The July meeting of the California High Speed Rail Authority board is tomorrow morning at 10 AM in Sacramento at the city council chambers. You can find the meeting materials here. The meeting will be streamed live at this link (kudos to the Authority for putting that together!).
The agenda includes a discussion of project phasing, an update on HSR stimulus funding and pending legislation in the state legislature relating to the HSR project, and a proposed disability access committee.
Wednesday, July 1, 2009
July CHSRA Board Meeting
NOTE: We've moved! Visit us at the California High Speed Rail Blog.
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27 comments:
mmmm ok but I'm not expecting them to have captions for their video.
Watching it now. Snooze fest so far.
Stream flaking out for anyone else?
mine doesn't work at all.
Working Now, Only Drama is Kopp not chairman anymore.
Yeah, working for me. Anyone catch who's the new chairman?
Lots of support from a handful of Central Valley phasing, and obviously lots of pushing to have the central valley not be a 2nd tier in the phasing.
2 speakers from San Diego pushing to move the LA-SD timetable up. Some good points from the SD representative about moving people from the constrained San Diego airport onto high speed rail.
LA-SD makes sense, but sadly there's probably not enough money to do it for the 1st round.
Completely sensible proposal from some individual about creating a Bay Area rail coalition, that combines BART, Caltrain, and HSR into a single rail entity. Sadly it'll never happen politically.
Is the central valley segment at risk. It was my understanding that Prop 1A required the central valley segment.
People complaining about not getting agenda items for 20 minutes
People complaining about last bullet point about communication with contractors.
Something about total cost being 50 billion dollar?!
They're talking about the business plan right now. Morshed says some folks in the Legislature don't believe the ridership numbers, and notes that Prop 1A requires 50% matching funds before capital spending can happen. So that in turn means it's impossible to produce the kind of detailed schedule that people like Sen. Alan Lowenthal wants (further evidence to me of Lowenthal's intentions to kill the HSR project as it currently exists).
The revised revised Business Plan has to be done by December 15, and then a 30 day review period by the Legislative Analyst's Office.
Press Release from the meeting.
Anaheim Mayor Curt Pringle is the new chair, which explains why the Phase 1 plans were expanded to include Anaheim. Not that it's a bad thing, but just kinda shows how the world works.
@Peter:
"Completely sensible proposal from some individual about creating a Bay Area rail coalition, that combines BART, Caltrain, and HSR into a single rail entity. Sadly it'll never happen politically."
I don't know about including HSR, but it would make sense if all of the Bay Area transit agencies (Muni, BART, AC Transit, Caltrain, Golden Gate Transit, etc.) were rolled into one akin to the Massachusetts Bay Transit Authority or the South Eastern Pennsylvania Transit Authority. But yeah, the Bay Area is too Balkanized administratively.
Yeah, a Bay Area Rail Coalition so they can all go on strike simultaneously.
California needs to legzlize its own casinos. Las Vegas can pay for its own damn train.
New York and most of its suburbs have the MTA running public transit, but the agencies don't all strike at the same time. Remember: federal law prohibits sympathy strikes. If the BART local goes on strike over BART employees' wages, Muni workers are not allowed to join the strike, unless their wages are part of the same negotiation.
First of all, no one is going on strike. Second, you can't combine these agencies because the constituents they serve do not want them combined. Non one in San Jose wants Bart running the local buses.
San Franciscans aren't going to hand over control of muni to anyone buses, subway and certainly not our cable cars, hell would freeze over first. Just like the golden gate bridge will never be given to caltrans. Peninsula residents don't want bart, they want caltrain because caltrain has to answer to its riders there. and so it goes. One large agency will not meet the needs of local communities. Redwood city is not interested in whether or not AC transit put rapid bus on T'graph in Berkeley.
and of course theres the bigger issue of taxation. county residents often tax themselves to pay for their local transit improvements. Santa Clara isn't gonna pay for ferries in marin. Could you make a large agency, do away with local transit taxes and just charge (tax) the entire region equally? Can you imagine the battles over service and expenditures? That arrangement would last about 4 minutes here before every single community opted out to do their own thing instead. Yes the bay area is a strange place but that's how it is and that's how it will stay for all of eternity. So if you're coming for a visit, be prepared and if you think are going to move here. I wouldn't. We really aren't accepting applications at the moment.
Im sure Robert will have it in the AM
A new chair for CAHSR..
Of course on taxation, why should a region that is not served be willing to be taxed for services (in this case passenger rail) which has no utility to them
That's why Prop 1A had fewer counties voting for HSR, then voting against. The larger population areas, provided the margin of victory for Prop 1A. There is a far larger geographic area of California that wants this project killed, than wants it.
Now you have the Mayor of Anaheim, Pringle appointed the new chair of the CHSRA. He managed to get about 7 million in local funds to advance the work on the EIR down south. Yet Orange county voted around 57% NO on Prop 1A; by far and away the biggest NO voting county.
It would appear that a power shift is in the making. It may even be, that CalTrain is starting to see the light and beginning to wonder if letting HSR on their corridor is wise for them. You see them looking for their own funds.
IF the NIMBYS along the Caltrain line
think with Pringle everthing will change DREAM ON..AND the statment about voters in counties not wanting to pay for things Well then lets get rid of alot of things like all the roads that metro areas pay into so those Red counties can drive their baby semi-trucks on.As far as Orange County, has and is Republican voted for Mccain what to you expect ..but its changing and when HSR rolls in to ARTIC station they will be jamming on to the trains
My point about the counties was simply that they want local control. Santa Clara County for instance had the foresight decades ago to build there own expressway system to overlay the 17/101/280. Can you imagine if that hadn't? they never would have been able to become the economic powerhouse they are. I am still amazed at well relatively well that huge volume of traffic moves around the valley thanks to that local expressway system. The interstates are one thing, but locals want their local transit needs met with local control over routes frequencies etc, One large bay area agency isn't going to meet those needs. It may work in a place like Boston because its been that way for so long and it may work in LA where most people don't pay that much attention to the minutiae of transit decisions but in the Bay area where every town is its own kingdom with its own personality and identity and politics you just can't do it. San Mateo county doesn't have the least bit of interest in Livermore bus routes and Livermore doesn't want San Mateo county having any say over them. and vice versa. you can dislike it but you have to accept it. There will be no single bay agency. Not even when pigs fly.
AC Transit ( Local & Transbay )
SamTrans
Benicia Breeze
Santa Clara VTA
Cloverdale Transit
Santa Rosa CityBus
County Connection
Sonoma County Transit
Dumbarton Express
Tri Delta Transit
Fairfield-Suisun Transit
Union City Transit
Golden Gate Transit
Vacaville City Coach
Healdsburg In-City Transit
Vallejo Transit
Muni (San Francisco)
VINE (Napa County)
Petaluma Transit
WestCAT
Rio Vista Delta Breeze Wheels (LAVTA)
BART
Monterey Salinas Transit
Amtrak
Caltrain
Sonoma Marin Transit (smart)
Marin County Transit
Santa Cruz Metro
Emery go Round
Livermore Valley Transit
Theres 30 agencies for 9 counties and that's not even a complete list and many of these agencies service the same regions, counties and cities in varying capacities.
Never underestimate the power of local little old ladies who need to get to Albertsons.
The interstates are one thing, but locals want their local transit needs met with local control over routes frequencies etc, One large bay area agency isn't going to meet those needs.
You know, Jim, this is exactly why it makes more sense for Caltrain to provide the HSR service rather than a state level CaHSRA agency. We're not willing to let the CHSRA ruin Caltrain "for the greater good".
That's ridiculous. HSR is a huge bonus to caltrain not ruinous to it. don't you know how railroads work? Caltrain will be to hsr just as san joaquins will be to hsr. San joaquins will see expanded service due to hsr not reduced service.
local agencies such as caltrain will continue to serve local needs as deemed by local people, the high speed overlay is an addition to choice not a take-away. Just as the existence of BART in the eastbay doesn't stop AC transit from implementing Rapid Bus on a Parallel route.
And I'm suggesting that local control versus regional control and multiple agencies versus single agencies - is better or worse - I'm only pointing out what the reality is. Van Ness Ave is US 101 but that doesn't mean they closed Polk and Franklin to traffic.
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