Infrastructure
Back to homepageIs California Betting on Asia?
Anthony Pignataro: Given the brief press release issued by California High-Speed Rail Authority Executive Director Roelof van Ark following last week’s big trip to Asia, it’s clear he didn’t get everything he’d hoped for. I’m saying this because hope is
Read MoreWater Keeps CA's Welfare State Liquid
SEPT. 14, 2010 By WAYNE LUSVARDI Book Review: Running Out of Water: The Looming Crisis and Solutions To Conserve Our Most Precious Resource (Palgrave, 2010). Mark Twain once wrote: “Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt” using a malapropism on
Read MoreState Paying for Bullet Train Station
AUG. 27, 2010 By KATY GRIMES A bill designed to formally authorize the proposed bullet train system expenditures is only now working through the legislature even though the project has been rolling ahead at full throttle. Though a glance at the
Read MoreLittle Hoover talks Big Water
Anthony Pignataro: Yesterday the Little Hoover Commission released a new report titled Managing for Change: Modernizing California’s Water Governance. Like all government watchdog reports, a lot of scathing findings and sound recommendations lay behind that jargon-clogged title. Well, I’m assuming
Read MoreCommittee Endorses Prop. 22
Steven Greenhut: The GOP’s initiative committee this morning embraced Prop. 22, 9-8, the obnoxious anti-property-rights initiative promoted by the left-wing League of California Cities and the California Redevelopment Association. The GOPers said it was about local control, but this initiative
Read MoreWill High Speed Rail Ever Get on Track?
AUG. 19, 2010 Last month I had the privilege of riding the best train in California. Indeed, it’s perhaps the best in the Lower 48. This train is efficient, safe and even fun to ride. At no time during my
Read MoreFree-market sense from a Democrat?
AUGUST 16, 2010 As of Tuesday, legislators were 41 days past the constitutional deadline for passing a state budget, yet the state’s majority Democrats weren’t even holding budget hearings. Why bother? The state is $19 billion in the red, but
Read MoreSacto's grimy light rail system
Steven Greenhut: I had to leave a car in the shop this week, so I got initiated into Sacramento’s light-rail experience on the Regional Transit line from Folsom to downtown. No doubt, it was useful to have an alternative means
Read MoreNo accounting for rail's mystery workers
AUG. 10, 2010 By ANTHONY PIGNATARO The proposed California High-Speed Rail project is a monumental undertaking in terms of money, personnel, time and effort. The state’s own estimates say the whole system – which includes 800 miles of bullet train
Read MoreState gags rail contractors
JULY 29, 2010 By ANTHONY PIGNATARO All contractors hired by the California High-Speed Rail Authority to prepare environmental reports on the project are contractually prohibited from discussing their agreements with the media, a CalWatchdog examination of the authority’s current contracts
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