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December 21, 2009

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


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