Active Ingredient
18.5K posts
@scottmace2
Running down a dream. I won’t back down.
“The Bay Area is land constrained, there’s nowhere left to build housing.” (green = undeveloped land)
Brightline never made sense to me, even as a privately funded venture Outside of the NE, unfort train travel doesn’t make much sense in the US - there is a last mile problem- we have poor public transit and low density so you need a car anyway when you get to your destination.
Florida's High Speed Rail Operator Brightline Seeks Rescue to Avoid Potential Bankruptcy
Florida's High Speed Rail Operator Brightline Seeks Rescue to Avoid Potential Bankruptcy
California's high speed rail isn't the only infrastructure boondoggle in the Golden State. A proposed $2 billion and 42-mile railway project called Valley Link is now downsized in half while costs have doubled to $4.4 billion. Current plans won't even complete its original intended purpose. Valley Link was to connect the Dublin/Pleasanton @SFBART station to Lathrop in the San Joaquin Valley. That was first reduced to Mountain House, leaving residents in Tracy and Lathrop out of the long-promised project. Still, it would've meant commuters could bypass the infamously steep and dangerous Altamont Pass where deadly traffic accidents regularly occur. However, the first phase of Valley Link won't include that. It's been reduced even further to a mere 11-mile connection from the BART station to the Vasco Road ACE station in Livermore. It's a flat stretch of land already covered by the 580 freeway. That defeats the entire purpose of the project, and could easily be accomplished by a new bus route for a fraction of the cost. Though the ACE railway already exists connecting Stockton to San Jose, the slow train and circuitous route causes Tri-Valley commuters to triple their transportation time from 30 minutes to 90 minutes. Some residents wake up at 4:00AM to use the archaic ACE line. Valley Link was meant to offer a faster and more direct trip that more people would actually use. Yet urbanists, YIMBY advocates, and public transportation enthusiasts will continue to request more funding and more tax increases from both the state government and local residents. Will @CAgovernor @GavinNewsom step in to fix Valley Link or will this be another albatross he has to carry during his 2028 presidential campaign? Why is it that California struggles to build anything anymore? Maybe @christopherrufo @BrianACity or @BenGoldblatt of @CityJournal can bring some more attention on this failing project. Credit to @EastBayTimes for their reporting, link in comments.
Another Russian ‘Kalibr’ carrier down. Major General Yevhenii Khmara reported on the successful strike against targets in the port of Primorsk. It was a joint operation by our Security Service of Ukraine, the Unmanned Systems Forces, the Special Operations Forces, the Defense Intelligence, and the border guards. Thank you all, warriors, for your coordinated work! The Karakurt-class missile ship was hit, along with a patrol boat and another tanker from the shadow oil fleet. Significant damage was also inflicted on the infrastructure of the oil terminal port. Each such result further limits Russia’s war potential. I have also approved additional, entirely justified responses by the Security Service of Ukraine to Russian strikes on our cities and villages. Russia can end its war at any moment. Prolonging the war will only expand the scale of our defensive operations. Thank you to everyone fighting for Ukraine!
Safeway is partnering with a homebuilder to build nearly 4,000 homes on underused parking lots across five Bay Area sites — a direct result of state housing law, AB 2011. sfgate.com/local/article/…
Robert "Madyar" Brovdi: My units spend approximately $40 million per month on drones and inflict about $4 billion in damage on Russia — roughly 1-to-100 ratio. The cost of destroying one Russian infantryman is $882. This is very good exchange rate of money for enemy's manpower.
“If driving is made difficult enough, this thinking goes, more people will abandon their cars.” Today’s bike lane movement is driven by irrational car hatred more than rider safety. It is led by fringe ideological zealots and must be completely dismantled.
*SPIRIT AIRLINES PREPARES TO SHUT DOWN: WSJ
Easily one of my favorite lines in the whole world
Domestic air fare is not going to get cheaper in this country, and we’ve ignored rail investment as we thought that cheap flights would always be a thing. That’s not the case, and now we have no rail as a viable alternative.
