Active again

And yet another new plan for the proposed CA HSR is announced in Sunday's Fresno Bee (April Fool's Day). The new plan calls for the funding to come from a new business penalty fund. This leads to questions about the proposed 'cap-and-trade' taxation program; is this new penalty for doing business in California part of a marketing strategy to attract new businesses that are needed for increasing revenue to its sagging economy?

The newly revealed HSR plan does claim high ridership numbers to pay for it's operation and maintenance. BART (Bay Area Rapid Transit) in the San Francisco bay area operates at a 61% subsidy (Wikipedia). For a government agency in California to propose a plan that claims profitability, reflects a politically motivated number.

One aspect of the newest HSR proposal is that it does provide a useable Amtrak connection from Bakersfield to Burbank. That cost of $31billion is a reasonable figure to build a new Amtrak line but, is a far cry from what the voters agreed on for HSR.

The HSR illusion

The Fresno County Supervisors held a vote to continue support of the HSR. The March 27, 2012 Fresno Bee article explains.

The articles the Bee run are relatively honest and impartial but, the comments are filled with non-cognitive emotion which produce irrational stupidity. Posted in a blog by Todd Litman, a leading land-use expert, at www.planetizen.com, is one of the best comments of this phenomenon: "A related issue is the Dunning-Kruger effect, which refers to the tendency of people who are unaware of how little they know about a subject to be overly confident of their abilities and judgment. Research indicates that ignorant people often rate their knowledge and ability higher than it actually is, suffering from illusory superiority, while more knowledgeable people underrate their own abilities, suffering from illusory inferiority."

like a circus tight-rope act

An article in the LA Times dated March 26, 2012 claims the proponent's hyperbole may be in jeopardy. The proponents claim that the project can side-step the legislative requirements. It appears that the fate of CA's HSR is going to lay in the hands of the judicial authorities who will hear the cases.

active in the news again

According the March 8, 2012 Fresno Bee article, a new study suggests the CA HSR will create jobs. In the real world of things costing money, how many jobs will it take to generate the additional tax increase to support a $100billion state funded project? For the immediate $2billion proposed HSR segment, how many other government reliant jobs will be cut? Is there a study somewhere that asks the question to how many jobs have been eliminated in California and the US due to the enormous increase in taxation?

The study spoken of in the article also suggest that a city along the proposed HSR route with a station 'would fare better' than a city without a station. Is this study actually suggesting that a city has negative benefit with lower land values from visual damage, noise pollution and severed land use access that leads to further economic decrease for everywhere except where a station might be located?

Note to the CA HSRA: update the transit technology to a modern day system that enables every town to have a station. Trains are a relic technology developed in the early 1800s. Our society has developed extensively over the past 150 years and has to have a mobility system capable of meeting modern day transportation requirements. Where is this study?

ehhh, hun?

In an act of desperation the CA HSRA is now accepting bids for contracts they can't award. Here is the newest turn of events with the HSRA the March 2, 2012 Fresno Bee article.

roll a coaster high speed rail

Following the HSR is like watching every move of a basketball being dribbled down the court in a basketball game. While voters balk at the escalating costs, the governor demands that the old technology electric train $98billion cost projections are too high; despite a 2010 expert study that claims actual cost estimate of $212billion. As dictators go, Jerry has no cloths. The logic Jerry must be using is the standardized cost of building an at grade expense of $70million per mile times 700 miles. The disconnect is representative to the dysfunction of bureaucracy which has only produced an unfinished EIR (environmental impact report) to show for the $600million spent on the project.

From the SF Chronicle

Here is an informative article from the San Francisco Chronicle Sunday December 4, 2011 about the advertising money spent to push the CA HSR. This is the article:

They have yet to lay a single track, but the California High-Speed Rail Authority has spent some $12.5 million on public relations in the past two years - with a number of politically connected consultants getting in on the ride.

In one six-month window:

-- Mike Villines, the former Republican assemblyman, billed a Central Valley rail contractor for $108,631.

-- Denise LaPointe, a former chief of staff to ex-San Francisco state senator and former High-Speed Rail Authority board member Quentin Kopp, billed for $53,444. That was just part of the $350,288 paid to her firm since October 2009.

-- Nicole Franklin, a former Oakland city planning commissioner, got $45,138 - including a portion of LaPointe's work.

-- Mike Lynch, the former chief of staff to onetime Assemblyman Gary Condit, billed for $31,748.

-- Plus former Kern County Supervisor Gene Tackett ($70,652), and Sara Katz, a staffer to former Gov. Pete Wilson and onetime San Diego Mayor Susan Golding, whose monthly billings for the first half of the year totaled $43,505.

"Frankly I can't see one benefit of that $12.5 million in spending," said state Assemblyman Jerry Hill, D-San Mateo.

"To me this is indicative of the operations of the High-Speed Rail Authority to this point, which from what we've seen is pretty much a failure."

Statewide, some 20 PR outfits have worked on the project since 2007 as part of nine regional engineering contracts.

In 2009, however, rail authority directors - worried that they needed to sell the project statewide - awarded a five-year contract worth $9 million to Ogilvy Public Relations, a major national firm.

After paying Ogilvy about $3 million, the authority was not happy with its performance and the two sides agreed to a parting of the ways.

In the meantime, as shrinking federal dollars put the future of the train line in doubt, the authority has still budgeted $2.5 million for PR this fiscal year.

Rail authority officials say the spending on public outreach has been reasonable given the size and complexity of the project.