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Slower, Cheaper High-Speed Rail For Bay Area?
The grandiose vision of high-speed rail may be downsized for a cheaper, slower version in the Bay Area, the Merc reports.
High-speed rail officials said they’re considering running bullet trains on the tracks that Caltrain already uses instead of building 4 brand-new tracks to save money. The high-speed rail authority would spend $1.5 billion to electrify the tracks so that the bullet trains could zip along quickly, although not quite as quickly as originally planned: instead of 32-37 minutes from San Francisco to San Jose, it would take 40-55 minutes.
The move would save $4 billion, the Merc reports, as the high-speed rail authority struggles to come up with the $43 billion to pay for the new system. The authority has 30 percent of the funding it needs – and budget cuts by Congress have threatened the project even further.
Aside from saving money, the plan would also placate the Peninsula residents living near the train who have complained bitterly that the new tracks would run through their properties.
Reporter covering bikes, buses, BART, buildings, and buds at the Bay Citizen. I was a legal reporter at the Recorder, an editor at the Marinscope and I started my career at the Oakland Post.
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Tom Ontis
Ah problems with high speed rail? Who'd a thunk? Though I normally support public transportation with my vote, I went the other way on this one because the State just can't afford it. Those bonds have to be paid off sometime.
We learned a few months ago that most of the money spent so far has been on staff time AND public relations contracts, mnay of which went to PR firms that had connections to the authority commissioners. Not a 'conflict-of-interest.' NOOOOOOO!
The first mistake that was made was the establishment of an authority, with little oversight. Aren't there enough transportation experts already in the State system that could have 'moved over' to the train system? Me thinx the answer is yes. Next was the lack of ovesight. The Legislature really fell down on this one. Federally, Darrell Issa is not interested in whether funds were mis-spent, he is interested in face time for himself and keeping his name known so when he comes back to run for Governor in 2014 he will almost be a household name. Darrell Issa is interested in
Darrell Issa and proving some wrongdoing by the Obama Administration. Good thing his guy, Bush was perfect.
This is a boondoggle happening right now right under our noses.