5 ms·

It's great, but it took more than 20 years to get here due to environmental reviews and shaky funding. ...and this was just re-fitting an existing, relatively s

It's great, but it took more than 20 years to get here due to environmental reviews and shaky funding. ...and this was just re-fitting an existing, relatively short stretch of track! We (as Californians) have GOT to do better than this! There are huge infrastructure projects that we need to undertake in the coming years. We have got to cut the red tape and properly fund projects.

sunday_serif 2y ago
Completely agree! The hard parts seems to be figuring out (1) how to cut red tape for only certain projects and (2) figuring out what red tape to keep. Chesterton's fence and all that.
- thereisnospork 2y ago
  If you have to cut red tape for certain projects, the tape probably shouldn't exist in the first place. edit: for instance, if you have e.g. an environmental regulation that is so onerous that exemptions must be doled out for something as sensible as train electrification, then you don't have an environmental review regulation, you have a 'build nothing except what the exemptor decrees' regulation. Which is rather antithetical to the rule of law and good governance.
  - Dalewyn 2y ago
    As a former Californian, you try saying that and you'll be labeled a crazy person railing against the machine. Bureaucracies everywhere tend to protect itself, but California's is particularly vicious. There is a reason many of us call the place Commiefornia.
- huijzer 2y ago
  I’m getting more and more convinced that this is a main problem all over the West. In Germany, a business owner called Marco Scheel is becoming more and more popular by being very outspoken about how bureaucracy is hindering him. His company is called Nordwolle by the way. They make clothing out of sheep wool. They spend a lot of effort finding the right type of wool so they don’t need chemicals to paint it. One major example which Marco first became popular with was that he owned a barn but wasn’t allowed to use it for the factory since it was a farm on paper. The government told him to move to a designated factory area. He argued that it made no sense since he was living in a very remote area, and the barn was of high quality. What else should he do with the barn? Why would he need to build something new somewhere else? The barn was there already and stood already for hundreds of years. His most popular quote is something along the lines of “we can’t all sit with a Chai latte and a MacBook in a coworking space in Berlin and make the 5th dating app. We need some people who do that but not everyone. Some people need to make things with their hands! And for that I need space! I don’t need glass fibre. I need space!”
  - sofixa 2y ago
    > One major example which Marco first became popular with was that he owned a barn but wasn’t allowed to use it for the factory since it was a farm on paper. The government told him to move to a designated factory area. He argued that it made no sense since he was living in a very remote area, and the barn was of high quality. What else should he do with the barn? Why would he need to build something new somewhere else? The barn was there already and stood already for hundreds of years. Of course it makes sense. Farmland is dedicated to farming and producing food/related things. It lacks connectivity, has fertile soil, prices are cheaper. If anyone can just build a factory there, they will have a negative ecological impact (interrupt animal flows, pollute in areas that are supposed to be cleaner, etc). It's the same reason why you can't farm in an industrial zone, nor can you set up a factory in the middle of the city. Yes, it can be taken too far and abused, but absolutely 100% makes sense and must exist.
    - krona 2y ago
      The guy's not building a gigafactory in his garden, is he? > If anyone can just build a factory there, they will have a negative ecological impact (interrupt animal flows, pollute in areas that are supposed to be cleaner, etc). All true of farming. FWIW as a fellow NIMBY myself, I use the excuse of 'animal flow' (in particular the flow of bats) to prevent anyone from putting anything more than a fence up within 150m of my house. It's great!
      - sofixa 2y ago
        > The guy's not building a gigafactory in his garden, is he? How could this possibly be known without a review in your opinion? > fellow NIMBY myself Unless you're American, things don't have to be so binary. The choice isn't between nothing gets built or anyone can just do whatever. We need a balance. > All true of farming I'm pretty sure birds and bees and what not prefer having plants than factories.
        krona 2y ago
        > How could this possibly be known without a review in your opinion? By all means, have planning applications and a system to process them. Things don't have to be so binary.
timewizard 2y ago
> more than 20 years to get here due to environmental reviews How thorough were they being? > We (as Californians) have GOT to do better than this! We pay more taxes than anyone else in the country. /We/ are doing our part. The administration needs to be held accountable. > We have got to cut the red tape and properly fund projects. We need to light a fire under the administration and someone needs to take a wrecking ball through the state assembly.
- tbrownaw 2y ago
  > /We/ are doing our part. The administration needs to be held accountable. ... By the electorate, who clearly aren't doing their part if things like this keep happening.
  - timewizard 2y ago
    Other than going down to the assembly and yelling what do you propose? We could call the representatives, recall the representatives, create a ballot measure, or vote differently next time.
    - Dalewyn 2y ago
      [flagged]
      - deleted 2y ago
        [deleted]
      - quantified 2y ago
        Do you mean they won't at least check your professed name and address?
        Dalewyn 2y ago
        Nope. It is literally illegal[1] to ask for identification in California. In fairness it was ambiguous[2] before, but in practice California has never asked for identification and this was made clear and official policy from the 2024 elections (note: I am not aware if there are any lawsuits that have blocked enforcement of this law, I no longer reside in CA and do not keep close track of their goings-on). And before anyone says "But registering to vote requires identification!": Yes, you're correct, but remember that asking for a voter's identity is illegal. No one can confirm whether a "voter" is actually a voter, it is illegal to check. Registering to vote is irrelevant. My personal experiences voting in California also never involved being asked for identification, that includes "name and address". Never. None. I went in and voted, nobody cared whether I could because they didn't or couldn't. For the record: I'm an American citizen (born and raised, not that that's relevant), I am registered to vote, I am proud to vote, and I am happy to present to any law enforcement or election official my state Driver's License to prove my residency and my US Passport to prove my citizenship upon demand. I question the narrative that any part of any of this is controversial for ensuring the sanctity of the right to vote and holding free and fair elections. [1]: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB1174 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm... [2]: https://perkinscoie.com/insights/update/new-california-law-prohibits-localities-imposing-their-own-voter-id-requirements https://perkinscoie.com/insights/update/new-california-law-p...
jacobjjacob 2y ago
People want infrastructure and then when it gets built, they say it’s too expensive and takes too long. Valid criticisms but many throw the baby out with the bathwater.
- jajko 2y ago
  Rail for people is hard to get profitable without pretty high cost (or permanent subsidies). Look at Switzerland - this is the land of trains, all reachable cities and villages have main train station at their heart, use is frequent, and its part of national pride (precision, coverage, cleanliness etc.). Yet prices are brutal, sure if you live here you can often afford it but it still hurts. The price keeps rising. And I still use our family car for anything else but commuting to work (and even for that sometimes). Morning trains packed like sardines, in reality there are frequent (usually small though) delays which cascade. Car for 4 is significantly cheaper - I'd say 4x for full tickets, less with half/card but then thats 200 bucks a year on its own per head. Whatever problems you are facing, I doubt that in US rail will solve all of them. Happy to be wrong here of course. I see rather some AI vans/minibuses ondemand hailing and sharing as way more effective and cheap solution. Small bus full of people has minimal env impact and can provide door-to-door transport.
  - pas 2y ago
    > Car for 4 is significantly cheaper - I'd say 4x for full tickets Would it be cheaper with all the usual externalities priced in?
  - jacobjjacob 2y ago
    I meant that it takes a long time to build and costs too much to build. But like another commenter said, externalities and the implicit subsidies that other modes of transportation get make it a difficult comparison. Cleaner forms of transportation should be subsidized. The fact that it costs me $8 to cross the Bay Bridge into SF but costs $10+ round trip on BART is a shame. Especially when you have two or three people in the car.
joenot443 2y ago
How do Californians in 2025 feel about the California High-Speed Rail? A similar project [1] is underway in Canada, but I worry sometimes it'll fall prey to the same administrative bog that the CHSR did. It'll be managed by a new Crown corp, VIA HFR, and from my understanding they're still taking engineering bids. I expect it'll be a while before shovels hit the ground. A cheap, fast, and reliable rail from Toronto to Montreal would be a dream come true for a lot of Canadians. Any ideas on how best to make it a reality? [1] https://tc.canada.ca/en/rail-transportation/railway-lines/high-frequency-rail https://tc.canada.ca/en/rail-transportation/railway-lines/hi...
- dcrazy 2y ago
  I think high-speed rail between SF and LA is a great idea, and it’s difficult to understand how much of its cost is avoidable excess when the only solution proposed by critics is to shut down the project entirely.
- TrapLord_Rhodo 2y ago
  This got 8.9B allocated in 2008... The government should be banned from mega projects sucking up my tax payer dollars.
tim333 2y ago
I'm not sure it'll work but we have one of the loudest critics of over regulation making it hard to build things setting up the Department of Government Efficiency when he's not doing iffy salutes on stage. Their proposed approach as written in a WSJ opinion piece is quite interesting - >Most legal edicts aren’t laws enacted by Congress but “rules and regulations” promulgated by unelected bureaucrats—tens of thousands of them each year >...President Trump, [] can, by executive action, immediately pause the enforcement of those regulations and initiate the process for review and rescission. >When the president nullifies thousands of such regulations, critics will allege executive overreach. In fact, it will be correcting the executive overreach of thousands of regulations promulgated by administrative fiat that were never authorized by Congress... (wsj thing https://archive.is/nFNp4 https://archive.is/nFNp4)
- 9283409232 2y ago
  > iffy You can just call it what it is and say Nazi salute.

sunday_serif 2y ago

Completely agree! The hard parts seems to be figuring out (1) how to cut red tape for only certain projects and (2) figuring out what red tape to keep. Chesterton's fence and all that.

thereisnospork 2y ago
If you have to cut red tape for certain projects, the tape probably shouldn't exist in the first place. edit: for instance, if you have e.g. an environmental regulation that is so onerous that exemptions must be doled out for something as sensible as train electrification, then you don't have an environmental review regulation, you have a 'build nothing except what the exemptor decrees' regulation. Which is rather antithetical to the rule of law and good governance.
- Dalewyn 2y ago
  As a former Californian, you try saying that and you'll be labeled a crazy person railing against the machine. Bureaucracies everywhere tend to protect itself, but California's is particularly vicious. There is a reason many of us call the place Commiefornia.
huijzer 2y ago
I’m getting more and more convinced that this is a main problem all over the West. In Germany, a business owner called Marco Scheel is becoming more and more popular by being very outspoken about how bureaucracy is hindering him. His company is called Nordwolle by the way. They make clothing out of sheep wool. They spend a lot of effort finding the right type of wool so they don’t need chemicals to paint it. One major example which Marco first became popular with was that he owned a barn but wasn’t allowed to use it for the factory since it was a farm on paper. The government told him to move to a designated factory area. He argued that it made no sense since he was living in a very remote area, and the barn was of high quality. What else should he do with the barn? Why would he need to build something new somewhere else? The barn was there already and stood already for hundreds of years. His most popular quote is something along the lines of “we can’t all sit with a Chai latte and a MacBook in a coworking space in Berlin and make the 5th dating app. We need some people who do that but not everyone. Some people need to make things with their hands! And for that I need space! I don’t need glass fibre. I need space!”
- sofixa 2y ago
  > One major example which Marco first became popular with was that he owned a barn but wasn’t allowed to use it for the factory since it was a farm on paper. The government told him to move to a designated factory area. He argued that it made no sense since he was living in a very remote area, and the barn was of high quality. What else should he do with the barn? Why would he need to build something new somewhere else? The barn was there already and stood already for hundreds of years. Of course it makes sense. Farmland is dedicated to farming and producing food/related things. It lacks connectivity, has fertile soil, prices are cheaper. If anyone can just build a factory there, they will have a negative ecological impact (interrupt animal flows, pollute in areas that are supposed to be cleaner, etc). It's the same reason why you can't farm in an industrial zone, nor can you set up a factory in the middle of the city. Yes, it can be taken too far and abused, but absolutely 100% makes sense and must exist.
  - krona 2y ago
    The guy's not building a gigafactory in his garden, is he? > If anyone can just build a factory there, they will have a negative ecological impact (interrupt animal flows, pollute in areas that are supposed to be cleaner, etc). All true of farming. FWIW as a fellow NIMBY myself, I use the excuse of 'animal flow' (in particular the flow of bats) to prevent anyone from putting anything more than a fence up within 150m of my house. It's great!
    - sofixa 2y ago
      > The guy's not building a gigafactory in his garden, is he? How could this possibly be known without a review in your opinion? > fellow NIMBY myself Unless you're American, things don't have to be so binary. The choice isn't between nothing gets built or anyone can just do whatever. We need a balance. > All true of farming I'm pretty sure birds and bees and what not prefer having plants than factories.
      - krona 2y ago
        > How could this possibly be known without a review in your opinion? By all means, have planning applications and a system to process them. Things don't have to be so binary.

timewizard 2y ago

> more than 20 years to get here due to environmental reviews How thorough were they being? > We (as Californians) have GOT to do better than this! We pay more taxes than anyone else in the country. /We/ are doing our part. The administration needs to be held accountable. > We have got to cut the red tape and properly fund projects. We need to light a fire under the administration and someone needs to take a wrecking ball through the state assembly.

tbrownaw 2y ago
> /We/ are doing our part. The administration needs to be held accountable. ... By the electorate, who clearly aren't doing their part if things like this keep happening.
- timewizard 2y ago
  Other than going down to the assembly and yelling what do you propose? We could call the representatives, recall the representatives, create a ballot measure, or vote differently next time.
  - Dalewyn 2y ago
    [flagged]
    - deleted 2y ago
      [deleted]
    - quantified 2y ago
      Do you mean they won't at least check your professed name and address?
      - Dalewyn 2y ago
        Nope. It is literally illegal[1] to ask for identification in California. In fairness it was ambiguous[2] before, but in practice California has never asked for identification and this was made clear and official policy from the 2024 elections (note: I am not aware if there are any lawsuits that have blocked enforcement of this law, I no longer reside in CA and do not keep close track of their goings-on). And before anyone says "But registering to vote requires identification!": Yes, you're correct, but remember that asking for a voter's identity is illegal. No one can confirm whether a "voter" is actually a voter, it is illegal to check. Registering to vote is irrelevant. My personal experiences voting in California also never involved being asked for identification, that includes "name and address". Never. None. I went in and voted, nobody cared whether I could because they didn't or couldn't. For the record: I'm an American citizen (born and raised, not that that's relevant), I am registered to vote, I am proud to vote, and I am happy to present to any law enforcement or election official my state Driver's License to prove my residency and my US Passport to prove my citizenship upon demand. I question the narrative that any part of any of this is controversial for ensuring the sanctity of the right to vote and holding free and fair elections. [1]: https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtml?bill_id=202320240SB1174 https://leginfo.legislature.ca.gov/faces/billTextClient.xhtm... [2]: https://perkinscoie.com/insights/update/new-california-law-prohibits-localities-imposing-their-own-voter-id-requirements https://perkinscoie.com/insights/update/new-california-law-p...

jacobjjacob 2y ago

People want infrastructure and then when it gets built, they say it’s too expensive and takes too long. Valid criticisms but many throw the baby out with the bathwater.

jajko 2y ago
Rail for people is hard to get profitable without pretty high cost (or permanent subsidies). Look at Switzerland - this is the land of trains, all reachable cities and villages have main train station at their heart, use is frequent, and its part of national pride (precision, coverage, cleanliness etc.). Yet prices are brutal, sure if you live here you can often afford it but it still hurts. The price keeps rising. And I still use our family car for anything else but commuting to work (and even for that sometimes). Morning trains packed like sardines, in reality there are frequent (usually small though) delays which cascade. Car for 4 is significantly cheaper - I'd say 4x for full tickets, less with half/card but then thats 200 bucks a year on its own per head. Whatever problems you are facing, I doubt that in US rail will solve all of them. Happy to be wrong here of course. I see rather some AI vans/minibuses ondemand hailing and sharing as way more effective and cheap solution. Small bus full of people has minimal env impact and can provide door-to-door transport.
- pas 2y ago
  > Car for 4 is significantly cheaper - I'd say 4x for full tickets Would it be cheaper with all the usual externalities priced in?
- jacobjjacob 2y ago
  I meant that it takes a long time to build and costs too much to build. But like another commenter said, externalities and the implicit subsidies that other modes of transportation get make it a difficult comparison. Cleaner forms of transportation should be subsidized. The fact that it costs me $8 to cross the Bay Bridge into SF but costs $10+ round trip on BART is a shame. Especially when you have two or three people in the car.

joenot443 2y ago

How do Californians in 2025 feel about the California High-Speed Rail? A similar project [1] is underway in Canada, but I worry sometimes it'll fall prey to the same administrative bog that the CHSR did. It'll be managed by a new Crown corp, VIA HFR, and from my understanding they're still taking engineering bids. I expect it'll be a while before shovels hit the ground. A cheap, fast, and reliable rail from Toronto to Montreal would be a dream come true for a lot of Canadians. Any ideas on how best to make it a reality? [1] https://tc.canada.ca/en/rail-transportation/railway-lines/high-frequency-rail https://tc.canada.ca/en/rail-transportation/railway-lines/hi...

dcrazy 2y ago
I think high-speed rail between SF and LA is a great idea, and it’s difficult to understand how much of its cost is avoidable excess when the only solution proposed by critics is to shut down the project entirely.
TrapLord_Rhodo 2y ago
This got 8.9B allocated in 2008... The government should be banned from mega projects sucking up my tax payer dollars.

tim333 2y ago

I'm not sure it'll work but we have one of the loudest critics of over regulation making it hard to build things setting up the Department of Government Efficiency when he's not doing iffy salutes on stage. Their proposed approach as written in a WSJ opinion piece is quite interesting - >Most legal edicts aren’t laws enacted by Congress but “rules and regulations” promulgated by unelected bureaucrats—tens of thousands of them each year >...President Trump, [] can, by executive action, immediately pause the enforcement of those regulations and initiate the process for review and rescission. >When the president nullifies thousands of such regulations, critics will allege executive overreach. In fact, it will be correcting the executive overreach of thousands of regulations promulgated by administrative fiat that were never authorized by Congress... (wsj thing https://archive.is/nFNp4 https://archive.is/nFNp4)

9283409232 2y ago
> iffy You can just call it what it is and say Nazi salute.