Kerry JacksonEditor’s note: This has been excerpted with permission from the Pacific Research Institute. To read the entire article, click here.
The promise of a bullet train connecting Los Angeles and San Francisco, and maybe even extending to San Diego to the south and Sacramento to the north, was broken longer before ground was broken in 2015 for the project. The route has been shortened, the construction timeline endlessly extended, and expectations ground to dust.
Now comes another possible change. Merced, the town that was to be the northern terminus under of the train’s first completed phase, might be abandoned for Gilroy, the garlic capital of the world.
The first part of the project scheduled to be completed is a 171-mile stretch between Bakersfield and Merced, a pair of cities that aren’t traditionally interconnected and won’t be final destinations for most travelers. It was the best officials could do, given the cost overruns and the sclerotic construction pace.
But the latest project update suggests that the train, which so far has been more dud than bullet, should instead connect Bakersfield to Gilroy.
The HSRA is confident that a Gilroy station would increase ridership and revenue from a Gilroy-San Francisco high-speed connection that goes through San Jose, enough of a “transformative opportunity to engage the private sector through potential public-private partnership (P3) delivery models.”
Maybe this makes sense. “As the southern terminus for the Caltrain system,” says CalMatters, “the agrarian city has long been considered high-speed rail’s best chance of reaching San Francisco.” It might also draw in private investment, which CalMatters says has been targeted by HSRA CEO Ian Choudri, who “appears dead set on ending the project’s reliance on fluky government grants and attracting private investors, as many foreign bullet trains have done.”
The 2008 bond measure approved by voters said the project could be completed with less than 10% of needed funds coming through private investment. But even that small amount never materialized.
To continue reading, click here.
“It was the best officials could do…”
Well, the problem here seems to be “the officials,” as if I really needed to say that. Who then, is voting for these “officials” or the people who appoint them? I think voter vetting and election integrity measures would change this situation for the better in one election. Why else would the “governor” and the single-party ruled legislature be so opposed to that? Figure this; who is going to take a bullet train from Bakersfield to Gilroy except, perhaps, illegal aliens who need a way to get from one ag area to another and illegally voted for those “officials?”
Also any elevated transportation costs 10X more then land based. Much less thru mountains. At this point they are swinging at windmills. Next up is LA to LVS with Brightlines help. That may work, but there’s no saving this abomination w/o another 100 billion.
California has been working on its high-speed rail boondoggle for decades and is still struggling to complete the first leg of 170 miles. In comparison, the 1900-mile Transcontinental Railroad was completed in 1869 after six years of construction, almost entirely by hand.
This project is the saddest thing ever.
Make your position loud and clear in Sacramento, through letters or whatever. Stop this obomination and the graft attendant to it. This is YOUR money being burned up by polticians.
I guess the point is the bullet train(s) [not only in California but also in China etc) don’t get much “bang for the buck.”
What it does get is a lot of taxpayer bucks for a fizzled-out bang.
Why are the doped up legislators and councilmen who vote for such boondoggles elected and re-elected?
Why? Because by the time the boondoggles are found to be boondoggles the originator of the boondoggle has risen to a higher office.
One of President Trump’s books that he wrote should have been called “The Art of the Con.” It would be about the swindles that politicians construct and voters vote for.