JCM 8/17/2023 8:16:26 AM

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The lunacy never ends.

Washington Democrats seek $198M for proposed bullet train connecting Seattle, Portland and Canada

My comment on the boondoggle.

You can't even build a light rail on time or on budget.

So everyone knows. They need a completely new rail right of way for HSR. Where are you going to put a new rail line between Everett and Olympia. Even if you condemn all the properties for the line, that alone will be billions of dollars. HSR cannot go existing rail lines. They are freight lines and the freight would take priority. Existing lines are are not build for the stresses of HSR. HSR cannot have level crossings, every road that crosses the line has to be over or under pass.

What I see is $198.1 million for patronage jobs for friends of Jay.

vxbush 8/17/2023 8:49:20 AM

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In #1 JCM said: What I see is $198.1 million for patronage jobs for friends of Jay.

You and I both know it won't stop at that. I'd expect it to cross several billion by the time they get anywhere close to finishing this. 

buzzsawmonkey 8/17/2023 9:19:20 AM

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Reply to JCM in 1:

It's funny that they call it "high-speed rail" when it takes several decades to not be built.

JCM 8/17/2023 9:25:31 AM

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Reply to vxbush in 2:

There is literally no where to put the thing.

Seattle is bound by on the west by Puget Sound, the east by Lake Washington, the farther east by Lake Sammamish. 

There is no open corridor to put HSR through Seattle from Shoreline to Renton. NONE.

With few exceptions the entire corridor Everett to Olympia is completely urban, no available corridor.

Land cost and eminent domain cost make prohibitively expensive.

Tell you want democrats, I'll do the consulting for 1/10th the cost.

$19.8 million, it can't be done.

JCM 8/17/2023 12:03:01 PM

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Wash. governor sued over 'state-sanctioned kidnapping' bill aimed at runaway children seeking gender changes

No state action more frighteningly illustrates the threat to our children than this law,” Miller said. “This sick, authoritarian law essentially allows the state to kidnap children from their parents and hide their whereabouts to surgically and chemically mutilate them — and to formally deprive their parents of any legal ability to stop the medical disfigurement of their sons and daughters by gender extremists targeting their children."

vxbush 8/17/2023 12:41:04 PM

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In #4 JCM said: Tell you want democrats, I'll do the consulting for 1/10th the cost.

No, no, no. That will never do. By asking for a study and a commission, they can now send many millions of dollars to their buddies. 

JCM 8/17/2023 2:01:52 PM

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Reply to vxbush in 6:

Okay, for a mere $5 million I can tell the it can't be done.

You're right, that's all it is.

They pass a bill, fleecing taxpayers for more money.

JCM 8/17/2023 2:39:48 PM

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I hate the media even Fox ... and their click bait.

Headline...

Plane collides with motorcycle, car leaving 10 dead in fiery crash

The story is far less sensational.

Plane crashed on a highway, hitting cars and a motorcycle.

Occasional Reader 8/17/2023 4:59:40 PM

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Reply to JCM in 4:

“ Seattle is bound by on the west by Puget Sound”

Pfft.  Joe Biden has developed technology to build high speed rail “across the Indian Ocean”.  Puget Sound? Trivial!

Kosh's Shadow 8/17/2023 5:09:03 PM

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Tropical Storm Hilary (that's how the NWS spells it) is growing.

With a name like that, could be quite destructive!

JCM 8/17/2023 5:13:56 PM

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Reply to Occasional Reader in 9:

Dang! I hadn't thought of that.

One of the floating bridges across Lake Washington, when built was touted as rail ready.

I snorted when I heard that because the downtown bus tunnel was advertised as rail ready. Except they forgot to properly ground the rails, running the trains would have corroded the rebar. So they had to rip up the entire road bed in the tunnel and redo it... at a cost equally the original cost of the tunnel.

So the rail ready floating bridge, yeah, not so much. While they stressed it for the static load of train the forget about the dynamic load of a train. As the train goes across the bridge sink a little deeper in the water, well the movement of that weight across a more than mile in length sets up some interesting dynamic loads and harmonics.

They had to reinforce the bridge to the tune of $300 million.

Occasional Reader 8/17/2023 7:42:26 PM

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In #11 JCM said:

“ They had to reinforce the bridge to the tune of $300 million.”

That’s a feature, not a bug.