Thursday, April 5, 2012

SF Peninsula needs one track-BART in an effective, efficient rail transit plan...and a highway plan, too!

KCBS (SF 740AM) reports on April 4, 2012
Calif. State Senator Mark DeSaulnier, (no friend to automobility), proposes a Statewide Rail Plan:

Freemotorist comments:
Democrat DeSaulnier is on the right track.  If his rail plan ends the current Democrat "Rail Madness", (offshoot of "Reefer Madness") that Gov Jerry Brown, Democrat earmark-funded special interest MIT Exec Director Rod Diridon rail fanatic/advocate, and Honda, Boxer, & other Dems rail addiction-- especially in the S.F. Bay Area, then that is a good thing...in moderation, without new taxes, fees, or tolls against motorists.
Imagine, 3 heavy rail systems, the most heavily subsidized, most expensive transit, yet in the low ridership SF Peninsula Corridor ridership!  Only one rail system, regional BART, is needed up the Peninsula for its electric, GHG-reducing, no-congestion at-grade crossing, reduced suicides and accidents than Caltrain, higher farebox recovery, for a complete area seamless high-capacity rail transit that connects universities, shopping areas, event venues from AT&T park (soon to SJ's) HP Pavilion, Oakland Coliseum, airports, that will naturally attract riders from our roads.  BART will free up the Caltrain station land in the developing SF SOMA area,  allow removal of the Dumbarton Rail 1911 decaying bridge support towers, returning the wetland to its 1910 natural state (along with the salt ponds), and, induce whole-region ridership onto BART when its currently-planned terminus in Santa Clara is expanded to link up in Millbrae. This gap is only 28 miles and perfectly fundable wiith planned Caltrain upgrades and other funds, providing lots of local jobs for the next 15 years!  Electrifying, and taxing for Caltrain is only perfuming this deadly at-grade Pig Killtrain. HSR is built on fraud. HSR must have a federal and State DOJ racketeering fraud investigation because of all the orchestrated false numbers starting with the illegal 2008 ballot fraud.
California cannot afford to go the way of the 3 of 5 Europe PIIGS countries that HSR has driven to financial weakness and deprived citizens of needed basic government services--as is happening now in California, Parks, Animal Shelters, Adult, Child (incl Autism) Mental Health, Medical, schools, university students, teachers, and Professors, Fire and Police, as well as sacrificing other administrative union members jobs, especially in the HSR corridor communities.
We must stop California's unaffordable "Rail Madness".  I doubt DeSaulnier will do it, since he, like Simitian and other Dem's make a lot of noise, but don't take action. Democrats in the vertical monopoly of all levels in the San Francisco Bay Area governing bodies, they depend too much on rail-oriented corporate cronies, incestuous rail/density beneficiaries and (CAJ) union-extorted dues from desperate union members for their campaigns.
Say, how about a Build Highways plan once again?  Freemotorist has a long list of urgently-need alternative highway projects. These California's UnMet Highway Needs for safety, mobility, and, financial solvency actually pays for itself without tolls.  The under-appreciated motorist-derived, golden goose of automobility funds (including trucking) taxes, fees, fines, penalties, and range of other funds cornucopia, don't require subsidies.  Look around you. Automobility funds everything.

1 comment:

  1. Every foot of mass transit and every foot of expansion, except automobile freeway mass transportation, requires a subsidy from taxpayers that deprive other taxpayer-funded needs. More heavy rail, more heavy subsidies from taxpayers. We must use the most efficient mass-transit, given other transit choices, appropriate to each corridor. In the SF Bay Area, BART up the Peninsula...makes sense. BART around the Bay...and it can be done by 2022--BART's 50th anniversary if we line up to get it done and push our legislators for this safer, effective, cleaner rail than deadly Caltrain, 180 killed since 1995, 20 since Jan 1 last year, 4 alreeady this year, with the next death imminent (one+ person killed per month on Caltrain's deadly tracks). Does anyone care? Democrats, especially Jerry Hill, certainly don't...couldn't care less. More than 200 dead on Caltrain since Hill entered Peninsula politics--and now he wants a tax to fund more Caltrain deaths and waste.

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