It was fun reading SF Comicle journalist Rachel Swan try to put a happy face on the latest PR from the High-Speed Rail Authority. As the Feds meander towards cancelling the latest $4 billion check, the latest CEO thinks private money may participate! From the Chron
At a moment when California high-speed rail faces possible abandonment, the project’s new CEO sees a tantalizing lifeline: $1 billion annually from the state, supplemented by an infusion of private capital. It’s a hopeful, perhaps heady proposition.
More like a head shop proposition, but she's trying
But when CEO Ian Choudri was appointed last August to run the High-Speed Rail Authority, an agency created to plan and oversee the train system, he refused to let rising costs or critics distract him. Instead, he latched onto the public-private financing gambit, convinced that it just might work.
Here's another guy looking to eat at the trough
“There are significant ways to monetize (and) commercialize long linear rights of way,” said Sia Kusha, senior vice president of Plenary Americas, a firm that specializes in public-private partnerships. Plenary has helped build metro rail systems, hospitals, freeway express lanes and a vast expansion of the UC Merced campus.
Although Kusha did not provide specific details about how to commercialize high-speed rail, others cited the fare box as a basic source of revenue. Beyond that, companies could develop real estate around stations or operate tunnels and charge for every train that rolls through. For businesses willing to engage in a little magical thinking, the opportunities seem boundless.
"A little magical thinking"? Is that like being a little pregnant? You can tell Rachel had a deadline, went to the conference where this nonsense was discussed and had nothing else to write about. The sooner Newsom kills this boondoggle and redirects the $1 billion per year of Cap and Trade money to things like, say, the Broadway grade separation, Caltrain and SamTrans budgets, or even propping up BART, the better. Nobody has said this, but there's a non-zero chance that the El Camino Real "Little Big Dig" might be seeing cost increases that threaten the project the same as the grade separation. Even that would be a better use of money than the Train from Nowhere to Nowhere.
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