Great look at California's Proposition 1A:
The mind-boggling myopia it takes to call something like this an "extravagance" mystifies me. When did we get so hinky about investing in our future? I will bet anyone $100 right now that ridership on this train, if it is built, exceeds the most optimistic assessments. I'll bet another hundred that five years after it is built, a study will be done that finds that total social return exceeds invested capital by several decimal places.
Once the first American high-speed rail system is in place, other heavily populated regions are going to start wanting them to.
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racc Posted 2:43 am
25 Oct 2008
A Transformational Vote
Great video. This is perhaps the most important vote in this election, as it could mark the movement in the states towards high speed rail and way from flying and driving. This is the kind of transformation badly needed in the country.
I was just in Europe and I must say high-speed rail is the best way of getting around than being stuffed like cattle in a plane or being stuck in traffic with angry drivers.
Compared to the billions in taxpayer dollars wasted on roads and highways and the hundreds of billions being wasted by people on gas and automobiles, high speed rail is truly a bargain.
Countries around the world, including oil-rich Russia are going for high-speed rail in a big way. It is time that the US caught up before it falls even further behind.
More in my blog:
http://everyoneforever.org/blogger/
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Wolverine Posted 3:44 am
25 Oct 2008
Bad Project As Proposed
I am co-counsel in the lawsuit that seeks to stop this project as it is currently proposed. The video was TOTALLY WRONG about why the Pacheco Pass route was chosen, and that issue is why our clients, aside from Menlo Park and Atherton, are suing. Here's the true story:
When originally proposed, the route from the Bay Area into the Valley was over Altamont Pass. This was the logical route, as Altamont Pass is already ecologically denuded with I-580 and a major wind farm. This route would have put San Jose at the end of the line of a spur route. The San Jose business community was up in arms over this, because it wanted to be along the main route, not the end of a spur route. Through its Chamber of Commerce, the San Jose business community lobbied the California High Speed Rail Authority (CHSRA) to change the route and have it go through Pacheco Pass. The problem is that by doing so, the route would destroy a pristine wilderness, unlike the route through Altamont Pass.
The San Jose Chamber of Commerce not only relentlessly lobbied CHSRA to change the route, it concocted phony evidence that showed that the route over Altamont Pass would cause more environmental damage than the one over Pacheco Pass. This is an outright lie and is completely ludicrous. (There would be some environmental damage to the wetlands in the San Francisco Bay from building a trestle or tunnel across the Bay -- just as there would be from building any industrial structure anywhere -- but that damage is minimal compared to that of destroying a wilderness area.)
Unfortunately, the CHSRA went along and changed the route to accommodate San Jose, and our only recourse now is to sue. I don't know about Atherton and Menlo Park, but the rest of our clients and we want high speed rail -- we just want it to be built with as little ecological destruction as possible. Allowing a business community to steer the direction of a project like this one in order to make more money at the expense of the natural environment is never acceptable and must be totally rejected.
As some of us have been saying here for a long time, you don't save nature by destroying it. No project at all would be better than destroying the wilderness area around Pacheco Pass. I voted against this ballot measure and urge everyone in California to do the same. Until CHSRA takes the disgusting politics out of its decisions and proposes the least environmentally harmful alternative, this project needs to be scrapped.
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Karen Street Posted 5:02 am
25 Oct 2008
thanks for posting this
I hadn't seen this clip. And thanks to Wolverine for posting his reasons for opposing proposition 1A. I now have more ideas to consider while making up my mind.
Karen Street
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racc Posted 5:34 am
26 Oct 2008
Look at the Big Picture
It is unfortunately that the project will have impact on a wilderness area but that is no reason to reject the whole project. Compared to the environmental impact that highways, airports, the oil industry and the resource extraction used to build automobiles, highways and airplanes, the impact of high speed rail will be rather small. It is critical for the environment and the economy that the US move away from the automobile.
This proposition will be a major step in that direction and will encourage other states to move forward with high speed rail. I encourage everyone to vote for the proposition. If passed, there still maybe opportunities to lessen the impact on Pacheco Pass. No project will ever be perfect. If it is rejected, there will be pressure to expand highways and airports which will likely have more impact on wilderness areas. And again, the more automobiles, the more wilderness that destroyed by mining and the oil industry.
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Wolverine Posted 7:34 am
26 Oct 2008
Anthropocentric BS
OK Racc, since you're so willing to sacrifice life in order to build high speed rail, let's try this: Would you support this project if building it would destroy your home and kill you and your family? Or destroy other humans' homes and kill their families?
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racc Posted 10:20 am
26 Oct 2008
Missed the Point Entirely
Time to take a step back.
You absolutely missed the point. The automobile, oil and aviation industries have and will continue to be the most destructive forces on the planet destroying habitat and causing the death of countless animals a year. We need to move away from these very destructive forms of transportation. High speed rail, while not perfect, is better than the alternatives.
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GreyFlcn Posted 8:06 pm
26 Oct 2008
So
So any coverage of California's prop 10 or prop 7?
Me, I voted against em.
Basically
Prop 10: Give Natural gas vehicles a lot of subsidies.
(Funded by T Boone Picken's natural gas company, and another nat gas company)
Prop 7: Disallow California's clean energy requirement from being met by anything but +30MW installations, and allow the 3 major utilities to raise rates 10% permanently.
(Funded by the 3 major utilities in the state)
-David Ahlport
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mdwalsh Posted 6:24 am
27 Oct 2008
Great System
I agree that this is a great system and people against it are missing the big picture. Yes there will be some costs, financially and environmentally, but those are outweighed by the benefits. Additional tourists, shoppers, and everything else to the state, and less cars, planes and less efficient trains.
Not the mention, this is obviously rather preliminary, I see no reason in petitioning against the specifics until the general idea is accepted.
Another note: There was recently funding passed for high speed rail in the Midwest originating out of Chicago and connecting cities like Minneapolis, St. Louis, Cleveland and Detroit. While it will not go as fast, it will be much cheaper and impact a lot more people. I'd like to see more coverage on all rail projects in the US.
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WWAGD?! Posted 9:34 am
27 Oct 2008
Apples and Oranges
Gee, it's not the first time a Grist Ecologist has confused his amtrak with his elevated, but her goes.
High-speed rail, such as maglevs, that can run 500 mpg, are not the same as light rail, which often run slower than cars.
High-speed rail is great -- in dense areas like Europe. But not great, in low density places like America where planes do a more eco-friendly job of moving people around.
Why?
Because you don't litter the planet with rails and tracks that harm animals and divide up their biosphere (see, I can bs the same as you guys).
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racc Posted 2:16 pm
27 Oct 2008
Planes and Automobiles Use a Lot of Land
The Denver airport takes up a huge amount of land - enough to build a two lane road from Denver to San Francisco. High speed rail can be built along existing highway and rail corridors.
Extracting the oil to fuel airplanes and cars requires pipelines and roads though wilderness. Then there is the tar sands were a good portion of Alberta is being torn up for fuel for cars and planes.
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mdwalsh Posted 1:06 am
28 Oct 2008
Apples and Coal
There is no way you can say trains are more environmentally detrimental than planes. Consider fuel consumption, fuel drilling, exhaust, bird kill, airports, equipment lifespan and reusability.
Trains do work best in dense areas like Europe, the thing is, the San Fran-LA corridor is of similar density. The population density of the state of California is about 90 ppl/sq km (which includes all the deserts and what not), the EU is 112, France, just the metropolitan areas, is 110. And California is growing a lot faster.
Sources:
http://factfinder.census.gov/servlet/GCTTable?_bm=n&_ ...
http://esa.un.org/unpp/
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mdwalsh Posted 1:22 am
28 Oct 2008
Midwest High Speed Rail
http://www.winonadailynews.com/articles/2008/10/17/news/0 ...
Here is an article with some info about MWHSP, pretty good job laying out the basics. Us Midwesterners don't need fancy graphics!
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Wolverine Posted 3:51 pm
29 Oct 2008
Here's My Point
It is you who missed the point, Racc. I'm very well aware of the harms caused by industrial society, planes and cars being among them. But there's absolutely no reason to build this train through a wilderness area when it could be built through an already denuded one. That's the point; I support the high speed rail project as it was originally proposed through Altamont Pass, but I unequivocally oppose this one. To say "nothing's perfect" or some other such nonsense just excuses needless environmental destruction in order to appease some business jerks who only care about money and are destroying the Earth because of it.
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