Governor Jerry Brown was, formerly, the Mayor of Oakland. Jerry Brown has been a high-speed rail supporter for decades. Now, the newspaper of record for the city of Oakland is telling Governor Brown and the State Legislature to shut this project down.
Are you reading your newspapers, Governor? You are a long way from solving our budget crisis, Governor, and one way that you can help do this is by terminating this potentially enormous financial drain on the State. The real blood-letting hasn't started yet. The worst is still to come.
We are at a point where it should become an embarrassment for a state to cut its educational services, from kindergarten through college, while sustaining a luxury train project that will benefit only those riders who can afford the highest priced train tickets available.
Please note. The Los Angeles Times, while rejecting the current mismanagement of the high-speed rail project, still wishes to support a high-speed rail project under other management. We discussed this several blog entries ago. You can scroll back to see this or read the editorial here:
The LA Times is willing to relinquish the federal funding on hand for the sake of improved management. The Oakland Tribune's position, unlike the LA Times, does not qualify their opposition to the high-speed rail project. They simply oppose it. They don't talk about doing it "right."
That is the position we take in this blog. We agree that there has been a cascade of bad management by bad people. But, we believe that even good management by good people building a high-speed rail project in California is an egregious mistake.
However, let us be clear. We agree with both papers that this project as now managed and governed must be terminated, the California High-Speed Rail Authority Board and staff discharged, and all contracts cancelled.
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Oakland Tribune editorial: Time to pull the plug on California's rail fantasy
Oakland Tribune editorial
© Copyright 2011, Bay Area News Group
Posted: 05/16/2011 04:00:00 PM PDT
THERE IS nothing that epitomizes California's dysfunctional government more than the state's pursuit of a high-speed rail fantasy that is headed for all-but-certain failure.
The latest criticism of the rail scheme comes from the independent Legislative Analyst's Office, which strongly opposes Gov. Jerry Brown's request for an appropriation of $185 million to keep the project moving forward.
It's past time for the state to do what it should have done more than a year ago -- cancel the project and stop wasting any more of the taxpayers' money.
The High-Speed Rail Authority has bungled the project from the start with poor management, a lack of a coherent business plan, no realistic estimates of cost, ridership or fares, no final decision on the route and even less chance of obtaining the private financing that is needed to complete the system.
It is difficult to fathom how anyone could not see that a high-speed rail system in California is doomed to failure. The estimated $43 billion for the first phase of the project from the Bay Area to Anaheim is likely to be way low.
The $9 billion in bond authority approved by the voters in 2008 won't even cover a quarter of the cost, and requires matching funds that are not likely to be forthcoming.
It is dismaying that the federal government has offered $2.8 billion for the project, when even a cursory examination would show that the rail system cannot operate without huge continuing handouts from a state that has the largest budget deficit in the nation.
Even with large subsidies, ridership is not apt to be anywhere near what is needed to keep fares competitive with airlines, even with higher fuel prices.
It would make far more sense for California to spend transportation money on urban transit projects such as BART to San Jose than to try to build a high-speed rail system in a region that does not have the population density to support it.
Gov. Brown could show some leadership by dropping his request for high-speed rail funds and bring the budget a bit closer toward balance.
Unfortunately, there are entrenched interests pushing to spend $5 billion on a length of tack in the middle of the Central Valley. If the state is foolish enough to go ahead with laying miles of rail from nowhere to nowhere, years from now people living there will wonder why a useless stretch of track was ever built.
The LAO report is just one of several highly negative evaluations of the high-speed rail project. Anyone who takes a close look at it can readily see that it is no more than wishful thinking, unrelated to reality.
If California continues to proceed with such a waste of billions of taxpayer dollars, how can the state expect voters to pass tax increases and extensions?
California faces many very real financial challenges without diverting revenue to a doomed rail project that needs to be quickly and permanently rejected.
