Wednesday, March 18, 2015

Fresno landowners fight the altar of CA HSR, and, up another Caltrain-HSR shill death to 220 dead in SF Bay Area-Mountain View

Poatings on Fresno Bee site, 03-18-15 about Farmers resisting selling their land to CHSRA

People are dyinng now in the SF Bay Area due to the 1995 decision (13 years before 
Prop 1A in 2008, and 17 years before the formalized 2012 "blended Solution MOU) Dan Richard confirmed this decision on air (KCBS 740 AM radio "Indepth" Interview, January 11, 2015) by the nascent, secretive, CHSRA to share the Caltrain commuter surface train tracks (same size) which are at-grade. minor gate improvements do not improve an 1864 Civil War era street level track in the midlst of increasingly dense urbanity, no longer rural area.   220 people have died by accident or all-to-easy suicide on Caltrain's HSR tracks from SJ to SF since 1995, mostly by the 70mph Caltrain Express (Baby Bullet train.  HSR is planning to go up to 110mph for a faster horizontal guillotine effort to kill anyone on its tracks.  The ROW is frozen at street level awaiting HSR.  Horribly, 9 this year so far have died. including yesterday's suicide in Mountain View.  HSR has no $ or plans for most grade separations.  All the while, Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) could use the 30 miles of the Caltrain-HSR ROW to build its required-by-law grade-separated tracks.   Where are the Personal Injury attorneys when we need them? More at my blog..BARTaroundthebay or freemotorist.   One can only wonder how many tracks HSR has reserved (frozen with minimal improvements) and for how long in Central Valley and LA Metrolink lines where others may also be getting killed.  HSR must be stopped.  As Newsom and Kopp and others have said, there are better local projects, whether rail, water (CV), or I-5.   Richard's statement about highways is bogus as Terry Stephan points out...because highways carry goods and services commerce, not just subsidized passenger bodies!  I-5 requires very few interchange improvements to fill its 8-lane design width since most road crossings in the CV are overcrossings..and a wider highway now is a safer highway with more lane room for human driving errors, unlike today's congested 1972-built 4-lanes,

Reply to Glen Parsons and Terry Stephans Comment on the article about Farmers resistance to sell land to CHSRA:
Central Valley needs water, reservoirs (and recreation), distribution systems, and 4-lane+ highways, I-5 and SR99 to 6 or 8 lanes, not 2-lanes; SR43, 140, 145, 65, 58 to I-5, 46, etc; SF Bay Area needs BART around the Bay, 34 miles or so to go to carry ~800,000 up from about 420,000/day now; and LA area needs more non-toll highway upgrades, esp. SR1238, SR14, I-210, 74, 79, 118, 126, 23, etc, safer rail, and transit. No one needs or wants HSR--except 40-yr taxpayer gigolo Diridon and Richard and Morales "rail foamers" who never outgrew their childhood enthusiams for choo-choo trains-at the expense of UC, CSU student tuition (discount Gov Brown's typical two-step--stealing from students by General Fund HSR interest on bonds ($550 Million/yr at each $10Billion in bonds), Cal works, Court system justice underfunding, In-home care, Medi-cal reimbusrement, K-12 education, homeless, mentally ill care. Brown is a terrible Democrat, elitist hypocrite with HSR exercising his childish train fetish (2012 interview with CBS' Face the Nation, Bob Sceifer, later with Scott Pelley "I've been working to bring HSR to California for 30, 40 years". At January 27, 2015 HSR groundbreaking: "I like trains")--no matter who gets hurt or what the cost, including all the deaths on the frozen-in-place HSR shill in the SF Bay Area since 1995...when 220 people have died by Caltrain collision accidents or all-too-easy Gov. Brown-provided suicide, horizontal guillotine effect- euthanasia on the tracks. 9 have died this year on the Caltrain-HSR tracks, including yesterday's latest in Mountain View. Terrible.

Monday, March 9, 2015

Another Caltrain -HSR sacrificial Altar of Death killing 219 since 1995, 60 since 2011, 8 YTD 2015

How many more must die before Caltrain is replaced by safer SF Bay Area BART?

Posted on Palo Alto Patch: Monday, 03-09-02015 after a 15 year old boy from Paly High (is deemed to have) kills self by the Caltrain Killtrain.

What we can do is fight to pressure the respective Democrat-controlled city/town councils along the Peninsula Rail Corridor to bring far safer, grade-separated--by law! to replace this 1864 (US Civil War, once Rural) trackway with electrified, quieter, more frequent, high-farebox recovery BART down the Peninsula. I've been doing this for the past 4 years, ever since a grandfather of 5 that I used to see in the supermarket was killed by a Caltrain, similar to the latest one near blossom Hill. Since I've been begging the city councils (right after many deaths occur) to open talks to extend BART and close the BART Around The Bay loop for safety in 2011--60 have died.   Also, demand at tonight's (most Mondays) 6:pm Palo Alto Council meeting that Palo Alto join the Atherton lawsuit against Caltrain-HSR Electrification as they cited multiple similar safety issues that are built-in to the Caltrain-HSR surface trackway. Remember, Caltrain tracks are the designated HSR trackway since 1995--13 years before the deceptive, unconstitutional ballot 2008 vote for Prop 1A HSR. (KCBS "Indepth" interview with CHSRA Chair Dan Richard, January 11, 2015: Gov. Jerry Brown, "...working for 30 years to bring HSR to California." Face the Nation interview with Bob Schiefer, 2012 (Caltrain was started in with Gov Brown funding in 1982) ).
Worse yet, the election of Sacramento Democrat machine puppets Liz Kniss and Sen. Hill's coy Cory Wolback have created a pro-HSR majority on the all-Democrat PA CC, so only public pressure from locals, esp. Democrat citizens, *might* get them to buck Sacramento's powerful Democrat machine--Peninsula Lives Matter!!!.  These kids and the 219 who have died on Caltrain's tracks since the 1995 decision by Sacto's CHSRA to use these tracks (same size as HSR, unlike BART's different track width). If HSR is to be then, it ought to go up the East Bay, not the more densely, and increasingly dense, dead-end (no pun) Peninsula Corrdior.  BART's elevated, tunnel, or trench requirement will save lives. The sooner we start to get BART, now that all counties have voted for it, and PA and MV voters in 2008 both voted (Measure A) by over 2/3 to tax themselves for BART additional 1/8 cent, then the sooner these deaths, even suicides, will be reduced due to harder to access tracks--but the citizens and councils and all levels of govt (Dem) must form a consensus to work with VTA and SamTrans to collaborate with BART and get funding.  BART will have the newer cars then--and allow bicycles more as well
The sooner we start this effort, the sooner the 15-20 year plan-fund-build work will replace Caltrain-HSR street-level tracks with BART grade separated tracks.  As I have repeatedly advised PA, MP, MV councils, that still means these higher speed, horizontal-guillotine violent  dismemberment or crushing deaths, especially by the higher speed (Baby) Bullet trains will amount to about 200 more dead on the tracks.  How many more must die before we work to stop this sad, horrorific situation in our midst?  We should have started in 2000 when SM and SC county voters overwhelmingly voted to support BART, 15 years ago.