[Sustain] (fwd) GP Alameda County endorses NO on Prop.1
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.
-- John-Marc Chandonia (jmc@sfgreens.org) http://sfgreens.org/
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 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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One plus, though I'm not sure it is enough to override the negatives: Peter Dailey, Deputy Director in charge of maritime operations at the Port of SF, told me that there is money in the bill to enlarge the rail tunnel coming into San Francisco's rail yard. Currently, the tunnel is too low for modern freight rail operations. For both peak oil and climate change reasons, we want to make it possible for SF to ramp up its rail access. Like I said, not sure it's enough. I'd rather spend the $$ fixing the rails we have. Jeanne Eric Brooks wrote:
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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The governor just agreed to sign the changes to Prop 1, which is being referred to as "Prop 1A." (I don't know if that's an official designation or not.) The state Sierra Club opposed the Pacheco Route because it was spawl-inducing. I'm afraid I don't know what the changes are, but Sierra Club California is supporting the new 1A version. The analysis below compares this project to the Boston Big Dig. The major difference is that the Big Dig was a highway and High Speed Rail is public transit. Although this costs billions, taxpayers now pay bailout the airlines. The airlines bailouts are less than the cost of high speed rail, but are still billions of $. Airlines also emit high levels of greenhouse gases per passenger. Every figure I've seen and emmissions per passenger shows rail being much less than airlines, by a lot, and less than automobiles. Finally, the statement about additional coal-fired plants is not accurate. Last year, the state adopted new regulations that ban power utilities (public and private) from investing in coal-fired plants or signing contracts for coal. There will be no increase in using coal. You'll probably want to look at the new "1A" changes. John
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.
The bulk of Alameda's argument against Prop 1 is that all the money so far has gone to a corrupt contractor. However, the legislation does not require that contractor to actually build it; we could still approve the bond and then try to get our state reps to raise concerns about the contractor. Besides, if we blocked every government project built by corrupt contractors, we'd be living on sand dunes. I also agree that the promotional case for rail is overblown in terms of ridership, but we should look towards how many people will want to ride the rail after the effects of peak oil become more apparent, and the cost of driving or flying to LA becomes prohibitive. The power for an electric train can come from a variety of sources, and don't necessarily have to come from coal. It's much more likely to get something built if we start now, and not after gas becomes even more expensive (as that will raise costs for construction and materials, and voters who can't afford to drive to work will be even less likely to pass a bond). JMC -- John-Marc Chandonia (jmc@sfgreens.org) http://sfgreens.org/
For what it's worth, here's a press release that Schwarzenegger's office issued today: *Gov. Schwarzenegger Puts Taxpayer Protections into * *High Speed Rail Bond on November Ballot* Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger today signed AB 3034 <http://www.leginfo.ca.gov/cgi-bin/postquery>, authored by Assemblymember Cathleen Galgiani (D- Livingston), adding taxpayer protections and financial guidelines to the High-Speed Train Bond Act on the November 2008 ballot. "Californians deserve the opportunity to vote on a high speed rail proposition that includes taxpayer protections and financial guidelines," said Governor Schwarzenegger. "With these technical changes, voters can now be assured that if the bond is approved, high speed rail would be built as planned and with fiscal controls ensuring financial accountability." AB 3034 will replace Proposition 1 with Proposition 1A on the November ballot. The measure improves the High-Speed Train Bond Act by including fiscal controls for taxpayer protection including the requirement of a peer reviewed financial plan before bond money can be spent. Additionally, the measure enables public-private partnership financing and limits the amount of bond money that can be spent on non-construction items. John-Marc Chandonia wrote:
The bulk of Alameda's argument against Prop 1 is that all the money so far has gone to a corrupt contractor. However, the legislation does not require that contractor to actually build it; we could still approve the bond and then try to get our state reps to raise concerns about the contractor. Besides, if we blocked every government project built by corrupt contractors, we'd be living on sand dunes.
I also agree that the promotional case for rail is overblown in terms of ridership, but we should look towards how many people will want to ride the rail after the effects of peak oil become more apparent, and the cost of driving or flying to LA becomes prohibitive. The power for an electric train can come from a variety of sources, and don't necessarily have to come from coal. It's much more likely to get something built if we start now, and not after gas becomes even more expensive (as that will raise costs for construction and materials, and voters who can't afford to drive to work will be even less likely to pass a bond).
JMC
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In light of the fact that this measure has been strengthened, I concur that we are talking now about getting critical high speed rail (with the usual taint of corruption that follows all major capital projects) vs not getting high speed rail at all, which would be even worse. I now reluctantly say - thumbs up. We can't wait another decade for rapid statewide rail to get off the ground. Eric B. John-Marc Chandonia wrote:
The bulk of Alameda's argument against Prop 1 is that all the money so far has gone to a corrupt contractor. However, the legislation does not require that contractor to actually build it; we could still approve the bond and then try to get our state reps to raise concerns about the contractor. Besides, if we blocked every government project built by corrupt contractors, we'd be living on sand dunes.
I also agree that the promotional case for rail is overblown in terms of ridership, but we should look towards how many people will want to ride the rail after the effects of peak oil become more apparent, and the cost of driving or flying to LA becomes prohibitive. The power for an electric train can come from a variety of sources, and don't necessarily have to come from coal. It's much more likely to get something built if we start now, and not after gas becomes even more expensive (as that will raise costs for construction and materials, and voters who can't afford to drive to work will be even less likely to pass a bond).
JMC
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participants (5)
-
Eric Brooks -
Jeanne -
John Rizzo -
John-Marc Chandonia -
Richard Knee