• Trump admin to cancel $929 million in California high-speed rail funding
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The fate of California’s high-speed rail project was cast into further doubt Tuesday when the federal government announced plans to cancel $929 million in grant funds, a move U.S. officials linked to violations of the grant agreement but some view as political payback. The action marks an escalation in the battle between President Trump and the state of California since Gov. Gavin Newsom said last week that the project lacked a path to complete a statewide system and vowed to scale back the $77-billion mega-project. The Transportation Department also said it was “actively exploring every legal option” to get back an additional $2.5-billion grant that is being used to finance the construction of 119 miles of rail line in the Central Valley. Newsom on Tuesday vowed to block the move, arguing that it was political payback by the Trump administration. Earlier in the day, Trump had declared on Twitter, “The failed Fast Train project in California, where the cost overruns are becoming world record setting, is hundreds of times more expensive than the desperately needed Wall!” Ronald Batory, chief of the Federal Railroad Administration, the transportation agency that made the grants in 2009 and 2010, laid out a lengthy legal argument Tuesday for why the state was out of compliance with the grant agreement. Batory said in a three-page letter to California High-Speed Rail Authority Chief Executive Brian Kelly that the state “has materially failed to comply with the terms of the agreement and has failed to make reasonable progress on the project.” The letter also cited Newsom’s State of the State speech last week that outlined a plan to build a limited operating segment between Merced and Bakersfield as a “significant retreat from the state’s initial vision and commitment.” Newsom said in his speech that the project needed to be rethought and that the initial run would be within the Central Valley, not the San Francisco-to-Los Angeles route voters approved a decade ago. Trump administration to cancel $929 million in California high-speed rail funding as much as I hate this administration, I can't say this move isn't unfounded. This California HSR system has been touted for years as a CA Dem talking point, yet very little progress has been made and the project has progressively gotten more and more scaled back. The current plan Newsom has is essentially a stop-gap to connect two previous disconnected slow speed rail lines, but with the two other ends of this segment of high speed rail being normal speed, it is still significantly faster to just drive there. Personally as much as I wish we could have a decent high speed rail system in CA I wish a good amount of this money was being funnelled into maintaining roadways and improving local public transportation. Never have I seen a state with this many cars have such shitty roads and highways and an utter lack of viable city-to-city transportation that takes less time than just sitting in traffic for 2 hours.
https://files.facepunch.com/forum/upload/249570/4c767c74-1be9-4957-890c-042db072398d/853.png Trump just blew up a project that has been in the works for eleven fucking years for an extremely minor fragment of a tantrum in the hopes that it gains him a few votes from the other side of the country
we're talkin about the same person that caused one of the worst fires in California history because we didn't vote for him
Public transportation isn't important. People don't need to move around. What's really important is that Trumby want wall. Trumby want wall now!
what, can't people just call their driver to motorcade them across CA? why would u need a train?? maybe ur driver isn't available, just use your private jet? liberals need to learn to stop being so lazy and just get a job.
A project that California managed to drag on for eleven fucking years making little progress and overrunning the budget. They should have just hired some Japanese or Europeans to come over and build the damn thing, because apparently Americans just cannot wrap their heads around a train that goes fast.
I thought California canned this project already? It's been dragged out for so long, and every time I heard something about it, it was California fucking up the deal.
They did. Trump took the funding after they canceled it.
it was not cancelled, it was downsized and the scale and timeline reassessed. allegedly newsom still intends to get it done, but it's been looking increasingly likely over the last few years that it is going to take much longer than expected, as many public works in california are wont to do
The hardest part is gonna be getting clearance from the FRA to run trains at a significant speed. A large part of why passenger rail in the US sucks is the railway speed limits, they're designed for heavy freight trains(Which take priority amongst dispatchers, another major hurdle), so most areas you can't really go much faster than 90. And we don't need a 1 billion dollar project for a passenger train that'll run 90MPH, UP 844 will do that and she's nearly 80 years old at this point. The physical trackage, rolling stock is the easy part.
I mean, the original plan was canceled. They were already not going to deliver what was promised. Remember, the original cost estimate was $33.6 billion. That has now more than doubled, and has possibly tripled. The failure of this project has almost nothing to do with this federal funding getting pulled. It accounted for an absolutely tiny portion of the overall budget.
yknow it's really great to see someone take a different tone for the sake of argument! I know you're not a trump supporter, so it's really interesting to see you arguing on his side, very out of the ordinary! just wanted you to know i appreciate those who really explore alternate viewpoints
What, lol? Can you point to the part of my post that isn't correct?
i'm pretty sure he's appreciating your capability to be able to have a unique view on things
Another concern, unless they design it specifically so it can't possibly happen, is that certain regions of the US (like where I live) are subject to high enough winds that there is a legitimate risk of it blowing the train clear off the tracks. Imagine that happening to a high-sped passenger train.
The inertia of an HST running full blast is substantial. Doubt it'd go anywhere. Especially since it's gonna be fairly streamlined and far FAR more resistent than a typical freight or slow passenger train. Also, the CG is gonna be much lower just by virtue of needing to navigate reasonable radius curves at high speed, which will also help with stability. Not only that, but you need a literal tornado to blow a train off the tracks. They're pretty damn heavy.
Yet it happens. The freight trains don't run here if the winds get above a certain speed for that reason. (compounded with poorly maintained tracks) But then we're known to have 80MPH straight-line winds at times, with gusts up to 90 or more on the worst days.
Trump only cares about his core base and openly attacks anything outside of it, no matter how petty nor damaging. This is evidence of that.
Construction didn't even start until two years ago, it was spending time working through legislative bodies and obtsining permits and land until then as far as I'm aware.
uh last I checked they were still building the part the grants were funding so yet another dubiously legal revenge scheme here.
Wind breaks can be built and planted in particularly problematic areas, or to funnel away from the spots that cause them. There are plenty of ways to get around major winds when you're just building to stop it and not to live or work in the thing stopping it.
Although the railway project is arguably as big of a waste of money as the border wall, I'd rather the money for the project not go to a stupid border wall.
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