AOC must think this announcement from Governor Newsom is really badly timed
New California governor Newsom appears to be pulling the plug on California’s high-speed rail:
During Gov. Gavin Newsom’s first State of the State speech Tuesday, he surprised listeners by announcing he would put the quest for high-speed rail connecting San Francisco and Los Angeles championed by his predecessor far on the back burner.
Instead, Newsom offered a consolation prize: high-speed rail between Bakersfield and Merced.
“Let’s level about the high-speed rail,” Newsom said. “Let’s be real, the current project as planned would cost too much and, respectfully, take too long. Right now, there simply isn’t a path to get from Sacramento to San Diego, let alone from San Francisco to L.A. I wish there were.”
I wishes were fishes…
Again, you can see the emphasis on the aspiration of it all. But, at least for the moment, Newsom is letting that old dream-downer, reality, intervene.
Newsom isn’t abandoning high speed rail entirely, however—and after all, some of the proposed line has actually been built. He says:
“Abandoning the high-speed rail entirely means we will have wasted billions and billions of dollars with nothing but broken promises… and lawsuits to show for it,” Newsom added, explaining he wouldn’t want to send the $3.5 billion in federal money the project has been granted back to the Trump administration.
But then—but then—the article ends with this:
By afternoon, however, Newsom’s office said that he is fully committed to building a high-speed rail line between Los Angeles and San Francisco, despite his comments during his State of the State speech.
Is this a backtrack? Perhaps not exactly. I think what “fully committed” means is “fully committed in the aspirational sense—that is, he wishes we could do it, and he knows that a great many of the Democrats of California think he should be committed to trying.”
Looking for further explanation of the governor’s seeming reversal, I found this:
Governor Gavin Newsom’s office is clarifying statements made at Tuesday’s State of the State Address on California’s high-speed rail project.
The governor’s office confirms he is fully committed to building a high-speed rail line between San Francisco and Los Angeles…
Newsom said the project would cost too much and take too long. But his spokesman Nathan Click said he’s not walking away from it.
Some in the Bay Area believe the governor’s new approach isn’t derailing development.
“The idea is to keep the project going and to have the central valley connection from Bakersfield to Merced,” Bay Area Council President and CEO, Jim Wunderman said. “For a spine from which the rest of the system can grow.”
Hey, I have an idea! Let’s try it on a huge, nationwide scale. That’ll work.
Newsom may actually be the only sane politician in California. He’s a grifter who was funded by the Getty family and other Pelosi supporters but he might be less crazy than Brown, who has neglected infrastructure, like Oroville dam, to chase unicorns.
The other CA politicos are insane, however, and I’ll bet he got serious blowback from the goof gallery,
Bakersfield to Merced. Cow country to farm country. In the middle of a state where all the population is on the coasts. But he’s a Democrat so what were you expecting?
Whenever someone opens a sentence or thought with “respectfully” I hear them condescendingly inferring the opposite. More like, “you’re an idiot, so listen carefully”.
Or maybe it’s just me.
i wouldn’t be surprised if Nancy is pulling strings from behind the scenes to undermine AOC.
One possibility is that this always has been, or is being converted to a “money is fungible” shell game. Keep the rail construction going at a lower level; keep various sources of money flowing into gov. coffers to fund it; and then use most of the cash to buy votes and support illegal immigration.
If I remember correctly, a statewide bond initiative was passed many years ago to fund the repair of the Oakland Bay bridge. Turns out that those repairs were already slated to be funded out of general revenue. So after the bond issuance, billions were freed up for more pork barreling.
The Golden Gate bridge was a toll bridge back in the days when government was relatively honest. I think the bridge was paid for decades ago but, if I recall, the bridge is still a toll.
The Vincent Thomas bridge in LA harbor was a toll bridge but, when it was paid for, the toll gates were taken down. I was amazed.,
The rail gender for human transport is not economically viable, and is a progressive burden, which, as a matter of ethics, should be aborted to spare Californians the misallocated GDP, a lifetime of missed opportunities, and, given contemporary social justice sensibilities, the toxic masculinity of phallic-shaped objects.
3.5 Billion of Fed money already spent. But no Wall/Barrier? Makes sense.
Maybe Newsom should turn to Musk to build a high speed rail line.
Mike K-Newsom is not “the only sane politician” in California. He just has different cronies than Moonbeam and wants to get that free unicorn money traveling in a better direction. Like Moonbeam, he’s a lifetime politician and a hackosaurus.
Also, Mike K, the Golden Gate Bridge was delayed for years due to entrenched government interests. The government finally deigned to build the thing but defaulted and it was finished with private (Bank of America) money – on time and under budget. (Cf., the Bay Bridge.) They charge a toll on the bridge to this date because that’s what entrenched government interests do.
At least they have not yet proposed a high speed rail system between Tijuana and San Diego,
“Newsom said the project would cost too much”
Not a problem gov, make Hollywood pay for it, they’ve got plenty of money.
But East Bay Jay hits the nail on the head when he observes;
“Bakersfield to Merced. Cow country to farm country. In the middle of a state where all the population is on the coasts.”
Current Bakersfield pop. 347,483 – current Merced pop. 78,958
Average distance from LA to Bakersfield; 111 miles- 2hr 23min.
Average distance from Merced to Sacramento; 118 miles- 2hr 31min.
Amazingly, this ‘alternative’ is even more fantastical than old Moonbeam’s wet-dream. But this is what people disconnected from reality do, they double down, like an addicted gambler in Vegas.
Great. High speed drug runner train. Those billions of dollars should have been spent on clean water for the whole state. Years and years wasted on getting the plans going nowhere. There aren’t words for this.
Newsome is en route to the Presidency hence his carefully parsed and always backtracked bullshit.
Heh. So as I get it, CA is going to pour more billions into a high speed rail installation, which is only useful for hauling passengers, in a place where there are no pssengers because they have already sunk so much into it.
The money they have spent is gone. The money they are going to spend could be spent on something else. Instead they are going to build out which can only lose more money as an operating system.
CA needs to take a good hard look at the concept of sunk costs and then review the chapter on marginal costs versus marginal revenue. I think this project is headed for the siding, but heaven help CA if it isn’t.
Passenger rail including high speed rail is a 19th century cutting edge technology.
Sad.
Sad.
A WSJ Editorial on the subject here.
https://dailycaller.com/2019/02/12/ocasio-cortez-new-york-times-green/
If you’ve lost David Brooks….
Thing is, it’s the railroad from nowhere to nowhere. Bummer, mannnnnn.
CA is in a race with IL, NY, NJ, and CT to be the first failed state seeking a federal bailout. My money is on IL with CA and NY vying for second. NJ and CT can fight it out for forth place. To my surprise, I probably live long enough to see the 50 states of Humpty Dumpty.
Illinois— we’re like California except for the weather.
AOC, “must think”. That stops any further conversation. There is no AOC thought, merely propaganda brain dead vocalizations. Zombie girl does not think, she regurgitates.
I also wonder whether the Golden Gate continues to be a toll bridge in order to deter the Wrong People from coming to Marin. NIMBY, don’t you know…
What a pretty portrait of the Left this is – the governor’s theoretical, philosophical, and cost-free “commitment” to the project will be enough to keep his blue state on his side, despite not just a LACK of results but actual BAD results. Whereas anyone who really DID something useful would be decried as a stinking capitalist if s/he didn’t mouth the proper shibboleths.
“The reason the Federal Government is involved is it is the only force capable of providing the size and speed of investment necessary to create such a transformative change in the time required,” Chakrabarti tweeted before recommending Brooks read a list of anti-capitalist books.
The Second World War was the beginning of the Administrative State, The last TV commenter who understood this was David Brinkley, whose book, “Washington Goes to War” describes the bureaucratic feeding frenzy that took place in 1942.
The Socialists know that the left aways needs the totalitarian club to make Socialism work, even for a short time. Then the money runs out.
General Nuisance has been promoted through the ranks and doesn’t realize there’s a glass ceiling directly above his empty head.
The feds forked over that $ for a high speed bullet train connecting major metro centers, not a low speed nonbullet train connecting Merced to Bakersfield.