Yesterday was my day to go to the historic Santa Fe Depot in downtown San Diego and see what was going on. Well, nothing. Literally, nothing. There is no Amtrak or Coaster train action between the Santa Fe Depot and Oceanside, a distance of about 39 miles.
Track-a-train was showing all Amtrak Pacific Surfliners arriving and leaving from the Oceanside Transit Center. I set out to find out why, and it didn’t take me long to find that the line currently is shut down, at least through March 14, to re-align tracks and do some at-grade work for the extension of the San Diego Trolley from Old Town to University City.
Finally.
However, the extension is being built with a lot of Federal Transit Administration funds.
Uh-oh.
California voted for Clinton. Twitler knows that, and Twitler is a very vengeful person. I will keep an eye on these federal transit funds because I’m going to go out on a limb here and say that Twitler will do something to exact his revenge on California by withholding federal funds.
I got quite a few interesting pictures showing the work going on. I thought it was interesting that the Mid-Coast Transit Constructors simply pulled the southbound Amtrak tracks about ten feet to the west. Presuming, then, that the Trolley is going to go down the middle of the Amtrak tracks. Now that I know about this, I can go out weekly and document process. Just south of where I was the tracks will be aerial due to a river (known as a creek in other states) and the tracks through University City and the University of California-San Diego will be aerial tracks.
Picture 1 – Abrupt break in the southbound tracks.
Picture 2 – Amtrak’s not going to like the excessive bends in this curve
Picture 3 – Mounds of rock showing where the track used to be.
Picture 4 – Southbound track re-alignment not yet complete.
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Russel Ray Photos 
And to think California contributes the highest federal tax monies to the government…. even bigger than New York’s or Texas’……. California is the 6th largest economy in the world, displacing France from its position. We’ll be fine.
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We’ll be better once we join the west coast and the northeast in joining Canada!……..LOL
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We are sooo in need of rail here – and have been voting for it for ages…only the federal fund promised were repeatedly derailed in DC over the past 6 or 7n years.
It’s to the point that private firms are about ready to take the risk if DC can’t get their act together. But still the gov. agencies attempt to find road block after road block.
Someday perhaps there will be less politics in DC involved and things that need to be done, were promised, will get done for the good of the ordinary person, right? We do pay their salaries – and seem to get less and less in return.
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None of the Republicans and only about half of the Democrats are interested in doing anything to help the country rather than their corporate sponsors and rich friends.
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Politicians seem to think being elected is not acting as a public servant but a career path to getting rich.
Desperately need term limits. John Adams and Thomas Jefferson were right: political parties will destroy this country.
Term limits. And local control.
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I had Phil Gramm as my Economics 301 professor at Texas A&M University in 1976. He had a tenured professorship providing about $100,000 a year, for life. And great health insurance. He quit to run for public office in 1978. I didn’t understand why. He was set for life. He was a Republican US Senator from 1985 to 2002 when he retired. Newspapers throughout the nation reported that he retired with $64 million in his “campaign war chest.” Some of that was donations from me. I didn’t get any of it back when he retired. He’s 74. Could still be a Senator, but for what purpose? He also could still be a tenured professor. So do the math:
The rigors of politics from 1978 to 2002, 24 years.
Let’s say he averaged $100,000 for those 24 years in politics.
$64,000,000 + $2,400,000 = $66,400,000
A tenured professor and the rigors of teaching for 39 additional years:
39 years at $150,000 = $5,850,000
Suddenly I understood why he went into politics. And that understanding also applies to other extraordinarily rich people, like the Kennedys, Darrell Issa, etc. When you’re already rich, you want to be richer. He with the most money usually has the most power, and power & money just can’t be beat.
Politics is a much cushier job than a private enterpise and much, much more lucrative. It’s also why I do not contribute to political candidates anymore, not since 2002. I’ll do volunteer stuff—campaign, call, walk, protest, typing, accounting, graphic design, etc.—but I’m not giving them my hard-earned money.
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Yes. Applause.
(And now there’s a move to eliminate tenure in universities…to hire even lower paid contract associate profs.)
Also irritating is the fact than quite a few people go into medical school with no plans to work as a doc – they plan to go into politics and “people trust doctors so vote for them.” Politics is not supposed to be a career path…especially with limited slots for medical school.
Your last paragraph is a good plan – and the only sensible one
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The bulk of UK train companies seem to be on strike more often than not whilst fares keep rising and commuters lose their jobs because they can’t get to work😐 There’s also major engineering work and track refurbishments going on on most routes into London…so no one can get h to work with half the train services out of action as a result…oh wait… the drivers are striking most of the time so nobody would notice that bit!😛
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When I lived in the San Francisco Bay Area it seems that every time I wanted to take Bay Area Rapid Transit somewhere, the line was shut down or someone was on strike. I didn’t get to do have the stuff I wanted to do while I lived there.
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It’s very frustrating even though it seems to become a way of life 😮
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