I just found out that a bunch of City Councilmen and their wealthy backers are working on a Mag Lev train system called the Orangeline Development Authority. See the picture above for an example of what happens when one of these extreme high speed vehicles has an accident.
Wouldn’t it be cool to travel from Santa Ana to downtown Los Angeles in twenty minutes? But there’s a catch. You would have to pay as much as $40 each way. The project cost comes to some $19 BILLION – and that does not include Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido’s plan to put it underground in his city.
$13 million has already been spent just thinking about it. This year another $200 million is slated to be spent in Phase 2 of the EIR.
Only $280K is coming from the federal government. Which begs the question – who else is paying for this? Good question. The project will begin with a staggering debt of $23 billion. Construction is supposed to be funded by bonds. But who is going to pay for this? Glad you asked.
Take a look at the graphic below. This is a joint powers authority. The cities who sign up for this boondoggle are going to get stuck paying for it – out of their general funds according to a pajarito.
And now Santa Ana Mayor Miguel Pulido wants in. On Monday night the Santa Ana City Council will consider joining the Orangeline Development Authority. Their city staff has already approved the notion. You can read the recommended action below. They want to spend over $50K in Measure M money in order to pay the membership fee for this Development Authority. That’s a lot of cash for a membership card. And that is money that won’t be spent fixing our streets.
A Dutch engineering firm, Arcadis, is involved as a partner in this venture. Yes, that is the same Arcadis that was recently accused of price dumping. Here is what I found out about those charges on Forbes.com:
Engineering group Arcadis NV has been accused of price dumping to secure four government projects by a competitor and will be taken to court on Friday, according to construction industry website Cobouw online.
According to the report, engineering company Royal Haskoning filed a complaint with a court in The Hague, demanding Aracadis no longer be considered a bidder for four regional public works projects worth 40 mln eur per year.
Royal Haskoning said Arcadis, the lowest bidder, bid 10 pct below the price of its own costs, according to Cobouw.
Royal Haskoning, which was said to be hoping to win a long-term contract with public works officials if Arcadis was shut out, said public works regulations already require that Arcadis be eliminated.
So far Arcadis has only spent a million dollars. But this allows the proponent of the Mag Lev system to call it a public-private system. No it’s not.
Who exactly is going to benefit from this multi billion dollar boondoggle? There are not many people in Santa Ana who can afford to pay $40 to go to Los Angeles. But the system starts in Irvine. Now it makes sense. This system will be an expensive way to move rich people around.
But the working poor in Santa Ana and other cities in the path of the Mag Lev will be underwriting the fancy train for the wealthy. (See picture below).
And why would Pulido want to put this system underground? That too makes sense. It will allow him to make sure that his developer buddies, like Mike Harrah, get to buy the land atop the system for pennies on the dollar. They they will build lofts for the rich people who will be riding this train.
A train by the way that terminates in Palmdale. Who the heck needs to go to Palmdale?
Be sure to let Pulido and company know how you feel about this Mag Lev scheme at Monday night’s City Council meeting. You can read the agenda here.
Pulido’s latest scheme must be stopped. I urge all Orange County progressives to show up and speak up at the Santa Ana City Council meeting.
What do you want to bet that there will be “fact finding” trips for Santa Ana Politicos and spouses to Europe and other U.S. cities like the Great Park board members??
We are very happy with buses here in Santa Ana thank you! We don’t need those trains but we do need new streets.
Art.
Let me start by answering one of your questions. Palmdale is located in the High Desert and serves as a regional airport for LAX that is expected to see more commercial flights due to overall air traffic expansion.
As to the MagLev technology. I have traveled on MagLev trains twice, most recently this past May as we headed to the airport in Shanghai. We hit 269 MPH (431 KPH)in that eight minute ride. In reading the Chinese media coverage of their future transportation it mentions that they also utilize other high speed technology, such as found in Japan, that they will expand rather than going the MagLev route.
I will not cite their MagLev concerns that they mentioned as my application to serve on the OCTA Oversight Committee was declined.
Forgetting possible earthquakes of an undeground system, if that’s the thinking, and massive takings of private property for above ground rail lines, this system would only serve those who can afford spending extra bucks for convenience and speed. It surely will not improve transit for current passengers on OCTA busses.
You can rest assured that they will seek partial funding of any high speed system of transportation using Measure M funding. Does that make you feel good about OCTA’s goal of serving all of the people in Orange County?
Around 10 years ago, at a CRA luncheon, I sat next to a high profile OC political player where we discussed private funding for a high speed train to and from “Lost Wages.” His concept does have merit and, if privately funded, I will seriously consider supporting.
I am told that he is currently very active in promoting his proposal. Stay tuned.
Art:
This is called long term planning and $50K is a small price to pay to be included in such an ambitious plan. Will this project get built? Who knows? You don’t nor do I.
The fact is mass transit is critical to this mass transit deficient region. Something must be done to ease the gridlock. This is a first step.
MagLev, Not War.
in fact it says on the agenda item..”seek measure m funds”
Art. Some good news for you.
Measure M will ONLY collect around $12 billion in sales tax dollars over the next 30 years. In addition we were told that all of that money will be used for transportation projects throughout the entire County.
Therefore the vast majority of the funds for building this multibillion dollar system will need to come from some outside sources. Having read that the federal government is short of transportation dollars their contributions to this proposed high speed rail project will be minimal at best. It looks like a joint venture between the public and private sectors.
When you fill up at the gas station the tanks do not differentiate whether you are driving a 15 year old clunker or a brand new $75,000 dollar import.
As such, the fuel and sales taxes paid by both the have’s and have not’s is virtually identical. However my sense is that the users of the new high speed system will be those in the higher income brackets while the majority of motorists will continue to feed the Measure M tax system. Perhaps someone may raise that point at your city council meeting.
Ah, no wonder Pulido has been opposed to mayoral terms. The breaking of this news only confirms Pulido’s latest term limit ballot measure was crafted to be defeated by the voters. A defeat is a win for the mayor and his grand plans to tunnel his vision underground.
It’s beginning to look like Pulido pulled a fast one on Claudia Alvarez. She proves time after time that she deserves the pet name “Clownia.”
Mr Pedroza while I agree with you in principle regarding the Mag Lev, I think it makes your argument sound wacky when you throw the accident comment in there.
Mag Lev technology is not unsafe, heck I can point to more crashes on the Metrolink.
Again, I agree with you regarding all the other comments.
Art
why do you always make this a race issue? I bet there would many races that would take this new form of transformation, regardless of color. I live in santa ana and am mexixan, and if half of the population in S.A. here can afford Escalades, Tahoes and Beamers with the most expensive rims and high tech radio systems, which I frequently see amongst our peeps, then why do assume that we cant afford $40.00.