[Ca. POLITICS] This looks like a total disaster. Am I missing something?

"Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo" (rustyvandura)
02/14/2019 at 14:03 • Filed to: None

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DISCUSSION (21)

CaptDale - is secretly British > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
02/14/2019 at 14:12

It is California and no one would just fucking do it. If we had just built that damn thing then it would be ok, but we spent 8 years doing garbage BS about it. Fucking state is a mess and the blues in power just keep making it worse.

Tristan > CaptDale - is secretly British
02/14/2019 at 14:15

Kinja'd!!!

facw > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
02/14/2019 at 14:21

It’s a mistake to back out, but the real problem is that they tried to build it on such a long timetable. A program that’s going to take 20-30 years (even without the inevitable delays) before it shows any real benefit was always a terrible idea. This needed to have a 10 year time frame at the longest (at least for SF>LA, other extensions could be tacked on later). Giving opponents that long to fight it without any indication of progre ss made sure that someone would cancel it (they were hoping cancellation would be held off by concern over the sunk costs). Given low interest rates, and the speed at which lines are deployed elsewhere in the world, they could have pulled it off, and they would have realized the benefit that much quicker.

RacinBob > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
02/14/2019 at 14:28

Aw, but what does a Ford Tempo have anything to do with California’s rolling dumpster fire?....

The Tempo while not pretty or sporty actually worked and likely came in under budget. Besides, a 4 cyl pushrod four based off of a ford 200 6 cyl is kinda cool.

WilliamsSW > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
02/14/2019 at 14:31

High profile suicide. Never underestimate California’s ability to try to implement a half baked plan.

Wrong Wheel Drive (41%) > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
02/14/2019 at 14:40

The biggest problem with the high speed rail is that the ONLY benefit I can see is flights from LA to SF would become even cheaper than they already are. I just can’t see why id want to take a train to SF when it’s a pretty easy 5-6 hour drive or under 1 hour flight. Not like someone would commute that far that isn’t insane..

Now putting that same money into making actual public transit a thing, that might be pretty cool. Being able to take a train to the airport instead of it taking an hour to drive about 10 miles, that would be pretty sweet.

But I came in too late to vote against this whole debacle in the first place so I don't have much say. It seems like a neat concept from the engineer in me but man what a shit show it seems to have been...

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > Tristan
02/14/2019 at 14:41

You know, I did that to myself with a rake recently, though not as bad. And it was very unpleasant and uncomfortable.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > facw
02/14/2019 at 14:42

Boondoggle.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > RacinBob
02/14/2019 at 14:44

Thick film ignition, for one. Miserable, wretched car.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > WilliamsSW
02/14/2019 at 14:46

Did he even think about the political ramifications? Seems like this would be a great place for a high speed rail line, but in Murica, we burn oil to drive cars, I guess.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > Wrong Wheel Drive (41%)
02/14/2019 at 14:47

Indeed. All of that. Boondoggle.

TheRevanchist > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
02/14/2019 at 14:49

The rail was/is a waste. I’ve not seen one thing that shows a benefit to California . The cost to build is crazy high. The cost to maintain is crazy high. The cost to the passengers is going to be crazy high to make it sustainable. And, if they stop everywhere they want to stop, the rail line isn’t going to be high speed. The engineers have never been able to solve the problem of how to get to LA through the mountain range, nor do they even know how many more billions it will cost to be able to do what is needed to get through that long stretch.

Who is going to take this train? What are they going to be doing? Nothing about it makes sense.

I f they want to waste billions, spend it on affordable housing, medicine, fire prevention , education, and mental health support for the public. Only, this would not be a waste, as it would benefit society way more than just building a super expensive version of Amtrak, which we already have. I enjoy the Amtrak trains and utilize them.

fintail > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
02/14/2019 at 15:18

The road to hell is paved with something something.

RallyWrench > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
02/14/2019 at 15:41

This was always on track to be a trainwreck (HEY-OOOO). It’s gone off the rails (ba-dum-TSHH). The train never left the station (groans).

Given the prevailing politics in the Valley, the timeline, the land grabs, and the unbelievable but predictable inflation of cost, this is no surprise. I have to agree with Newsom here , a nd I liked Jerry Brown, and his vision. There is no greater symbol of Big Gubmint waste and the big guy boning the little guy than the big ugly rail towers looming over the Valley. No one out there gives a shit about SF or LA, and neither do I, because SF and LA don’t give a shit about them. Nor does Sacramento, traditionally. A zillion dollar 200mph train whizzing people wealthier than most between the richest places in the state was never going to work for most of us.

Is Newsom’s move gas on a dumpster fire? Sure. But it’s also a new Democratic governor being fiscally responsible and politically responsive to the will of the people, which is good . Jerry was generally pretty good about fiscal restraint, with this glaring exception. I don’t know that I like Newsom just yet, but he doesn’t seem to have his head * too* far in the stars . W hile Trumpie shitheads like Kevin McCarthy might crow about it, this could just as easily work in Newsom’s, and Democrat’s, favor with more moderate voters . Saying “hey, new blue guy listened to you and reversed old blue guy’s tack ” goes farther than “We Red guys fought this idea from the drawing board , and even though this blue guy ended it he and his whole party are still bad guys because they started it please vote for us again guns guns her emails jesus benghazi.”

I’m glad the central section will at least be completed, high speed rail is a cool thing and maybe it can still function as an outrageously expensive proof of concept. Maybe not. Also the project engineer quoted at the end isn’t wrong. Americans have no long-term vision, or short term memory . Me Me Me Now N ow N ow should replace E Pluribus Unum on our money.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > TheRevanchist
02/14/2019 at 15:51

All of this makes sense to me.

WilliamsSW > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
02/14/2019 at 15:52

The whole thing was broken to begin with. At a high level, the idea of high-speed rail from SF to LA is a good one. And maybe launching just a portion of it initially is a good one (though I have my doubts).

But you sure as HELL don’t build that test route between two small towns with a whole lot of nothing in between (sorry Fresno). You have to start it in LA or SF and build it to an intermediate destination that people actually want to go to (Santa Barbara, Monter ey, whatever). If you can’t figure out how to get out of SF and LA, you’re already dead, so it will at least save some taxpayer money when you figure that out.

And then, when you decide to kill it, you kill ALL of it. And try not to give your opponents too much ammo doing it (Get real? More like get out of Sacremento).

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > RallyWrench
02/14/2019 at 15:56

This is one of the most cogent comments anyone has ever made to me here on Oppo. I like how you are looking at a possible upside for Newsom, outside of the binary box that press like to offer us. A comment like this is why I post these things on Oppo.

RacinBob > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
02/14/2019 at 19:44

Interesting. Another lemon I didn’t know of. https://www.autosafety.org/ford-tfi-module-national-class-settlement/

RallyWrench > Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo
02/14/2019 at 19:51

Thank you. I appreciate the thoughtful commentary, as usual. Yours are the only political posts I bite on. Now don’t you ever call me cogent again! ;)

With this HSR reversal as a backdrop, I’m now very curious how the delta tunnels project will change. Lots of people fighting about that for various reasons, and I’m a hell of a lot more worried about our future water management than I am about fast trains.

His Stigness > CaptDale - is secretly British
02/14/2019 at 21:37

But that’s government, and why the green new deal is a bunch of millennial googly eyed bullshit.. As much as I’d like the system to change, trying to change the system, you can’t undo decades and decades of laws, protocols, business practices, etc. Public works projects take decades now because instead of fixing systemic problems, we build on top of them, sometimes quite literally.

So while everyone had the intention of just building the damn thing, nothing like that project can ever move thag quickly. I'm reminded of this every time I drive down the 5 and stare at "expansions" that have taken longer than ten years. For a fucking on ramp or off ramp. This country is fucked, and it started before you and I were ever born. And unfucking the problem will take decades longer.

Rusty Vandura - www.tinyurl.com/keepoppo > RacinBob
02/14/2019 at 23:47

And there ya’ have it.