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California HSR - "Unfavorable" New York Times
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[QUOTE]Originally posted by Gilbert B Norman: [QB] The Wall Street Journal is again on the warpath: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052970204190704577024341368592980.html Brief passage: [i][list] [*]California Governor Jerry Brown must have loved "The Little Engine That Could" as a kid. Last week his state's high-speed rail authority released a new business plan that estimates its 500-mile bullet train from San Francisco to Anaheim will cost $98 billion. The state and federal governments are broke, and private capital won't finance the project, but Mr. Brown still thinks the state can build the train. Three years ago the rail authority sold a $9 billion bond measure to voters on the pretext that the bullet train would cost $33 billion and be financed mostly by private investors and Uncle Sam. They also claimed the train would draw 90 million riders per year—about 15 times what Amtrak's Acela in the Northeast draws—and wouldn't need a subsidy. Taxpayers were all aboard. Then reality struck. A study last year by Stanford economist Alain Enthoven, former World Bank analyst William Grindley and financial consultant William Warren examined high-speed trains in Europe and Japan and concluded that the California train could cost upward of $100 billion and would be lucky to draw 10 million riders. The authors also reported that investors were refusing to finance the project without a subsidy, which the bond measure that voters approved had prohibited.[/i] [/list] I know that Mr. Harris can refute much of this editorial position with fact, but the more of this opinion that is circulated from recognized news sources such as that earlier from The Times as well as this from The Journal, I must wonder if there is some credibility to such. Might the greatest cost/benefit be realized from the "incremental approach" and improve the existing BNSF route with appropriate PTC, double tracking to allow, say, "eight a day', with 110mph speeds? Just a thought from someone other than a California taxpayer and who has not had reason to set foot in the Golden State for over 20 years (not any kind of boycott; just no reason). [/QB][/QUOTE]
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