have OK commuter rail between San Jose and SF - well at least it seemed OK the few times I've taken it, maybe it had issues for more regular users. a high speed rail line to somewhere north of Oakland would probably be a great idea, that has a subway but frankly it sucks, is slow, and is SUPER packed at rush hour so it could really use another channel of service that was as fast to get from the north end of Oakland down to SF. It would probably have helped O
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To make a start on high speed rail, you need a non-stop (or perhaps one stop at SFO) service on dedicated tracks San Jose to San Francisco
But how much faster would it really be, that's my issue.
Looking at transit directions I see the existing train part takes longer than I thought - almost an hour. But that's not terrible (for California). And I can't imagine a worse area to actually try and get a newer high speed rail through than all the land between San Jose and SF...
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They can call the authoritarian project to clear out resistance 'The Great Leap Forward'.
You've identified yourself as among the group of people who should never have power.
And that's exactly what should happen... (Score:3)
whenever a taxpayer funded operation is, ahem, railroaded into poor planing, cost overruns and all the other excessive wastage. Burn that fucker to the ground and walk away from it. It's not worth another cent.
It sucks to be us (Score:5, Insightful)
Every modern country I ever visited has extensive passenger rail systems that everybody uses. But we can't afford it.
Military adventures in the Middle east costing hundreds of billions? No problem. But no new infrastructure. That's socialism or something.
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SF to LA should be routine (Score:2, Insightful)
Here are the facts:
Paris to Marseille is a 482 mile drive, compared to 479 miles to Liechtenstein. Today I can buy a Ouigo TGV ticket for 35 euros that will take me from Paris to Marseille in 3h21min.
For comparison:
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Keep in mind we're talking about a project that's roughly the same length as Paris to Liechtenstein. It's not a trivial undertaking.
Indeed. Paris - Zürich is about only 100km short of going to Liechtenstein, but you can board a TGV for this trip today. The main reason it stops at Zürich is that nobody cares to go to Liechtenstein.
As the next poster mentioned, Paris - Marseille is fully operative. Same with München - Hamburg or Paris - Berlin. Those are all high-speed trains covering a comparable distance. And they were build through densely populated areas by countries where the opposition can't simply be thrown into jail
It's called a boondoggle for a reason... (Score:2)
Green New Deal! (Score:2, Troll)
Looks like this so does not bode well for one of the cornerstones of the Green New Deal which envisions cris-crossing the USA with high speed rail. Next on the Deal's list for red pill economic reality - the paying for those who are "unwilling to work."
So how many billions... (Score:2)
So how many billions were spent to 'rocket' people between Bakersfield & Merced, California?
Who will pay to shuttle between those two locations, let alone pay a premium to do it 'high-speed'?
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I know right, I had no idea there was so much demand to go to Fresno.
He's an idea, add a bus lane along the Golden State Freeway for a tiny fraction of the cost. Pile up the rest of the $77B and burn it. You'd end up with something that would at least be done on time and not over budget.
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Time for an autonomous-only roadway? (Score:2)
As a replacement, how about an autonomous-only limited-access highway? 100 mph, autonomous cars only, on ramps and exits only at major cities. Much lower construction cost than rail.
Did gov. Newsome... (Score:2)
Did gov. Newsome really brag that he's going to piss away snother $3.5BN in federal money on a train from nowhere to nowhere because he's opposed to giving it back to/not taking it from "Trump"?
The Airplane people win again. (Score:2)
Now, I really love aviation, I'm a frustrated pilot that never got his wings, I love flying a little nothing that's made of sticks and rags, but... we absolutely need hi-speed rail in the US. Maybe not so much in tightly-packed metro areas, but it sure as hell can work long-distance.
But as long as the Airplane (and to some extent Car) manufacturers have any influence, rail is a non-starter.
(raises hand...) (Score:2)
So, um, where did the money go?
what a joke (Score:2)
What a bunch of maroons.
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Trains were a major element of Green New Deal (Score:2)
No new technology is required. All they have to do is define and grade a right-of-way, acquire strips of land where needed, and order existing components made in Europe and Asia. Land csots could be mitigated by using existing routes like the broad median of I-5 in rural areas.
If Democrats can't reclaim the spirit of Franklin Roosevelt and finish this project, they can't finish anything.
They probably have to return the federal money (Score:2)
Which makes sense since it was supposed to finance a small percentage of the full project, not a bigger percentage of a scaled back project.
From http://nymag.com/intelligencer... [nymag.com]
"The San Joaquin segment was supposed to be finished by 2022, and the whole enchilada by 2029. But it’s not looking good, and if that first deadline is missed, the state could be exposed to the clawback of up to 3.5 billion in federal funds awarded the project in 2010 as part of the Obama administration’s economic stimul
Probable solution... (Score:2)
Technology of the 1800s can't compete in the 2000s (Score:2)
While it makes sense in a few niche cases, rail/subway public transport is a technology who's time has come and gone. It requires too large of a footprint, is too complicated to administer, and to expensive to maintain. The future is going to be more fluid and decentralized transport, something like driverless bus and large vans tied to some kind of automated route management system. Think of something like Lyft/Uber, only with driverless vehicles of various sizes and MUCH more prevalent. A transportati
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By your standard of rail being 1800s technology, wheels on roads are 10th century B.C. technology. The neat thing about rail is that it stays on the "road" at 150 mph or more, regardless of weather conditions. It's also easy to power electrically, since steel rails provide a current return path with no worries about charging batteries or maintaining them.
The ideal system would actually be a hybrid of your system and rail -- driverless vehicles to bring passengers to stations, where shorter (2 or 3 car) dr
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rail/subway public transport is a technology who's time has come and gone. It requires too large of a footprint
Do you even know what a subway is? It is under the ground - footprint zero. As for surface rail, it requires a far smaller footprint than equivalent road. Each London Underground track for example can carry the equivalent of a three lane motorway, comparing both at full capapcity.
Unknown (Score:2)
So how much more is going to be wasted? (Score:2)
I understand what the total cost has increased to but how much money is going to be thrown down the hold on the Merced to Bakersfield boondoggle just to finish it?
My sister lives in Bakersfield and there is absolutely zero reason she would want to take that stupid train to any city between Bakersfield and Merced.
What's worse is the stupid California voters voted for this thing (yes, I know they only allowed 10B).
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Too much traffic, easy fix, do it without spending any tax money, just strict regulation, enforcement and major penalties. How to reduce traffic, easy require all major new high rise construction to have the first series of floors as retail and the next series of floors as commercial and then a bunch of floors as residential. All new high rise construction and effectively distribute the flow of people, even live work and play in the one building. This forced through the entire city a 3D planned city. Retail
Re:As the old maxim goes (Score:5, Insightful)
The main problem with "first floor retail" is that most downtown areas don't have blocks that are large enough. The next time you go to Best Buy, Target, or Walmart, note just how HUGE the store's footprint is... then compare that to the size of an average square block downtown. In most cities, you'd need at least two square blocks... three, after you add in the loading docks, ramps to the parking garage, required means of egress, at least some minimal first-floor lobby for the residential floors above, and service areas for things like trash. And most of the streetscape you end up with will be utterly and completely dead. At BEST, you'll end up with a streetscape that's 95% glass window with stuff behind it, but someone on the wrong side of the building might easily have to walk the equivalent of 2 or 3 current blocks just to get to the store's actual entrance. Retail stores, especially big-box stores, HATE having to deal with multiple entrances and exits... they want to funnel everyone through a single point, because it makes it easier to prevent shoplifting and reduces the cashier staffing demands.
For stores like Target and Walmart, spanning multiple floors is something they try to avoid at all costs. For a store like Walgreens or CVS, the second floor is where they stick the prescriptions and ostomy supplies. Even in mall anchor stores, you usually end up with a situation where the floors that open directly onto a major floor of the mall concourse get lots of foot traffic, and the remaining floors end up looking like a ghost town. In the US, at least, VERY few malls -- even in dense urban areas -- can pull off more than 3 stories before the additional floors look more like virtual ghost towns where they put the bridal stores, tuxedo rental places, movie theater lobby, storefront churches, and other places where people go as an intentional destination instead of casually walking by end up.
Downtown Miami illustrates this problem perfectly. As a matter of law and zoning, every single new skyscraper that's gotten built over the past 25 years has first-floor empty... most of which is in a state of perpetual vacancy because the spaces are too small, or the parking is too inadequate or expensive. In Chicago, there are skyscrapers with big-box stores occupying the basements... but even then, most of those buildings have at least one or two sides that are dead to pedestrians.
In Miami, you'd have a HELL of a time trying to convince a retailer like Walmart to build a store in a skyscraper's basement in downtown Miami, because their insurance costs would KILL them. No, it's not due to the water table... groundwater is a fact of life in almost EVERY big city. Dig a large 25 foot deep hole in London or lower Manhattan, and you'll find at LEAST as much groundwater as you'll encounter in Miami. The REAL problem is storm surge and/or storm-drain failure that leaves the street under a few inches of water for hours or days at a time. It might cause minimal damage to a flooded underground garage that's mostly just bare concrete that needs to drain and dry out, but would cause literally MILLIONS of dollars in damage to a flooded-out store like Walmart full of merchandise. Miami's storm drains fail ALL THE GODDAMN TIME, and half the time it's not even due to a "real" storm... it's because the county doesn't do proper storm-drain maintenance, so the storm drains get clogged with rotting vegetation & trash until we get a week or two of downpours that leave a random square mile with the streets and sidewalks under at least an inch or two of water. The problem is, it might only be an inch of water at the sidewalk, but that inch of water is enough to leave a basement retail store under literally 16-25 feet of water (because once the water gets high enough to pour into an opening, it's going to KEEP pouring in until the water level inside matches the water level outside).
Re:As the old maxim goes (Score:4, Insightful)
I find it amusing how a solution that works just fine the world over somehow can't possibly work in the US.
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> Why do the stores need to be so big?
The realities of 21st-century retail, if you want to compete against Amazon & Walmart without going broke.
Fifty years ago, if you wanted to buy a TV, you'd go to a small store downtown that sold nothing but TVs... often, a single brand of TVs. Distributors bought TVs from the manufacturer for $n, marked them up 100%, and sold them to local dealers for 2 x $n. Those local dealers marked them up another 100%, and sold them to consumers for 4 x $n.
Today, you go to W
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Yes, Mr. CONservative. Because building a highway over the Embarcadero would have been better than the high speed train.
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Wrong Mr FOOL. Building a tunnel (hyper loop) would have been better and might have worked because they might have had a shot in hell of getting right of way for reasonable routes, eminent domain for something 100 ft under people would not be such a hot potato.
As it was it never stood a chance, and was just a big plan to sponge up government money to give to contractors for essentially nothing. Lots of "planning" sessions.
As it is air travel between LA and SF is not too bad, an actual cost effective way t
Re:As the old bullshitting faggot goes on forever. (Score:4, Insightful)
Ineptocracy (in-ep-toc'-ra-cy) - a system of government where the least capable to lead are elected by the least capable of producing, and where the members of society least likely to sustain themselves or succeed, are rewarded with goods and services paid for by the confiscated wealth of a diminishing number of producers.
Re:As the old bullshitting faggot goes on forever. (Score:5, Informative)
Cumulative wealth of Forbes 400 (Score:4, Interesting)
Based on 2107 numbers, if you confiscate all wealth of all 400, you would pick up $2.7 trillion, enough to run the US government for about two-thirds of one year.
Once.
Of course, there's the issue that virtually all of that wealth is in equities, which would have to be sold to covert to spendable dollars, and who are you going to sell $2T of stock to once you've just confiscated 100% of the wealth from the people who could afford to buy it?
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Your supporting points don't actually support your thesis statement. Economic power != income.
Re:As the old bullshitting faggot goes on forever. (Score:5, Interesting)
Except that California is one of the wealthiest states with the highest wages, where as the poorer ones where most people are making under $50k are the ones that vote Republican, i.e. for tax and benefit cuts.
Re:As the old bullshitting faggot goes on forever. (Score:5, Insightful)
The idea that the 1% has all the power is a myth. The IRS tax stats are freely available for anyone to see and analyze [irs.gov]. The 1% (everyone making approx $500k per year or more) only accounts for 19% of total income in the U.S. The vast majority of economic power in the U.S. (64% of all income) rests with those making $50k-$500k per year.
Who care about income? Wealth is where the power is.
The top 1% in net worth in the U.S. hold 40% of the nation's wealth. The bottom 50% in net worth of the U.S. population combined hold 1% of the nation's wealth.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org] (First paragraph and first chart.)
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The problem with your argument is that it fails to take into account marginal tax rates. While I agree with your point of view - there is a lot of overlap between our world views here - the facts are that you are confusing effective tax rates with top marginal tax rates. A 90% top marginal rate on income over $1M means that the lower brackets apply to the first $X of income. That 90% only kicks in against money after the first $1M. So if total taxable income is $1,000,001, that 90% marginal rate only ap
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Have more working/tax paying people move out? More illegals move in.
Sucks to be you!
Re:California SHOULD be a tax donor state (Score:4, Interesting)
The problem is that there is no geographical representation of California. The coastal cities have 100% of the power, with the countryside east of the coast having zero voice. Well, except for Federal lawsuits.
We can look at things like the Salton Sea, where nothing is done about it until the mass fishkills are so great, LA smells it, then once people have to deal with the stank (people who actually have sway over the state), then stuff gets done. Or, the general water crisis where you have rice paddies on one side, perma-droughts on the other.
California should be split up. Let the coast be one state, let everything east of it be another. That way, someone might see something from the state government other than higher taxes, more middle fingers from Sacramento, and more feel good laws. It is amazing how little that state does, with the highest tax rates in the US, be it the highest income tax, highest property tax, and highest salex tax.
No wonder why hick towns like Austin get 300 Californians a day moving there, and there is a diaspora going on away from that state.
When a recession hits, where will that state get their income? They won't be touching the well-heeled people, and the proles are already taxed out, causing more people to flee.
CA's politics amaze me. Can the politicos do any more to run people out of that state?
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I foresee no problem, no problem at all with issues like water rights in that case. No sir-ee!
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That's the history of western American water rights law, wrapped up in one question.
In practice, it's cheaper to blow up a dam than build it. So the law is: If someone downstream is using the water, you can't divert it, because when it was allowed it led to literal range wars. e.g. LA's right to the Colorado river legally prevents Coloradans from collecting rainwater.
Re:Seriously? Spite Trump? (Score:5, Insightful)
"In January 2017, the California Legislative Analyst’s Office said by several measures California is, indeed, a donor state, but just barely. It receives $0.99 in federal expenditures per dollar of taxes paid"
So, it's about dead even. Since California based companies and individuals have written off so many state and local taxes on their federal income tax returns for so long, they effectively short out the federal government in favor of state and local taxes. Since the TCJA, there has been a cap on the SALT (state and local taxes) deductions you can make. So it will likely change in the future.
Before TCJA, if you made $100,000 a year and you lived in California, you paid to Uncle Sam less than if you made $100,000 a year and lived in Kentucky (since Kentucky had lower state and local taxes). In fact, California is the highest SALT state, so it paid the lowest to Uncle Sam, all else being equal.
Now, it's closer to normal.
But don't let \ stupid little things like facts keep you from getting angry.
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There goes a third of their fresh water supply. Well, I'm sure those other states adjacent will be happy for their increased water allocation. Then all those tariffs on things like almonds.
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You probably meant "flouted", not "flaunted".
But when I say "fucktard", like I'm doing right now, that's exactly what I mean.
Because it's a boondoggle? (Score:3, Insightful)
> why on earth the project is not a multi-state and multi-nation venture
Because other states and countries don't want to waste billions and billions of dollars on something that isn't working?
Re:Because it's a boondoggle? (Score:4, Informative)
What are you talking about? High speed rail is wildly successful in every country that builds it. It always makes an operating profit [railpac.org] within a few years after it opens (even Taiwan's [focustaiwan.tw]), even our nation's own Acela Express makes "a profit of about $41 per passenger. [businessinsider.com]"
So on what basis do you claim that it "isn't working"?
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Trebuchets/parachutes for shorter range ballistic commuting.
I bet you could really fling someone with a carbon fiber and kevlar Trebuchet. Wingsuit for fine targeting.
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Re:Saw it coming (Score:4, Insightful)
Elon Musk proposed a far better and cheaper plan and they ignored it.
Get back to us when he has his idea actually working and with actual cost figures - ones which he has not pulled out of his backside.
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I call your rail line to nowhere and raise you a bridge to nowhere, slick. Also, you forgot "fairy farts" in your subject.
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Bullshit. The railroad would have been cost effective. If the Chinese can make a line from Beijing to Shanghai cost effective so could you. Heck, the line to Urumqui was built and it's literally from nowhere to nowhere and twice as long as Beijing to Shanghai. The problem was typical California. NIMBYism and inflated right of way land costs.
Not in California, where every construction project comes with multiple lawsuits and environmental policies will bankrupt you before the first shovel hits the ground.