CHSRA SELLING SNAKE OIL?
July 3rd, 2008
Martin Engel Says:
July 3rd, 2008 at 9:42 am
When I was a young sprout of 18, a friend and I went to our annual state fair where a guy was demonstrating and selling a small gadget that, when attached to the cable leading to the distributor, would increase your car’s horsepower and performance by some very large percent. It was only $5. I bought it.
I was young and didn’t at that time have what Neil Postman in his book called a “crap detector.” Needless to say, the gadget didn’t work.
However, since then, I have become cynical and skeptical. Finally, a few people are taking a hard and critical look at what the snake oil salesmen are offering to us.
This high-speed train project has been for over two decades, and continues to this day, to be that enhancing gadget that, when you have paid for it and take it home, doesn’t perform as advertised.
A reading of the history of the negotiations should be a red flag for all of us. All the promises made in the PowerPoint presentations, brochures and speeches of Kopp and Diridon are really awesome. The costs, the profits, the revenues, the number of passengers, the amount of energy conserved, the air cleaned, the cars taken off the road, the reduction in air travel, the jobs created, the benefits to the state economy, when assembled into one big picture, seem to good to be true. Well, they are . . . .too good to be true.
So far, there has been very little challenge to the promises, the data, and the plausibility of this project. A major start has been the Lowenthal committee on Transportation and Housing Report, which, in its 15 findings, raises a lot of questions. The version of AB3034 that left that committee on Tuesday with an endorsing vote doesn’t come close to fulfilling the requirements of that report.
It is perfectly acceptable to be a supporter of high-speed trains and defend all the benefits that they can actually deliver. I am one. But, it is not OK to promote a pork-barrel boondoggle that is so politically charged and will be such a financial burden on the state. If the revenues and profits that are promised are as large as promised, private investors will be standing in line to build this train. That burden must not fall upon the taxpayers.
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