What is Q-ball Smokin'?

I was going to post a synopsis of the medical marjiuana issue that is starting to raise its head in San Mateo County since the Times has a front page article about it today.  When I went to Assemblyman Jerry Hill's local coffee event, that was one of the questions he asked the audience since it appears he is struggling with the issue as well.  BUT...then I read Quentin Kopp's letter to the editor in the Times about High Speed Rail.   You old timers will recall that the revered San Francisco Chronicle columnist Herb Caen called Kopp "Q-ball" in his scribblings.  Now more than ever, the nickname ScreQball seems to fit old Quentin.  Here is his letter with a couple of comments:

Wrong on high-speed rail

I WAS disappointed to read the Dec. 16 editorial, "It's time we put brakes on high-speed rail," about California's high-speed rail project.

Sadly, it's unsurprisingly consistent with the paper's historic opposition to building high-speed rail in California, a position soundly rejected by state and East Bay voters last fall.

What the High-Speed Rail Authority's report submitted to the Legislature shows is that, under different scenarios, a high-speed rail system in California is a practical project that will make money and not require taxpayer subsidies.

What business plan are you reading?  Nevermind that obvious question.  Can you name ANY public transportation system anywhere in the world that does not "require taxpayer subsidies"? 

We have a realistic price tag, a viable financing plan, and a solid timeline of engineering and construction to ensure passenger service from Los Angeles to San Francisco by 2020.

Really?  Where are these realistic, viable statements?  They are not in the latest business plan. 

Any discussion of ticket prices and ridership is largely academic. I challenge anyone to tell me how much a Southwest flight from the Bay Area to Southern California will cost next month, much less what a ticket will cost 10 years from now on a train system that hasn't broken ground on construction yet.

In answer to your challenge, I predict the Southwest tickets next month will be within $20 of what they are now.  And in 10 years, I predict Southwest will be a helluva lot cheaper than any unsubsidized, cost-based ticket on a high-speed rail system that has to recover $50+ billion dollars of capital investment.  You don't have to be an investment banker to know THAT.  Why doesn't the business plan published last week not contain a cash flow statement?  

We all know that a transportation alternative is needed for California. And we know once it opens for revenue service that fares will be competitive with airfares and gasoline prices.

Sorry.  "We", that is not the royal "we" from San Franciso but only the plebeian "we" from the 'burbs know nothing of the sort.  The HSR passenger forecasts appear to emanate from an EssEff pot club.

The business plan the authority has conscientiously prepared demonstrates that with the tremendous momentum behind high-speed rail provided by the Congress, President Barack Obama, and California voters, we'll soon have tens of thousands of new jobs and ultimately an environmentally friendly way to travel throughout the state. That's worthy of the paper's support.

Nobody in the US Congress has given one iota of thought to HSR in months.  California voters are in a far different mood and place than they were when this simplistically written ballot measure passed.  If HSR "creates" tens of thousands of new jobs, it will be even more of a money loser than the skeptics imagine.

Judge Quentin Kopp

San Francisco

Q-ball, this dog don't hunt.

Comments

[Ron Fulderon]

Here are two blogs about the California High Speed Rail:

This one appears to be more political

http://www.cahsrblog.com/

This one seems to be more technical

http://caltrain-hsr.blogspot.com/

Note that they both have Comments sections and a lot of discussion occurs in the comments. Most people commenting are in favor of the project and want it to proceed regardless of what bad effects it will have on the peninsula and the costs to future Californians. They are mass transit and train enthusiast and quite ignorant of the financial realities that we are in.

[residente]

Did anyone read what Kopp wrote in the Daily Journal yesterday or the day before. Here is the last part of it. See if you can make any sense of it

So, as the environmental process proceeds, interested citizens should inform themselves about the true effects of integrating high-speed rail — a statewide 800 mile, 125 mph (on the Peninsula) maximum train into an existing shared right-of-way with Caltrain. In many ways, the corridor alternatives are limited by the existing physical landscape and alignment officially and duly chosen both in 2005 and 2008. Fair-minded citizens will understand this highly technical process and work hard to achieve broadly supported and fiscally responsible outcomes on this section of the high-speed rail system.

Broad support doesn’t mean unanimity and those trying to derail the project will seek to convince the media and public otherwise. I’m reminded of Jawaharlal Nehru, the longest-serving prime minister of India, who once observed: “The only alternative to coexistence is co-destruction.” California is poised to meet the transportation challenges of the 21st century. As a region and a state, we have always surmounted challenges and we must do so now. If we don’t change the direction we are going, we are likely to end up where we are heading.

Let’s build upon the technical analyses now in progress and support improvement of our communities by developing a system proven throughout the world since 1964.

[rr]

Can't this guy just retire already. He's from the steam engine age.

[Joe]

One more letter to the Daily Journal http://www.smdailyjournal.com/article_preview.php?type=opinions&id=122456

Editor,

Quentin Kopp first angered me when legislation he authored doubled the $1 Bay Area bridge tolls. I’m old enough to remember that the tolls were supposed to be removed once the bridges were paid for. And the empire building of Rod Diridon obviously did not culminate with placing his name on a new rail station. These despots show a haughty, insular disregard for the well-being of their constituencies which will lead to the demolition of fine homes and ghettoization of the Peninsula east of the planned high-speed rail route. And the confluence of power as Cargill money subverts the democratic process to build their ill-advised Oz in the Bay marshland is also hard to stomach.

Progress should be sensibly managed. We need to stifle the egotistical self-serving of these petty czars and bring some intelligence to our planning. The political process is not serving us well, either locally or nationally. While the thought of brandishing pitchforks and torches while riding the tar-and-feathered poltroons out of town on a rail is appealing, the citizenry is too civilized to seriously consider such anachronistic activity.

But there is no similar sense of honor in those who seek wealth and power by ramrodding their grandiose schemes at the expense of the general public. I’d like to do more than complain. Someone please write and tell us what we can possibly do to halt these spending excesses!

Don Baraka
Menlo Park