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where is nowhere?
The most irritating thing about the controversy over the so-called "Bridge to Nowhere" (which started long before S. Palin injected herself into it) was the word "nowhere". True, the island the bridge would connect Ketchikan to has a population of only a few dozen, but it is also the location of the Ketchikan airport, a fact studiously ignored by the mockers, though it's the reason the bridge was proposed in the first place.
Now, whether the ferry service that currently transports people to and from the airport is adequate or not, and even if not whether the bridge is worth the budget priority - those are worthwhile questions. But they never got raised, because critics were too busy mocking Gravina Island's tiny population figure.
Now we have the "train to nowhere" which California is currently convulsed over - the opening stretch of the high-speed rail in the Central Valley, which is scheduled to run from Corcoran, a bleak 15,000-person town known mainly for its prison, to Borden, a place so insignificant the census bureau doesn't list it and which consequently has no official population at all. Ha, ha, let's mock this pointless itinerary.
Actually, if you look at a map, Borden is just short of Madera, a reasonably-sized town of over 55,000, and wouldn't be totally impossible as the locale for a Madera station. In fact, though, neither Madera nor Corcoran are intended to be stations for the high-speed rail, so it should be obvious that the segment was chosen as an inexpensive chunk to test building the thing, and on which existing Amtrak trains could run before the high-speed begins service. The segment does include two intended high-speed stations, the Kings/Tulare station at Hanford (53,000) and by its name obviously intended to serve Tulare (56,000) and Visalia (125,000) as well, and Fresno, a mere hamlet of half-a-million people, not counting a couple hundred thousand outside the city limits. If the route had been billed as "Hanford to Fresno, with a little bit over at each end," would that have seemed more reasonable?
Better yet if they could have extended the Corcoran end rather further to Bakersfield, which has another half a million in its conurb. Bakersfield to Fresno, that's an important route that a lot of people might find useful, even if it's kind of outside of my own travel needs. That's OK; I have yet to ride the San Jose light rail, even though I lived in San Jose for 16 years, because it just doesn't go between any two places I need to visit on the same trip. I would like to live to see the day I can take a trip to LA that's faster than driving and less kerfluffle than flying (and, once you add in all the burden of dealing with airports, flying is not much faster than driving), and mocking "trains to nowhere" will only delay that day.
Now, whether the ferry service that currently transports people to and from the airport is adequate or not, and even if not whether the bridge is worth the budget priority - those are worthwhile questions. But they never got raised, because critics were too busy mocking Gravina Island's tiny population figure.
Now we have the "train to nowhere" which California is currently convulsed over - the opening stretch of the high-speed rail in the Central Valley, which is scheduled to run from Corcoran, a bleak 15,000-person town known mainly for its prison, to Borden, a place so insignificant the census bureau doesn't list it and which consequently has no official population at all. Ha, ha, let's mock this pointless itinerary.
Actually, if you look at a map, Borden is just short of Madera, a reasonably-sized town of over 55,000, and wouldn't be totally impossible as the locale for a Madera station. In fact, though, neither Madera nor Corcoran are intended to be stations for the high-speed rail, so it should be obvious that the segment was chosen as an inexpensive chunk to test building the thing, and on which existing Amtrak trains could run before the high-speed begins service. The segment does include two intended high-speed stations, the Kings/Tulare station at Hanford (53,000) and by its name obviously intended to serve Tulare (56,000) and Visalia (125,000) as well, and Fresno, a mere hamlet of half-a-million people, not counting a couple hundred thousand outside the city limits. If the route had been billed as "Hanford to Fresno, with a little bit over at each end," would that have seemed more reasonable?
Better yet if they could have extended the Corcoran end rather further to Bakersfield, which has another half a million in its conurb. Bakersfield to Fresno, that's an important route that a lot of people might find useful, even if it's kind of outside of my own travel needs. That's OK; I have yet to ride the San Jose light rail, even though I lived in San Jose for 16 years, because it just doesn't go between any two places I need to visit on the same trip. I would like to live to see the day I can take a trip to LA that's faster than driving and less kerfluffle than flying (and, once you add in all the burden of dealing with airports, flying is not much faster than driving), and mocking "trains to nowhere" will only delay that day.
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Further, once the bridge project was cancelled, Palin and co. sill moved forward spending $26 million for the "Road to Nowhere", the highway to the non-existant bridge.
I'm not against government projects that benefit a few (at least initially), nor inherently against Pork Barrel legislation that might not be money efficiently spent but will still bring money and jobs to lesser-priority areas, however politically motivated.
Nonetheless, at some point a cost-benefit analysis is worth considering. On the political level, if you talk the talk then you have to walk the walk: If you're against earmarks and government spending, then you should be against them for everyone. The right has the talking points but not the role models.
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As it happens, it appears that the HSR money rejected by governors back east will be reprogrammed for California. (Much to the dismay of those governors who seemed to assume that of course the rail money would be returned to their states to Build More Roads.) This might allow the first segment to be built to Bakersfield. While Fresno-Bakersfield is not by itself a long-term viable HSR, getting two cities connected with an operating service would show what can be done and what the line really looks like, as opposed to the massive scaremongering by the opponents claiming that the HSR down the Peninsula will be hundreds of feet in the air and be as wide as a 16-lane freeway.
As I recall, the first segment of BART track was built out around Concord, on a piece of abandoned Sacramento Northern right of way. It wasn't useful by itself, but it allowed them to test equipment. And the first piece of the Interstate Highway System was a stretch of I-70 in rural Missouri. We have to start somewhere, so why not do some building where it's relatively easy in order to get the bugs out of the system. It's not like Americans remember how to build railroads anymore.
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A rail service to Fresno would not necessarily be a bad thing - Fresno is where you can break off to head up to Yosemite. Car rentals, bus services from Fresno into Oakhurst and Yosemite could easily build off a rail service that had a stop in Fresno.
But what gets me is that you can't get from LA to San Francisco (arguably the two most important cities in California) by rail. I was exploring options on travel to SF recently and found that "rail" from LA involved (1) bus, (2) train, and then (3) bus. For that much trouble, why not just take a bus directly? (I wanted something that was not me-driving - 8 hours on the road before a convention is not fun.)
I think 50 years of "easy" air travel led Americans to overlook the solid, durable possibilities of rail, and now we're having to rethink things drastically - and quickly. Other countries very pragmatically stuck with their rail options, but not us.
no subject