AB 2121 and Modesto

In a post over at the Examiner, http://www.examiner.com/x-33454-Modesto-Railroad-Examiner~y2010m3d25-Effort-afoot-to-derail-California-high-spead-train-project we had someone making false claims about what HSR will and will not do for the State. Since the Examiner limts their comments to 1000 characters (unlikely for one of my rants) I will post a reply here.
Mr. Patterson,


I am afraid I must take issue with your views on high speed rail, and I would like to explain why Harkey’s AB2121 makes far more sense than continuing to pour scarce resources down the bottomless pit of high speed rail.

Prop 1A was passed by voters, based upon the false premises embedded in AB3034. Among those were that the Bond debt would be California’s only financial investment, no operating subsidy would be allowed, and that the project would get cars off the road, improve the environment, and apparently do anything short of curing baldness. Those promises have now been shown to be unattainable by the High Speed Rail Authority and its contractors.

You say that this is the “perfect time to invest”, but the perfect time to invest is not when you are facing bankruptcy and foreclosure-the perfect time to invest is when one has disposable income to spare. You would be foolish as an individual to put the mortgage money into an investment, trusting it to pay off the bill, and the State of California is equally foolish to use money they should budget for schools and basic services, to pay for a luxury train service that our own LAO reports does not deliver on its promises.

Your claim that deficit spending to finance infrastructure programs during down economic times is also based on false beliefs. On May 9, 1939, Henry Morgenthal Jr., Secretary of the Treasury under FDR and Roosevelt’s best friend, admitted to the House Ways and Means Committee that, “We have tried spending money. We are spending more than we have ever spent before and it does not work. And I have just one interest, and if I am wrong…somebody else can have my job. I want to see this country prosperous. I want to see people get a job. I want to see people get enough to eat. We have never made good on our promises…I say after eight years of this administration we have just as much unemployment as when we started…and an enormous debt to boot!”

Is that the deficit spending you would condemn us to? Because even the purveyors of Depression Era alphabet soup projects had to admit it does not work. In addition, you refer to the “hundreds of jobs” produced by HSR. The HSRA’s own estimates peg the cost of this thing at $43 billion dollars (that is billion with a B) so that is a LOT of money per job. And since we know that a cost estimate for government projects is about as accurate as an Iranian vote count, some in the private sector have estimated this to cost us $80 to $100 billion before it is done! And just to add to the cost, the guys in charge of this project, the ones who have ALREADY collected hundreds of millions of our dollars without laying a single rail, just studying this boondoggle, well they would be Parsons Brinkerhoff, the same people responsible for the “Big Dig” in Boston. Go ahead, google that and see how bad that project is in the hole, and ask yourself if that is the “jobs project” you want to see in California. How many jobs will be generated for Californians? Well if we are lucky there will be some short term jobs digging ditches and pouring concrete, jobs we will then pay for in perpetuity through Bond repayment and operating subsidy for a line that does not pay for itself. The rest of the money will be shipped overseas, to the companies who will operate this, because American companies are not in the High Speed Rail business. They are in Europe and Asia, even Parsons Brinkerhoff is a British company.

You think this project will get cars off the freeway, but transit experts will tell you that most freeway trips are local and immediate regional trips, not the long distance traveler that HSR is courting. We had a meeting here in Anaheim last week, and the consultants stated that 40% of plane trips are LA/OC to SF, and it is those plane riders they are aiming at. HSR will cut about 20 minutes from the trip from Anaheim to Los Angeles, compared to Amtrak, at twice the ticket price; those trains are likely to run empty here, and as likely to meet those same obstacles up north as well. They will do little or nothing to get cars off the roads; we will be better served by upgrading the existing Amtrak system. In fact, there was an ARRA application in the works to do just that before our Guh-ve-nator put it in a desk drawer to promote the HSR application instead. Those projects truly were shovel ready, and had safety controls in them that would have prevented accidents like the Chatsworth tragedy.

As far as HSR being “shovel ready”, I can tell you that my segment of Anaheim to Los Angeles is promoted as the farthest along in the pipeline. News flash-they are designing and creating environmental studies on our line WITHOUT agreements or contracts with the transportation authorities that actually control the rail lines here. In fact, those authorities just popped off a note to Curt Pringle that the HSRA needs to go back to the drawing board and reconsider the shared use program originally designed but abandoned. That will be considered by the HSRA Board next week. In short, they are back at ground zero, so how “shovel ready” do you think this project is? No way are they going to break ground in 2012!

In light of the fact that the High Speed Rail Authority has utterly failed to comply with their own law under AB3034, I think Diane Harkey is correct in pointing out that the emperor is indeed as naked as a jaybird, and we cannot afford to continue to fund this boondoggle. Even transportation proponents who get hot and heavy over high speed rail have called this a mistake. This is not the “opportunity for the Golden State to once again be Golden”, it is instead the opportunity to ship our (borrowed at high interest rates) gold to foreign companies while we go broke even faster than before. I support Diane Harkey’s AB 2121 and I would encourage you to do your homework, I will bet you support AB2121 too when you get all of the facts.

Cynthia Ward, Anaheim CA