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Citing property values, Silicon Valley blanches at high-speed rail

Great article, Andrew. This is exactly what I was referring to in this article I wrote last week: http://bit.ly/mdly7P

New York only does software and web. You'd have a hard time finding an electronics lab anywhere in the city aside from the Universities. There is a growing biotech presence but it is still quite small.

This is the same type of local opposition that Acela ran into in Massachusetts and Connecticut.

Now we have a billion dollar train capable of running at 150 mph running at 80 mph on old tracks shared with cargo trains.

In 1957, Santa Clara County (Palo Alto, San Jose, etc.) voted not to join the Bay Area Rapid Transit District (BART). That's why East Bay service only went to Fremont, which is in Alameda County. In December, 1961, the San Mateo County Board of Supervisors responded to a racist campaign led by the developer David Bohannon and also voted not to become part of BART. That's why BART stopped at the Daly City border, and only recently was extended to SFO and Millbrae. Bohannon convinced them that criminal elements would use BART to come to their towns and rob them. How much swag could you carry back on a BART train anyway? Just picture these imagined minority race criminals standing on a BART platform waiting for the train in what were then lily white towns.

Every time I have to drive down the Peninsula from San Francisco, I think about how much easier life would have been for me and my fellow drivers if we had the option of taking BART instead of just the infrequent Caltrain service.

It's that same mentality driving much of the opposition to HSR here. Maybe we need some videos of the French TGVs or the German ICE trains to see how they co-exist with the residential environments in their countries.

It's true: we must remember that infrastructure is highly impacted by the political and social climate in which it's developed. Would you lay out certain cities or transport schemes the same as they are if you could go back and start over? Doubtful. Balancing private negatives for public positives is, and always will be, an issue. (Take I-95, for example: it may be a great artery, but it cut off water access for a lot of cities and towns.)

Its the attitute of a LOT of the "Green" people and movement. As long as someone else pays for it, it does not come through where they live and work, and does force THEM to use it - then they work hard to force it onto eveyone else. But the minute it affects them via money or their lifestyle - they scream how bad it is.

People are dumb enough to buy a house next to train tracks and then complain when a train runs on them.

Most of these rails would be laid on existing rail rights of way. The problem is some of them have been out of use since the 1940s and saw the tracks ripped up in the 1970s and 1980s. Other lines see just a few cargo trains a week during the day when people are at work.

Running trains at 150 mph at all hours of the morning and evening is what scares these people.

Waterways and air quality has improved in the US over the past several decades, not because industry has cleaned itself up, but because industry has moved overseas.

Electric cars seem clean because the emissions don't happen at the vehicle itself, with that said, there's likely a coal power plant miles away generating the electricity that supplied the electric vehicle.

Many political leaders pay lip service to green energy, but try to put a windmill within view from their residence.

I may be a bit of a contrarian here, but I think the best place to put a powerplant is in a heavily populated area. Ideally the same area where the guy in charge of funding the environmental, health and safety systems lives (not just the guy responsible for it). If a powerplant is right in ones backyard, it is far more likely to be safe and clean then if it were to be built out of sight out of mind. It's also a lot closer to where the power is consumed. This is an important part of raising awareness.

...from a business standpoint. Wouldn't it be great if we could erect a ton of wind turbines around New York City, so it no longer had to draw power from the greater region? Except that's impossible for a city with New York's density.

It's always a catch-22: the best place in the U.S. for wind power is the Midwest, but Chicago aside, relatively few live there (compared to the coasts). The best place for solar power is the Southwest, but Phoenix aside, relatively few live there. And I'm fairly sure we'd all like our local airport to be located in a more convenient place, too. But...

I think the reference is to the fossil fuel power plants being completely out of sight.

In the past, pro-rail people have touted China's entry into high speed rail as the model we should use. Well, it turns out that the Chinese system is in debt to the tune of $300 billion, suffers in many areas from low ridership because of high fares, had to recently reduce the maximum speeds, and suffers from corruption. See http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/are-chinas-high-speed-trains-heading-off-the-rails/2011/04/22/AFHzaNWE_story.html

Why would we want to import that here?

Few dispute the trains value

Actually, many do; mainly the millions of taxpayers who will never enjoy the benefits of this multi-billion dollar boondoggle.

I'm amazed that NIMBY is brought up. As a Californian who lives on the "Peninsula" in question it is disheartening to see a WSJ article that denigrates objectors here. This has nothing to do with "wealthy enclaves". It has to do with ramrodding a fixed rail system requiring 2-3 times the real estate as the existing, original Southern Pacific railroad line through the hearts of San Mateo County towns that were built right up to the tracks when the the railroad line first went through in the late 19th century. There are houses, businesses, old hotels within 5 yards of the tracks. Think what happens to these colorful "suburbs" if a useless, modern fixed-rail system guts these towns via eminent domain.

If the opposition is anything like that Acela saw in Massachusetts and Connecticut it has less to do with land takings and more to do with people living close to the tracks not wanting trains zipping by at 150 mph 20 yards from their houses.

Because most of these rails are to be placed within existing rail rights of way the biggest land grab the feds tried for during the Acela project was a junkyard. It sat in a key spot they wanted to use to straighten out a sharp curve in the tracks. It was amazing the impassioned pleas to preserve history spoken for a junkyard, but the NIMBY crowd knew their best bet for slowing the trains down was to fight that curve straightening project.

They won. They still live next to a junkyard and the taxpayers are stuck with a billion dollar train that must slow to 30 mph to make the curve.

Keep in mind that these districts are left wing to the max. Voting for Obama was not a sure thing: he was not liberal enough for these folks.

This kind of reaction is so typical. Go tear up some little person's back yard. "I feel somewhat guilty. Let me make a Sierra Club donation and I will feel better..."

I'm a doomsdayer regarding energy supplies in this country, in tune with James "The Long Emergency" Kunstler assessment that we're sliding into a long decline due to our dependence on petroleum. We need to make other arrangements, i.e. rail, - and you'll be glad we did when gasoline is $22 a gallon and airlines have simply gone out of business.

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