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

[Eric Brooks]

I just checked with John Rizzo and he said there won't be a final 
version of Prop 1 (Prop 1-A) until later September, and that the new 
version will likely be a big improvement.

We should probably wait to make a call on this one.

Eric Brooks wrote:
> 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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