Tag "bullet train"
Back to homepageRail board chair Dan Richard responds to critical post
Dan Richard, the chair of the California High-Speed Rail Authority, sent this to Cal Watchdog in response to my Monday morning post: “In his campaign to stop California from building the nation’s first high-speed rail system, Chris Reed (calwatchdog.com, June 9, 2014)
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State’s Bay Bridge follies will have bullet train encore
When the first stories came out about the problems with the $6.5 billion San Francisco-Oakland Bay Bridge construction project, there was a faintly surprised tone to some of the coverage. They can’t get stuff like welds right? Really? But I
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Light-rail love affair: CA pols, media stuck in 1980s
Californians with a green streak are in love with mass transit — at least when it involves rail. Buses are far better at helping people, especially poor people, to and from work. But there’s something about rail and how it
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CalSTRS bailout will be CA version of budget sequester
On April 10, 2012, I wrote an op-ed for the L.A. Daily News with an unusual take on what ultimately would kill the bullet train. My theory was that the teachers unions would fight to keep a new mouth from
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2007 press release shows rail authority touting CEQA compliance
A Tuesday afternoon AP story laid out the latest courtroom developments involving the bullet-train fiasco: “SACRAMENTO, Calif. (AP) — California’s $68 billion bullet train project should be exempt from the state’s strict environmental review process now that it is subject
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Attempted $1B cover-up can’t even crack Top 5 of bullet-train outrages
With any big public works project, a report that an independent consultant had been pressured by the responsible government agency to hide a nearly $1 billion increase in project cost is absolutely outrageous. Pathetically enough, when it comes to the
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Gov. Brown’s 3D chess game leads to timid politics
If you believe Jerry Brown is a governing genius, then forgive me for laughing until I injure myself. What I think is that he’s scary shrewd at managing the narrative, at keeping people in the dark about what he’s really
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Gov. Brown’s legal strategy to prop up bullet train faltering
Last week’s decision from a state appeals court to issue a summary judgment denying the Brown administration’s unusual request to block a second trial in which Kings County and other plaintiffs challenge California’s high-speed rail project bodes terribly for the
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Trash train fiasco illustrates private vs. public double standard
This story in the Orange County Register illustrates a common CalWatchdog theme: In the private sector, incompetence leads to companies failing and people getting fired. But in government, all too often incompetence comes without consequence: “The Sanitation Districts of Los
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This is an ‘expedited’ review? Nerve-wracking times on bullet-train front
Nine weeks ago, the news seemed promising on the bullet-train follies front. Now the picture looks a bit murkier. On Jan. 24, Gov. Jerry Brown and Attorney General Kamala Harris asked the California Supreme Court to conduct an expedited appeals
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