And the Mountain View mayor and city council are once again no where to be found. Pathetic.

I agree with Elaine (above): where is our representation in all of this? As things stand Mtn. View's downtown (Castro, Central, etc.) would be greatly affected by the proposed plans, probably not for the better!

Great. As of February, we can put this boondoggle behind us and get on with actually running the city.

I'm very disappointed that our Mountain View representatives are no where to be seen. Isn't Mountain View as important as the other cities on the peninsula? Isn't the high speed rail going to make major changes to our city...shouldn't we have someone representing us...where are they?

43 Billion Dollar project (assuming it stays on budget). Seriously? The people of California really need to layoff the crack

If Greg Perry were still on the MV City Council, he would long ago have analyzed the proposal, assessed its potential impact on Mt. View (likely not good), and proposed that we join with the leadership communities on the Peninsula in requesting more study and an improved design. Lacking someone of Greg's caliber and willingness to take a public stand, our current council and mayor appear confused and unable to represent the interests of Mt. View residents.

Palo Alto, Menlo Park, Atherton, Burlingame and Belmont have joined together in the Peninsula Cities Consortium. Together they have challenged the California High-Speed Rail Authority to step back and review issues. Meanwhile, Mountain view has taken a wait-and see position. That means Mountain View City Council will wait until the California High-Speed Rail Authority decides what they want to do and then we'll see the results.

If all the cities on the peninsula got together and said hell no, we don't want it, we could get rid of it. They would build it in the East Bay if even that. The peninsula is just too big a voting block to blow off. But no, our city council actually wants to see MV cut in two.

How can this project possible move forward, and how can our representatives on the city council just sit by the sidelines?? I would like to see a town meeting at the Senior Center with our state and local representatives, and HSR to address the real issues:

- widely criticized business plan
- faulty ridership numbers
- absence of funding to carry out the project statewide
- no stated plan for paying to operate high-speed rail

Previous meetings were all about trenches, tunnels, vibration, they totally ignored the real issues.

My conclusions from 5 minutes extensive researching the HighSpeedRail site: Web Link are:

PA to LA 417 mi.
2hr 21 min [leaving to arrival?]
$53 for train $81 to drive
[I won't comment on the $81 but the $53 seems to have been repudiated several months ago as much too low.]

By train: wait for cab [add$], drive to PA or RC, wait for train, go thru security [would you choose to go close to 200mph without some precautions being taken?].

Take train and maybe dramamine, this not a flat route.

Arrive LA, retrieve baggage, take shuttle to car rental, rent car [add$], head into traffic or find a cab.

I will make a similar time driving 'tho you will have 2 hr or so to enjoy yourself on the train.

My baggage went into the car at home and comes out at my destination.

All this sounds like flying except you will not have a parking option.

For just me, I might still take the train; for 2-4 individuals, driving would be more economical. And then if my terminus wasn't somewhere near the station....

The carbon emitted is pretty much independent of the number of passengers favoring a fuller vehicle.

The idea might have merit but was vastly oversold

something to think about.

NeHi

I'm as much against this HSR boondoggle as anyone.

Suppose we west bay folk set up a special district to buy land in east bay to donate as an HSR right of way, putting HSR where it logically belongs.

The above comments are right on for this horrible unneeded project. We could save ourselves a lot of money by funding a repeal proposition to be voted on soon. Until then we should join the cities to the North but I have been saying this to the City Council and nothing happens. Maybe they will read these comments and start make the plunge.

Vote for Meg Whitman. She'll put an end to it.

Well, I don't think I've seen a larger group of stick-in-the-muds pontificating about things they quite obviously don't know much about that the people on this forum!

Fact is, the nations of the world with better economies than ours are all building HSR as fast as they can. It's no coincidence, because they've already figured out (some of them with 20 years of experience to prove it) that HSR boosts the economy and reduces travel times.

Sure, it's expensive, but it's been done before so at least we know how expensive it is, unlike the costs we pay every day for traffic jams, airport construction, and taxes to subsidize highway and airport construction, not to mention all the subsidies to Big Oil (the latest outrage is $32Billion) in support of our addiction to cars which simply accelerate climate change.

Until you have enough information to trade off the true costs of NOT doing HSR as well as the economic benefits of DOING HSR against the construction and operating costs, your speculations of what we can and can't afford are just that: speculations.