What is wrong with California?

[beefytee]

When it comes to democracy California is worse than a third world country...

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In France they have about twice the number of people as California, use hand counted paper ballots, vote in person, and can still have election results posted in the same day.

These comparisons to other countries are so dumb.


If you want hand counted election night results, only vote on one race at a time like most other countries. California is particularly bad with all the initiatives. Even here in Utah, I had about 20 things to vote on, retaining judges and what not.

You expect me to know about dozens of races and fill the correct one out at a polling station. GTFO. I’m doing my research at home and filling out my ballot at home.

[Uncle Ted]

When it comes to democracy California is worse than a third world country...

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In France they have about twice the number of people as California, use hand counted paper ballots, vote in person, and can still have election results posted in the same day.

[Joe Public]

The LA area has a traffic sportspocalypse tonight. World Series, USC football game, Lakers game as well as a big HS football game at SoFi and a concert at the Clippers’ new arena. Thank goodness for television.

[Omaha 680]

This is why California is never going to see high speed rail...

California mocked over $11 billion high-speed rail bridge to nowhere that took 9 years to build

I'll be the first to say (I might have actually really been the first!) that CAHSR is too expensive and poorly managed. But this latest dustup is a combination of uninformed social media managers at the HSR authority and uninformed people like Musk pouncing on Twitter. To my understanding the rail authority posted about the Fresno River viaduct as one of the first HSR structures completed in the country. It was one of the first, but it was completed back in 2018. So the authority's social media managers looking for good news, posted some old news and then rich trolls on Twitter pounced without doing a bit of research.

Now I'll reiterate the project is terribly overbudget and grossly mismanaged. When the project was approved by California voters in 2008, the estimate was $33 billion. When construction was about to begin, I think they were still clinging to that estimate because I remember discussing it. I wish I had recorded myself because when someone told me $33 billion in 2014, my immediate response was "not a penny less than $100 billion". It smelled to me like a classic low-ball infrastructure estimate to fool the public into finishing a project they would never approve at the start by abusing the sunk cost fallacy. That has become a reality with the authority admitting they need another $100 billion to finish (above the already spent and allocated funds) pushing the total price tag to near $130 billion:

California's High-Speed Rail Boondoggle Needs Another $100 Billion To Finish (reason.com)

I don't know which is worse, the bait and switch sunk cost fallacy strategy, or the possibility that they just might have believed the original estimate and just were wrong. The latter would indicate a level of incompetence that should be called out. Pitching an estimate to voters before a draft EIS was completed was crazy. The right of way costs alone cutting through all these areas have been staggering, which should have been evident to anyone with large greenfield infrastructure project experience. And I really question their strategy of building all these expensive structures and hoping the funding will catch up. These structures will have been completed in the desert, unused for probably 20 years before the system is activated. Who is maintaining them to make sure they will be ok for use if this thing is ever finished?

Look as a guy who works on choo-choo train projects for a living, I think HSR is awesome and I understand why a lot of Americans want it. But to have it we either need to be realistic about the public costs of linking a country like ours with HSR or embrace a different model. We are not Europe or Japan with dense population centers so close together and we are not China where the government has the autonomy to remove all obstacles, including its citizens and environmental concerns, to minimize infrastructure costs. I recently visited Brightline's facilities in Orlando and rode the train from Orlando to Miami as part of an industry committee visit and I am sold on their model. They are private (but obviously get some government grants and local public funding for stations), and so their construction and operations are going to be leaner. They also openly embrace and publicize that their model is to link large population centers that are "too far away to drive, but too close to fly". This is the sweet spot in North America we should be targeting with HSR. If we ever get a lot of these smaller regions linked we could consider longer links between regions. LA to SF could potentially fall into Brightline's model, but to make HSR really work you also have to make tough decisions in planning. You can't give everyone a station or it kills your travel times. Note Brightline has one station between Orlando and the Miami area. They are competing with point to point air travel so they have to keep the number of stations down. In their west project there are three California stations and then the Las Vegas station. That's it. But limiting stations and keeping the route to a reasonable path is hard to do with public money. That's how CAHSR ended up with too many stations, snaking through the desert, and building an initial segment from Bakersfield to Frenso that no one will ride.

[Uncle Ted]

This is why California is never going to see high speed rail...

California mocked over $11 billion high-speed rail bridge to nowhere that took 9 years to build

[Uncle Ted]

Come on California... Where's the money?!?

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[Scott R Nelson]

TL;DW... Where is Utah on this list?

I think there were only two western states on the entire list - California and Oregon. But I could be wrong. I've already forgotten half of what was mentioned in that video.

[Uncle Ted]

California came in #1 in this survey, behind Oregon. If you don't want to find out which other eight states are on there, go to about 14:00.

TL;DW... Where is Utah on this list?

[Scott R Nelson]

California came in #1 in this survey, behind Oregon. If you don't want to find out which other eight states are on there, go to about 14:00.

[Bo Diddley]

I believe that you both are right.

[Shaka]

Even in a thread about California, disparaging the Utes is entirely acceptable.

It's time for you to switch conferences...errrr I mean homes. For you California is no longer a cultural fit.

[Uncle Ted]

California is so stupid.

No, UTAH is stupid!

I believe that you both are right.

[Pelado]

No, UTAH is stupid!

Even in a thread about California, disparaging the Utes is entirely acceptable.

[PaloAltoCougar]

California is so stupid.

No, UTAH is stupid!

[BigPiney]

California is so stupid.

It really is such a dumb virtue signaling law. We are working on getting an exemption to come to hiring fairs at colleges in those states.