Passenger Trains > High Speed Rail in Cali getting another rap

Now they are very slow paying the landowners for their land

https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-bullet-train-cash-20190610-story.html

Posted from iPhone

amtrakbill Wrote:
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> Now they are very slow paying the landowners for
> their land
>
> https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-bul
> let-train-cash-20190610-story.html
>
> Posted from iPhone



Forget the "rap" on the failed HSR, this is criminal. Feel for the land owners, the farmers and others who have been screwed while San Francisco consultants, politicians, and attorneys get fat. As usual."Up and down the San Joaquin Valley, farmers have similar stories. The state can take land with a so-called order of possession by the Superior Court while it haggles over the price.But farmers often face out-of-pocket costs for lost production, road replacement, repositioning of irrigation systems and other expenses, which the state agrees to pay before the final settlement.Those payments and even some payments for land have stretched out to three years. State officials have offered endless excuses for not paying, the farmers say.


 

Duna Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> amtrakbill Wrote:
> --------------------------------------------------
> -----
> > Now they are very slow paying the landowners
> for
> > their land
> >
> >
> https://www.latimes.com/local/california/la-me-bul
>
> > let-train-cash-20190610-story.html
> >
> > Posted from iPhone
>
>
>
> Forget the "rap" on the failed HSR, this is
> criminal. Feel for the land owners, the farmers
> and others who have been screwed while San
> Francisco consultants, politicians, and attorneys
> get fat. As usual."Up and down the San Joaquin
> Valley, farmers have similar stories. The state
> can take land with a so-called order of possession
> by the Superior Court while it haggles over the
> price.But farmers often face out-of-pocket costs
> for lost production, road replacement,
> repositioning of irrigation systems and other
> expenses, which the state agrees to pay before the
> final settlement.Those payments and even some
> payments for land have stretched out to three
> years. State officials have offered endless
> excuses for not paying, the farmers say.
>
>
>  We grow almonds and peaches in the Ceres Hughson area and are fortunately not involved in this incredible fiasco, but yes, the farmers in many cases are being screwed blue and tattoec royally. 
C

Carol Voss
Bakersfield, CA

I lost interest in this project long ago -- because, if you remember-- it has a compleion time-line of something like 30 years.  Our politicians can't handle big construction projects anymore.

I think nobody knows how to put a high-speed line through the mountains north of L.A.

True. they built a high-speed line under the English Channel--and through the Alps Mountains---but, we can't do it here.  Too many impact studies and NIMBY's.

Should have contracted the Japanese or the Chinese to build it. You know somebody that’s knows what the hell they or doing.

Posted from iPhone

International contractors and builders may be top notch when it comes to roadbed construction, bridges, trackwork and signaling - plus the rolling stock, but they can do nothing to help with California real estate laws, easements and payments to property owners

Anyone who still supports is is blind, when I said Pipe Dream I meant it, especially since it took 10 years just to break ground, at least in Texas and Florida they're doing it the right way!

Not a rap but criminal the whole thing has been a fiasco since its inception, with better options , the trouble is it would not make the consultants and the politicians rich.

No kidding, they always want something that'll benifit them, and demand it makes a profit!

The-late-EMD Wrote:
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> Should have contracted the Japanese or the Chinese
> to build it. You know somebody that’s knows what
> the hell they or doing.

Very naive comment. Nothing personal, but if you take this personally, feel free.

CA HSR courted the Chinese already. Since we are easily motivated to do stupid things for money, we assume others (like countries) do the same.

Japan more or less stayed away from CA HSR, because there was nothing to gain for them.

> >  We grow almonds and peaches in the Ceres
> Hughson area...

I feel your pain....I'll buy an extra carton of "almond milk" at Trader Joe's to help out the "poor" farmers, meanwhile I can't breath the air for all the cars (and trucks) that roar up and down the SJ Valley on I-5. Sooner or later the CAHSR will be built, and I will be on the first train...granted, if I live that long. Incidentally, is it "milk" if it doesn't come from a mammal?   

So, when HSR is not built and instead they build a 10 lane super-freeway through the same area, do you think they will be treated any differently? (Oh, and the super-freeway is government financed, makes no profit and helps cause horrible pollution and climate change...)
And 4 new airports? ( and the hundreds or thousands that they will displace...)
Also - 70 farmers?  The word farmer (I think in many cases) conjures up images of mom and pop and some field hands - NOT millionaire farmers. They should be paid and I expect they will be, but this is ridiculously overblown.

People, railfans included, continue to miss the point.

Allow me, a former transportation planner who started in travel demand forecasting, to share-

The failure of CAHSR is not due primarily to incompetence or lack of engineering or railroading skills.  The "failure" is not even really a failure, because the entire project was based on faked data.

I have been saying this since the inception. So have people like O'Toole, staff at CA Division of Rail, and at least some at the CA Train Riders Association.

In order to secure necessary popular and political support, boosters (aka those who stood to profit, and did) put forth unrealistic numbers.  Ridership was exaggerated and costs were low-balled.  This was no accident, it is done all the time on transportation projects. Look around.

People say the planning methodology is bad (Fed Alternatives Analysis, other agency & financing analyses), but the main problem isn't the methods which are mandated by law, it's the fact that the resultant numbers are purposely distorted in order to achieve a pre-determined (aka top-down or otherwise political) result.  The larger the project, the more likely it is the result of top-down mandates. The concept of grass-roots efforts resulting in large gov't projects is BS. The world does not work that way.

Large projects seeking Federal funding MUST follow a well-established planning procedure. There is no other way.  Don't like it? Change the laws. Until then, projects MUST show, among other things, sufficient NEW RIDERS and TOTAL RIDERS. Raw, per-mile, etc etc. These are divided by forecast capital and operating costs to determine the basic VALUE of the project vs. other projects. If the project does not meet the criteria, it is done. So there is a lot of pressure to fake the numbers. And it's not hard to produce fake numbers. The messy process is hidden, like Oz and planners are the wizards.

In other words, if necessary, unbiased objective travel demand and financial forecast results are supressed and fake numbers are published. Then other plans are made based on the fake numbers...  If Calif voters would have been presented with realistic ridership and cost forecasts, they probably would not have passed the State bond measures in the first place.  Underwriters and others would have stayed away. The project would have remained in the dreamland, where it belongs and is headed after... how much has been spent and encumbered to-date?

Forecast results can be easily skewed as lots of inputs go into the mix including other forecast results- HH size, income, future jobs in analysis zones, vehicle operation costs, even birthrates.  Conscious and unconscious bias of planners comes into play too.  There's the popular concept of "advocacy planning". But advocacy is the opposite of providing accurate, objective information to decision makes and voters. It's BS, and we are living with the results.

In short, garbage in, garbage out.

Now the Bay Area is going to get a very expensive commuter train, if that.  If you want to see the future of California, look to Brazil or Bosnia, not Switzerland.

And people are still surprised the State and big money lied to them?  lolz.

CA taxpayers got bent over, yet many ask for more.  The beatings will continue until morale improves.



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 06/11/19 16:15 by Duna.

dispr Wrote:
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> So, when HSR is not built and instead they build a
> 10 lane super-freeway through the same area, do
> you think they will be treated any differently?

Off topic but NIMBYs killed the northern extension of I-710 in SoCal, which arguably has merits. I'm sure Central Valley farmers are quite capable of opposing a "super freeway" project like the folks in Pasadena.

> (Oh, and the super-freeway is government financed,
> makes no profit and helps cause horrible pollution
> and climate change...)

Shinkansen, TGV, ICE, and other HSR routes were built without considerations to climate change. Japan did tout the merits of Shinkansen as environmentally friendly when they hosted the global warming conference in 1997 which led to the Kyoto Protocol. They continued to push that narrative in 2005, when they hosted the World Expo, the same year the Kyoto Protocol took effect. It was their obligation to demonstrate to the world what they "did" to help the environment.

Before the Kyoto Protocol, I rarely heard rail travel being associated with preventing global warming (a.k.a. "climate change"). Just trying to pinpoint the roots of that propaganda, whether I agree with the issue or not.

I don't see any rail system in the world that moves 1000+ people per train set with 5 minute headways at 165-199 mph, which is what it takes to significantly save energy and reduce emissions. In other words, CA HSR won't make much of an impact, in my opinion, even if the project got completed within the next 100 years by sheer luck.

The merits of CA HSR must be based on transportation improvements. It seems CA HSR Authority themselves don't really care. They just want to hoard money.
 
> Also - 70 farmers?  The word farmer (I think in
> many cases) conjures up images of mom and pop and
> some field hands - NOT millionaire farmers. They
> should be paid and I expect they will be, but this
> is ridiculously overblown.

You mean small farmers vs. corporate farmers? Depending on the crop, some farmers (especially corporate) receive government subsidies, which CarolVoss has mentioned elsewhere. Central Valley farmers do have considerable influence in politics, whether Sacramento likes that or not.