Oct 2015

No One Wants To Invest in CA HSR!

The California High-Speed Rail Authority put out a Request for Expressions of Interest in getting involved in the funding of the HSR project. The 36 replies that came back said, in effect, “No thank you. We will need a guarantee of revenue before we will be willing to do that.” See the Los Angeles Times coverage.

Because an operating subsidy is prohibited by Proposition 1A, that means that the proposed HSR system cannot be built. It also means the project should not be in construction now, because there is no way enough sections can be funded for there to be a viable system. For a discussion of the issue of adequate capital to construct the project, see
What’s Wrong? Read More...

Marin Clings to Status Quo

As the Transportation Authority of Marin was determining what projects to submit to the 2017 Regional Transportation Plan, TRANSDEF’s President testified, “Highway performance is at near-crisis levels. Mobility is severely impaired. Yet you are being offered more of the same.” See that testimony and the rest of the Marin page. TAM didn’t discuss whether there was a problem, and adopted staff’s status quo proposal. Read More...