Does someone in the room with Trump understand that California provides more federal taxes than they receive? A high-speed rail line would almost certainly pay for itself ten times over.
this post was submitted on 17 Jul 2025
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Let's just admit the answer to the question "does he associate with people who can do math?" is a resounding "no."
Doesn’t matter unfortunately, oil companies have the most influence with the people in the room and oil companies make more money on cars. If they make functional public transport, it means less people will use cars as their regular mode of transportation.
Oil companies literally killed electric trolleys wayyyyyyyyyyyy back in the day. We could have had electrified transportation decades and decades ago but as usual greedy pieces of shit with WAYYYYYY too much power prevent progress...
Oil companies literally killed electric trolleys wayyyyyyyyyyyy back in the day.
In most cities, this happens around the 1950s. So not that long ago, if you think about it.
That was 70 years ago. The gap between now and the 1950s is larger than the gap between the first successful implementation of electric street cars and the 1950s.
The first public electric tramway used for permanent service was the Gross-Lichterfelde tramway in Lichterfelde near Berlin in Germany, which opened in 1881.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tram
So if your city shut down its streetcars in 1951, like mine did, then what you said is true. If you city had streetcars in 1953 or beyond, its not. Not to be too pedantic about it.
My point is that is less than 1 human lifespan. There are people that rode the streetcars in my city when they were kids that still live here. Its not ancient history, its living memory.
I was going off the first large scale successful implementation of electric streetcars, not the first streetcar.
Frank Sprague installed a complete system of electric streetcars in Richmond, Virginia, in 1888. This was the first large-scale and successful use of electricity to run a city's entire system of streetcars.
https://www.thoughtco.com/history-of-streetcars-cable-cars-4075558
Judge Doom was an historical caricature
Withhold the taxes and use it directly on the project. Why give the federal government the money so they can decide when to hand it back to you, or if they cancel it entirely
There is no easy way to withhold the taxes because the State of California never touches the money. Most of the federal tax revenue from California is remitted directly to the Internal Revenue Service by individual taxpayers.
China will have built, like, 20 more of these rail systems by the time the US government is done scrapping this one project.
fuuuuuu
we have been building this thing for like 15 years. just let us have something nice.
I'm not going to pretend that I know the whole picture as to why this project is so severely over budget and behind schedule (there is likely nobody on Earth who does), but let me give some pointers as to why countries like China have built hundreds of thousands of kilometres of high-speed rail while California struggles to build a few hundred.
For one, the legal environment in China is one of the prerogative state. "Rights" in China are whatever the Government suffers you to have or deems it expedient to honour. So if you "own" a piece of land in the middle of the planned rail route, the Government will just kick you out. What are you going to do, sue? In the US, environmental laws, land rights laws, and legal procedural law mean that anyone who can spend $50,000 on a lawyer can cause $1 million worth of headaches for the high speed rail authority using the American legal system, which believe it or not, actually sometimes holds the State accountable to the law.
Secondly, in China, the Government has an unprecedented control over the economy that allows it to offer carrots and sticks to a degree that American politicians could only dream of. Yes, you have no say on whether the Government will order your house demolished to make way for an expressway, but in return, if you go quietly, you'll get a flat in a high-rise in exchange and generous monetary compensation. Raise a stink, and you'll be paid three strawberries and a steamed bun for your house instead.
Thirdly, under Chinese property law, all land in the country belongs to the State. Everyone else can only lease it from the State.
if you “own” a piece of land in the middle of the planned rail route, the Government will just kick you out.
That's how the interstate system and urban highways were built. But people being displaced were mostly black and/or poor and/or immigrants, so it wasn't seen as a bad thing at the time.
In the United States, the Constitution states that in order to take your land for this purpose, you must be compensated fairly. Of course, "fairly" in terms of market value did not amount to very much, but compensation was paid and even dilapidated housing in so-called "blighted" neighbourhoods were still worth something and the cost does add up when you're knocking hundreds of houses down and having to pay thousands for each one.
Pretty sure China still pays out people but they don't have any real court challenges. No court that says "do you really need this project, mathematically prove it", "did you do x y and z study. Yes? Do it better.", "did you have public consultation and address their concerns. Not good enough do it again." Etc. That shit costs a lot.
Just a shame that Biden and Harris never did anything for the working class. They say.
It had to be something. High speed rail has been "planned" in California for like 30 years. Some companies have taken monies to build it. It still doesn't exist.