[Sustain] (fwd) GP Alameda County endorses NO on Prop.1

[Eric Brooks]

If the Alameda report is true, this project looks bad.

Basically the Big Dig on steroids.

Do we have any reason to doubt Alameda's assessment of the issue?

cheers

Eric

John-Marc Chandonia wrote:
> Here's Alameda's analysis of Prop 1 - any thoughts?
>
>   
>> We all believe in attractive alternatives to driving, especially sleek
>> electric trains designed in Europe, but the promises in Proposition 1
>> are too good to be true.
>>
>>
>> The cogent reason for Greens to oppose the high-speed rail project is
>> that it is a public works fraud scheme specifically designed to appeal
>> to gullible environmentalists. If we vote for Proposition 1, as it is
>> currently on the ballot, the only guarantee is that billions of
>> dollars will be spent on engineering, land acquisition, demolition,
>> and construction of part of a guideway.
>>
>>
>> Out front, the promoters say this is a $45 billion system. The $9
>> billion provided by the ballot measure for high-speed rail is only 1/5
>> the project cost, and project proponents are likely to come back
>> asking taxpayers for additional tens of billions from taxpayers. There
>> is no guarantee that there ever will be a workable rail system, and
>> under current law, no consequences for project managers if they waste
>> every dime. The idea is apparently to start a very big hole in the
>> ground, then come back and ask for more bucks. Federal funding is as
>> imaginary as private investment, as Amtrak high speed rail funding
>> belongs to the 20 senators in Northeastern states.
>>
>>
>> The firm which has been prime contractor for all work authorized to
>> date by the High Speed Rail Authority is Parsons Brinckerhoff (PB),
>> notorious for unsigned engineering drawings on sections of the
>> Wilshire Subway that caved in, and for choosing the wrong concrete
>> epoxy for the tunnel in Boston?s out-of-control Big Dig. The cost of
>> the Big Dig ballooned from $2 billion to $22 billion over the course
>> of the project, and the tunnel still leaks seawater. PB and other
>> firms were fined $450 million under their settlement with the
>> Commonwealth of Massachusetts, but the rest of the money is gone, with
>> not very many feet of highway to show for it.
>>
>>
>> PB also was responsible for the multi-billions of cost overruns on the
>> San Jose light rail line, the Wilshire Subway, and the BART-SFO line,
>> and their overall business model doesn?t seem to have changed much
>> since. For example, one of the most recent PB productions was a plan
>> for a $1 billion Sacramento airport line.
>>
>>
>> On the high-speed rail project, not only the cost figures are
>> ballooned beyond belief. The Rail Authority predicts an annual
>> ridership of 117 million passengers on the 24-station line. As a
>> reality check, France?s most popular high-speed train, the TGV-
>> Southeast carried 18 million passengers during its 10th year of
>> operation. Eurostar, the London-Paris high-speed train you may have
>> heard about, finally managed to carry more than 10 million passengers
>> for the first time last year, a decade and a half after it started
>> running. It is hard to believe that California trains will outperform
>> European routes with more population.
>>
>>
>> The Authority claims that the project will have no operating deficit,
>> but the Legislative Analyst has produced an opinion in the ballot that
>> the operating cost would be about $1 billion annually, and suggests
>> that some proportion of this would have to be covered by state
>> subsidies (likely in the hundreds of millions annually). This would
>> directly harm all transit service statewide.
>>
>>
>> The Rail Authority has been actively goosing the Merced County real
>> estate market with statements about the "new California gold rush" and
>> its selection of the Pacheco Route, a repeat of the UC Merced land
>> scam with the same participants. Stations in Gilroy and Palmdale will
>> be minutes from the Peninsula and Los Angeles, respectively, causing
>> huge incentives for new exurban sprawl. The staff says they won't
>> build a Los Banos station but Angelo Tsakopoulos and his investor
>> corporations have purchased 3500 acres of land there within three
>> miles of the proposed stop, so the station and sprawl are likely to
>> happen if the route is built.
>>
>>
>> Severe negative environmental impacts on the Pacific Flyway
>> (disruption of nesting and avian mortality from striking 220 mph
>> trains), and noise impacts on communities on the Peninsula, and in
>> Santa Clara County, Los Angeles County, and Orange County are also a
>> major concern.
>>
>>
>> Promised environmental benefits are questionable. According to British
>> studies, 220 mph trains do not produce greenhouse gas reductions or
>> energy savings, because of the exponential increase in energy
>> requirement of trains above about 120 mph. France has GHG reductions
>> from HSR only because the trains are 100% nuclear powered. The
>> proposal here will depend on additional coal-fired plants in the
>> Southwest.
>>     
>
>   
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"I am not a liberator. Liberators do not exist. The people liberate themselves." -- Che Guevara

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