Calif. high court asked to take up high-speed rail
Source: Associated Press
Gov. Jerry Brown's administration on Friday petitioned the California Supreme Court to overturn two lower-court rulings that have stalled progress on the state's high-speed rail project, one of the nation's most expensive public works projects.
The petition seeks an expedited review and asks the court to overturn two decisions that prevented the state from selling $8.6 billion in voter-approved bonds. The lower-court rulings also require the high-speed rail authority to write a new financing plan.
The governor, the rail authority and the state treasurer argue that the rulings prevent California from quickly starting construction on the $68 billion project and could hurt the state's ability to finance other voter-approved projects in the future, a change of course for the officials, who previously said the rulings wouldn't significantly affect the project.
"The trial court's approach to these issues cripples government's ability to function," the 49-page petition filed late Friday said. "The rulings thwart the intent of the voters and the Legislature to finance the construction of high-speed rail, and do so in a manner that has implications for other important infrastructure projects."
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Read more: http://www.sacbee.com/2014/01/25/6100356/calif-high-court-asked-to-take.html
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davidpdx
(22,000 posts)The US has poor transportation interstate and intrastate. Those who don't want it will keep kicking it in the balls until it dies.
godevil10
(63 posts)the plethora of environmental hurdles and obstacles have been overcome and permissions for everything granted?
seabeckind
(1,957 posts)Divert money from the highways to HSR and medium speed regional transit linking to light rail in the cities.
Require any development to include links into the transit system.
Require any new venue and airport provide links to the city center. Along that line, eliminate regional and little used city airport funding to HSR and regional links. With HSR we could eliminate any air travel less than 1000 miles and cut the passenger cost per mile by a bunch.
Treat modern transportation systems as a national priority and a national interest. We have the power of eminent domain...use it. Just liek we did with the interstate system.
And for gods sake stop trying to say it can't be done because the environmentalists might not like it. That's a lie. Every environmentalist I have seen is all in favor of eliminating the fossil fuel private transportation and the consolidation of freight hauling away from individual carriers.
Lastly, anytime some moron says we don't need a transportation system point to the cities and highways in the midwest and northeast over the last couple weeks. Just how much does sitting in a car getting ZERO miles to the gallon waiting for a tow truck cost?
godevil10
(63 posts)"We have the power of eminent domain...use it. Just liek we did with the interstate system."
seabeckind
(1,957 posts)Give me a while to weigh all the facts you've presented in your posts.
seabeckind
(1,957 posts)In my opinion transportation is one of those things which is absolutely strangling our country, because the maintenance of the status quo has such a astronomical cost to the common people.
The common people.
I have yet to see any accounting of the true cost. None. Oh we see all the time what HSR costs and what it entails but heaven forbid we should look at the sacred cow. Meanwhile we throw another lane or two on a strangled system, add a few more deicers and radar systems, and then wave our hands and feel good -- for a little bit.
So how much do you think this little gettogether cost? Really cost? Not just in insurance payouts. But in human suffering?
"People are trapped and twisted, and you see the fear in their eyes," said Pawlik, 55, a retired utility worker. "When people are stuck in their cars, they look at you like we're Moses. 'Part the waters and save us.' We can't show no fear or panic."
He and other firefighters from the Coolspring Volunteer Fire Department quickly and quietly went about their jobs, checking the wreckage for signs of life. Three people died in the accident, which occurred Thursday afternoon near Michigan City, Ind., and nearly two dozen were injured.
"We know our limitations and what we've got to do," Pawlik said. "We're like family."
Sometimes, they didn't even realize there were cars pinned under semis until they got close. "There were people in cars you couldn't even see," he said. "It's hard to come up on a car with a person in it. … They don't want you to leave but you've got to go."
http://www.indystar.com/story/news/2014/01/24/at-indiana-crash-site-drivers-trapped-and-twisted/4847121/
Meanwhile the state legislature's top priority is trying to pass a same sex marriage prohibition amendment. Oh and how to do tax breaks for business.
grantcart
(53,061 posts)traffic pattern for multiple stop pick up and deliver traffic.
While that exists between say Boston and Philadelphia, it doesn't exist anywhere else in the country, especially SFO/LAX
The law for the funding required that an independent peer group which has confirmed that there will never be enough pick up and drop off traffic in central CA, savings in time or money for SFO/LAX travellers to justify the tens of billions invested.
It is an expensive diversion of revenues that should be going to assist bus and light rail solutions for urban and urban/suburban traffic mass transit.
Your comment
Meanwhile the state legislature's top priority is trying to pass a same sex marriage prohibition amendment
is beyond strange.
The state legislature is controlled by Democrats who have no interest in passing any amendment, which in any case has already been decided by the courts here to be unconstitutional.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Same-sex_marriage_in_California#Further_legal_challenges_to_the_scope_of_the_injunction_barring_enforcement_of_Proposition_8
seabeckind
(1,957 posts)there are established systems that we can study to determine the best way to proceed. A good example might be China:
http://nextbigfuture.com/2014/01/china-will-double-its-high-speed-rail.html
I would totally disagree your position on high density requirements. HSR is much more efficient for any travel less than around 1000-1500 miles. That means that it would work well in the Minneapolis-Miami corridor, New York-Miami, New York-Chicago, etc. I think you might be confusing HSR with medium speed regional systems.
As far as cost? Much of the cost would be offset by the elimination of the cost of multiple airports and extensive highway systems. In my priority statement I was speaking of Indiana in relation to the cost and overhead of that horrific accident on I-94. There are currently 2 transit bills languishing in the legislature. But then Indiana defines mass transit as buses that indigent people use cause they can't afford to own their own cars. And nobody wants to rub shoulders with "them". BTW, snow removal in the city here is already over $5m with more than half the winter to go. Oh and no accounting for the cost in lost productivity due to the weather.
<added on edit> Thinking of the weather, our air travel over the last few weeks has been absolutely ridiculous. How much does that cost? Really cost? How much is it worth to you to not have to sit thru the night in a terminal waiting for a flight? And then 3 or 4 hours on the tarmac, pushed back from the gate and deiced 3 times? Oh yeah, I could have rented a car and driven from Minn to Indy in less time...if the cars were moving. They weren't.
And for Indiana? Just a few years ago there was a major investment in a new air terminal in Indy 10 miles farther from the city center. Couple billion. No provision for any transportation other than personal vehicles. And that's for a non-hub city with a light passenger requirement. With a HSR that would take a passenger from Indy to Chicago (the nearest hub) there would be no need for an airport in Indy. That means that billions could have been applied to HSR.
Which gives me the opportunity to point out that most studies deal with current transportation load and never consider eventual load once the system has become operational. Much like the ACA. Given a choice between a trip between San Fran city center to LA center in less than 3 hours door-to-door, can you really say people would still choose to fly? I don't want to fly period. And that's someone who used to love the convenience.
grantcart
(53,061 posts)and find the top ten routes - Japan, China, Europe they are all highly dense corridors that generate substantial inter/intra area stops, not point to point and all have population densities in the tens of millions.
We have one corridor that could sustain that.
The capital costs for the HSR in SFO/LAX would generate a per capita/per ride cost that would exceed the current air ticket cost, and, ironically, take more time.
More critical is the fact that the are in between the two cities is under populated and unable to sustain local service costs.
This is why the law that the people of CA who passed the measure had a provision that it would have to pass an independent peer review for viability, which it didn't.
No I don't think that people are going to go on a high speed rail that is going to take 3 hours when you can go by air in 1 1/2 hours for $ 108.
High speed rail in CA is a diversion of scarce public money from urban transportation for poor people to the world's most expensive jobs creation project.
XemaSab
(60,212 posts)is that it's going to be built on active fault lines, which are a problem that Europe doesn't really have to deal with.
bananas
(27,509 posts)Earthquake detection is good enough that they can stop the trains quickly enough and avoid derailment. And it's extremely unlikely a train will be right over a faultline when an earthquake hits - take a look at any railroad track, most of the time you won't see any trains.
9.0 Earthquake Not Enough to Derail Japan's High Speed Trains
Brian Merchant
Transportation / Cars
March 18, 2011
To say that the earthquake and subsequent tsunami that rocked Japan last week was devastating is an understatement. It wiped entire cities off the map, left a staggering death toll in its wake (though one that would have been much higher were it not for Japan's strong building laws), and sparked the worst nuclear crisis in decades. But there are two things that even a 9.0 earthquake couldn't take down: Well-made offshore wind turbines, and Japan's high speed rail infrastructure. Mat already looked at the phenomenal durability of Japan's offshore wind farms -- which, after the nuclear reactors were shut down, are still providing much-needed power to Japan. But there was another unlikely survivor amongst the rubble -- the high speed rail infrastructure that's so central to the nation's transportation was left almost entirely intact.
<snip>
And if you're curious as to what it's like for a 200 mph bullet train to do an emergency stop, check out the first-hand account of Nick Schneider, who was riding on one of the trains when the quake hit.
Finally, despite the crises wracking the rest of the nation, reports are in that trains are already again running on time.
<snip>
Here is Nick Schneider's first-hand account, posted to Emily Lakdawalla's blog at the Planetary Society:
"our part of Japan jumped 8 feet during the event"
Nick Schneider: Notes on an earthquake
Posted by Nick Schneider
2011/03/16 10:39 CDT
I got the following account of the earthquake in Japan in my inbox this morning from Nick Schneider, a friend and planetary astronomer who had just departed a planetary science conference in Sendai on Friday, March 11, 2011 when the magnitude 9.0 earthquake struck. Although not strictly a space science topic I thought his account would be of interest to some of you readers, and also wanted to help Nick acknowledge the help and organization that facilitated his safety during the earthquake and his rather remarkably rapid journey home from such a disaster. The other four western scientists who were attending the conference have all now reached home, even Michael Mendillo, who was at the Sendai airport when the tsunami struck it. I thank Nick for his permission to post his story here. --ESL
Friday: Our conference in Sendai had ended Friday at lunch, and participants were dispersing. I was heading south to Tokyo with Seiko and Ishi, two students from the conference. We were planning a dinner together, maybe catching the nighttime skyline from the top of Tokyo Tower. I dozed off as the train flew silently through the countryside. Next thing I knew, Seiko was shaking me awake saying "Earthquake! Earthquake."
At first it didn't seem like a big deal -- we'd experienced a 7.2 quake at the conference. But the urgency of the stop, and the noises and shuddering of the train as it slowed soon made it clear this was very different. Would the train jump the tracks; or, more accurately, would the tracks jump the train? Would the track ahead be damaged and the train derail? I have seen enough pictures of derailed trains.
The stopping distance of a bullet train at high speed is alarmingly large. The head of the train came into view out my window, curving around to the left, and disappeared into a grove of trees. A mysterious billow of brown smoke emanated from the behind the trees, presumably the brake pads applied as hard as possible. With a couple of last sharp shakes, the train came to a halt without derailing, all the more amazing since geologists estimate that our part of Japan jumped 8 feet during the event. I've done the Harry Potter ride at Universal studios, but the sensation of a 200-mile-per-hour bullet train doing an emergency stop during an earthquake really gets the heart pounding.
The magnitude of the event hadn't quite sunk in. We were stopped, we were safe, and we wondered: when would the train would start again? But the aftershocks kept coming, and coming, and coming. At first they were interesting. I filmed some, and even recorded some on the cool Mac app SeisMac The train's suspension seemed to resonate with the Earth, so we felt each and every aftershock. With each one, though, we upgraded what the initial shock must have been. And they kept coming, almost continuously.
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XemaSab
(60,212 posts)Here in California, we use a rock hanging from a string to detect quakes.
seabeckind
(1,957 posts)Ignoring gate time, load/unload time, etc. Most people call the travel time between San Fran and LA more in the 3 hour range. In clear weather.
World's most expensive job creation project? Perhaps, perhaps not. Sometimes the worth of something has to be measured in units other than dollars. Then again, we could really use some jobs, couldn't we? Especially ones which are used to make a system that can use an alternate energy source.
"urban transportation for poor people"...interesting phrasing. Like I said above. But urban mass transit is not just for the poor. Ask any resident of the large cities with a mass transit system and I have no doubt you would find that it serves all demographics. In fact, there are probably quite a few people who choose not to own a car for cost reasons.
A true transportation system would encompass each need and handle it in the best way possible for those needs. Urban mass transit (a bus is NOT mass transit -- it is a feeder), regional medium speed network, and a wide area HSR. And then air travel when the travel need cannot be satisfied in any other way.
We are being faced with some serious problems in this country and we have to solve them. The capacity of our current systems is being strained and we are in need of a paradigm change. Just like in the 50's when we were faced with a large expense to upgrade our existing system and chose instead to do the interstate. Perhaps a bad choice, but there were few options and gas was very cheap. The interstate system was not cost effective. Not by a long shot. But we did it anyway.
former9thward
(31,935 posts)For the first time people could move around long distances easily and cheaply. Prior to the interstates most people, absent military service, never got more than 100 miles from where they were born. Food and other materials for a high standard of living could be moved quickly around the country.
seabeckind
(1,957 posts)What you point out are intangible benefits, no matter how good appear afterwards.
Before the system was implemented it was a losing proposition and very opposed. The only way that original $300 billion (1960 dollars) was approved was for national security reasons.
Exactly like the space program in 1962. The Panama canal. The Erie canal. Boulder dam. Coulee dam.
Vision.
Tom Rinaldo
(22,911 posts)However I will address one of your points, that people would not choose a 3 hour rail trip when air travel between SF and LA is $108 for 1 & 1/2 hours. I used to live in the Bay area and flew to LA three times a year. The aspect of that trip that I hated the most was everything dealing with the airports. I routinely allowed two hours or more between airport arrival and boarding time to make sure that I would not risk missing my flight because of a security backup, after dealing with the time absorbed by getting to the right terminal and ticketing etc. Often I wouldn't need all of that time, but sometimes I did and I wasn't willing to take that risk. My experience with inter city rail travel has always been much more trouble free. SFO also had a relatively poor on time arrival or departure rate because so frequently issues with fog and low cloud cover delayed flights. Maybe because shuttle flights were scheduled so frequently between SF and LAX airlines didn't seem overly troubled by simply canceling a given flight when weather interfered.
This doesn't even begin to address the actual travel experience which is so much superior by rail than by air on todays cost shaving airlines. Rail travel on long distance trains is actually a pleasurable experience. Given the choice between high speed rail or a shuttle flight between SF and LA, if the prices were at all competitive, it would be an absolute no brainer that I would choose the train every time. The train would have to cost over $150 for me to even hesitate over choosing it over a $108 plane fare for that journey. Unless I was on a tight budget I would pay double to travel by rail over air between those cities.
Jesus Malverde
(10,274 posts)The project somehow chose to build it's first leg in the middle of nowhere. Logically a project would have started in a populated area where the track could be used while the project is built out. The first leg where they want to spend a couple billion is connecting two farm fields in the central valley, not even stopping in populated areas. 
This first leg of track will stand idle for years as a poster boy to the folly of mass transit. That money would be so much better spent on the san francisco - san jose corridor going on to gilroy etc. Or start in LA just do something sensible with the billions.
The proposed route goes almost all the way to the sierras before it heads to LA. it's strange and is what I would design if I wanted to sabotage this project.
awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)have such a hard on against high speed rail?
former9thward
(31,935 posts)Environmental groups have filed a series of lawsuits against it.
awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)it is usually pukes that are against these things, so I defaulted.
former9thward
(31,935 posts)awoke_in_2003
(34,582 posts)former9thward
(31,935 posts)Food prices in standard big name grocery stores more than twice what I pay at home in the same stores. Out of my league.
bananas
(27,509 posts)I don't know of any mainstream environmental groups opposed to it.
Some environmental groups have sued over implementation details such as which route to take, but not to stop the project.
Airlines are already abandoning routes served by HSR. And jet fuel costs are only going to go up.
Smart airlines like Jetblue see HSR as complementary to airlines, not competition.
Low Cost Airline Abandons Popular Route After HSR Opens
Jan 20th, 2014
Ryanair is one of Europe’s leading low-cost airlines, known for dirt cheap no-frills flights. It’s their version of Southwest except with even lower fares and less on-board services.
But they’ve just announced they are abandoning the Milan to Rome route – and the reason is high speed rail:
<snip>
JetBlue Sees Benefits of HSR
Jul 13th, 2010
One of the more common arguments against HSR is that “nobody will take a train when they can get from SF to LA faster by flying on Southwest for $49.” There are numerous flaws with that argument, including the fact that you can rarely get a $49 fare on short notice, and the fact that the door-to-door travel time for HSR and a flight is very similar, at least for an SF-LA trip. Another flaw is the belief that fares will remain that low for much longer, as you have to pretend peak oil doesn’t exist to assume that Southwest will offer such cheap fares forever.
Alongside those flaws is another important detail: low-cost carriers aren’t very bullish on those routes. Consider JetBlue.
<snip>
JetBlue is also supportive of high speed rail. They don’t think that the shuttle routes, such as Bay Area-SoCal, are all that great. Here’s JetBlue CEO Dave Barger quoted in the SF Examiner yesterday (and by an actual Examiner reporter, not by one of their biased bloggers who gets to use the Examiner name):
Q: Do you see nationwide high-speed rail as a threat or complement to the airline industry?
A: It’s a complement. I don’t think we need hundreds of departures every day from the Bay Area to Los Angeles.
<snip>
More Passengers Choose Trains Over Planes In Spain
Nov 2nd, 2009
For several decades, the world’s busiest air route was the “Puente Aereo” (air bridge) between Madrid and Barcelona. At a distance of about 400 miles on the ground, it’s also a perfect distance for high speed rail. Ever since the AVE line was completed to Barcelona’s Sants station early last year, high speed rail has been winning a greater and greater share of the Spanish travel market – despite Spain being hit extremely hard by the global recession, with unemployment of around 20%.
Now the AVE line has surpassed the Puente Aereo in terms of travelers. More people are taking the train rather than the plane between the two largest cities of Spain:
The Days of Cheap Flights Are Passing Quickly
Nov 30th, 2011
One of the common anti-high speed rail arguments is that nobody will ride trains because they can fly cheaply between cities like San Francisco and Los Angeles. Since at least 2008 we’ve known these cheap fares weren’t going to last long. This week brings more evidence that cheap flights are becoming an endangered species, in the form of US Airways planning a 300% hike in flights from Pittsburgh to Philadelphia:
MTC Study Shows HSR Will Succeed In California
Feb 25th, 2010
One of the most common things we’ve found around the world with high speed rail is that it is very, very successful at attracting riders to switch from flying between two points to the train. Despite deeply ignorant claims that because Southwest Airlines offers cheap flights, we don’t need HSR, the evidence indicates that HSR will indeed thrive by drawing a chunk of its riders from planes. Here are some examples of how HSR has succeeded, often very quickly, at gaining riders on high-traffic air corridors:
• Chinese airlines cut fares to win back riders on new HSR lines
• Spain HSR overtakes flights on Madrid-Barcelona route, long one of the busiest air routes in the world
• Taiwan airlines “reeling” from HSR success – keep in mind this is from an HSR system that needed a government bailout thanks to a flawed funding method
• Acela takes over 40% of market share on Northeast Corridor – even though Acela isn’t real HSR, certainly not what we’re planning here in California
Other studies have indicated that California would experience similar benefits from HSR. The Brookings Institution produced a report last October that claimed SF-LA was one of the best corridors in the country for HSR.
That study is now boosted by a new report from the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) showing that HSR will get at least 6 million riders per year from the three Bay Area airports combined:
<snip>
seabeckind
(1,957 posts)"In a three-hour hearing in the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, six lawmakers from California testified before their own colleagues, with Democrats supporting the project and Republicans opposing it."
http://www.sacbee.com/2014/01/15/6075740/despite-legal-setbacks-officials.html
sakabatou
(42,136 posts)reddread
(6,896 posts)unreal how many people can support cars burning up fossil fuel, with ONE PERSON PER VEHICLE clogging up completely inadequate surface routes. If you arent in California trying to get around, if you come from a less densely populated area with superior roads and mass transit opportunities, you really dont have any idea what we are up against.
If you are in Ca and oppose this idea, no matter how poorly executed, you are in the same boat with the opponents of Obamacare and maniacs screaming "Benghazi!"
we desperately need this improvement.
Ive seen what the rest of the country has.
We have nothing compared to the wide open decent roads around the country.
And we are paying dearly to live in this state. Clearly something isnt right.
sakabatou
(42,136 posts)XemaSab
(60,212 posts)Put a designated passenger train line up and down the Valley.
Take BART out to Livermore and down to Gilroy and over to Vallejo and up to Novato.
Get a regional light rail system in Fresno.
Instead of building systems that a few thousand people will use occasionally, build systems that a hundred thousand people will use every day.
seabeckind
(1,957 posts)Then in 50 years all the naysayers won't be able to conceive of any other way.
Just like the get a horse crowd 100 years ago.
What sold me was the Eurostar.
Xithras
(16,191 posts)That's how every nation with an HSR system has done it. Put in slow rail and proper mass transit systems, and THEN connect them with a high speed interlink.
Fundamentally, there are two major things that California needs in order for our train systems to really be usable.
1) BART needs to reach Stockton, not Livermore. People cite Livermore because it can link in with the ACE system there, but ACE sucks and needs to go away anyway. It was built for commuters, runs on a crappy schedule that is seriously inconvenient for non-commuting travelers, and costs way too much. Extending BART to Stockton would give BART a connection to both major Valley rail corridors and to most of the rest of the state through them.
2) We need a rail connection between Bakersfield and Los Angeles. I'd support the first phase of the HSR project if they were spending the first portion of the funds on that segment, because it would guarantee that we'd get enormous use out of the bond money even if the entire system isn't built.
The designers of California's HSR system have already admitted that it won't take any significant number of cars off the road. It's designed to compete with the airlines, not the roadways. I find that unacceptable.
seabeckind
(1,957 posts)They never had a national policy that had a goal of eliminating all rail transportation and transferring it to trucks, autos and airplanes.
It wasn't that they did regional first, it was that they still had it and linked the hubs with HSR. We're starting from farther back.
We had an extensive network of rail easements that criss-crossed the country. They were ripped up during the 80s.
XemaSab
(60,212 posts)There's a "flyover country" mentality in the state, and the HSR seems to feed into that.
People with a few hundred to blow in the big city have options; people in the sticks need affordable public transportation, even if it comes without bells and whistles.
ripcord
(5,265 posts)This project was authorized through a ballot initiative and the way it is being implemented it doesn't meet any of the criteria. It won't meet the time funding or ridership the people voted for.
Xithras
(16,191 posts)The bond laid out very specific requirements as to funding models, system type, and other parameters for the project.
The HSR commission has determined (correctly) that the plan originally placed before the voters isn't feasible. It presumed private funding sources that never materialized, ridership levels that were so outrageous they bordered on fiction, and numerous other things that really should have never passed the smell test in the first place. It was doomed, and they eventually admitted as much. To rescue it, they have developed a completely new plan and business model for the California HSR system which they believe WILL work.
The problem with that is that their request basically boils down to: "Yes, we know that the voters agreed to give us the money under certain terms, and we know that we are not going to meet any of those requirements, but we want you to give us the money anyway because we have a better idea now".
Whether or not their idea is actually better, it doesn't change the fact that the bond measure was quite specific about the model and system that were to be installed. Because propositions are law once passed, it would be illegal to spend the money anyway.
If the California supreme court lets Brown have the money, it will be a political decision and not a legal one. There's little question that the plaintiffs are legally correct in this case. The question is whether we want to let a little thing like the "law" stop the state from starting the construction.
MicaelS
(8,747 posts)Then we will have to spend the money to build dedicated High-Speed passenger only rails lines and all that entails. That means no rail crossing at grade. No chances of any car / truck and train ever colliding. Ever. Bridges / overpasses everywhere train and surface roads meet. How much will that cost to build per mile? I have seen estimates from $20 million a mile to $2 billion a mile. And that is just the track, no rolling stock.
The legal bullshit would be monumental. Everyone would have both hands out thinking they won the Lottery because the government was going to buy their land for rails lines. Politicians would fight tooth and nail to have the train come thought their city or town.
The only sensible place I have seen suggested to build the track would be right down the middle of the Interstates / Highways / Freeways.
There would be the NIMBYs who would try to stop they whole thing because of the noise, or it ruined their quality of life or their view, or some other excuse, just like they do with wind energy.
Then the environmentalists would get into the act claiming animals would be driven to extinction or the local ecology would be irreparably damaged, or some other excuse.
We can't build wind turbines to help us become energy self sufficient without someone whining and crying about THEIR view being spoiled, or birds being slaughtered, or the desert ecology being destroyed, or someone suffering from some nervous complaints because of noise and vibration from wind turbines, or some other excuse, and you think we're going to get widespread High Speed Passenger rail in this country?
seabeckind
(1,957 posts)For example, there was considerable opposition to the wind turbines by the fossil fuel people and the private utility contractors. Then these people framed an argument that appealed to a subset of the population who then bought it hook, line and sinker.
A lot more birds are killed in other ways, by a factor of hundreds. The noise and vibration only affects an area close to the turbine.
As far as the environmentalists? It's those same opponents saying what the environmentalist believes, not what he believes.
From wiki, here's the policy justification for the chinese HSR and this justification is just as applicable to the USA:
Critics both in China and abroad have questioned the necessity of having an expensive high-speed rail system in a largely developing country, where most workers cannot afford to pay a premium for faster travel. The government has justified the expensive undertaking as promoting a number of policy objectives. HSR provides fast, reliable and comfortable means of transporting large numbers of travelers in a densely populated country over long distances, which:
Improves economic productivity and competitiveness over the long term by increasing the transport capacity of railways and linking labor markets. Moving passengers to high speed lines frees up older railways to carry more freight, which is more profitable for railways than passengers, whose fares are subsidized.
Stimulates the economy in the short term as HSR construction creates jobs and drives up demand for construction, steel and cement industries during the economic downturn. Work on the Beijing–Shanghai PDL mobilized 110,000 workers.
Promotes the growth of urban centers and limits sprawl. High-speed rail links city centers, which are building extensive mass transit networks. These measures alleviate traffic congestion.
Supports energy independence and environmental sustainability. Electric trains use less energy to transport people and goods on a per unit basis and can draw power from more diverse sources of energy including renewables than automobile and aircraft, which are more reliant on imported petroleum.
Develop an indigenous high-speed rail equipment industry. The expansion into HSR is also developing China into a leading source of high-speed rail building technology. Chinese train-makers have absorbed imported technologies quickly, localized production processes, and even begun to compete with foreign suppliers in the export market. Six years after receiving Kawasaki's license to produce Shinkansen E2, CSC Sifang can produce the CRH2A without Japanese input, and Kawasaki has ended cooperation with Sifang on high speed rail.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_China
Throd
(7,208 posts)The ridership projections were conjured up by people huffing unicorn farts that stand to profit from this debacle.
seabeckind
(1,957 posts)conjured up by those industries which stand to profit more if we don't do this thing.