News reports that the California High Speed Rail Association’s newest “business plan” proposes getting 18 million annual riders from Gilroy is, as predicted, more lipstick on a bankrupt-from-conception socialist boondoggle.
The population of Gilroy is 60,390, with 47,200 adults. Morgan Hill’s population is 45,952. So, in round numbers we’re looking at about 100,000 people of all ages. How many would take the Bullet Train every workday to Merced to Bakersfield? Would they pay full fare, or like VTA, COG, etc., pay only about 1% of the cost of their rides?
Taxpayers, motorists, pay the balance of their costly rides. It would make Lenin blush. If they all rode Bullet Train, that would be .0055% of CAHSRA’s pie-in-the-sky projected ridership.
So, it’s safe to conclude that CHSRA’s new “business plan” is pure, unadulterated horse-pucky as we liked to say when I had my law office there.
Gilroy’s taxpayers, including crucified motorists, labor under “worst-in-the-nation” award winning VTA, awarded them for extraordinary fraud, waste and abuse by the M.I.T. study of all the nation’s transit agencies. In more than 45 years of representing small and very small business owners in Gilroy and South Santa Clara County, I saw business failures and bankruptcies at higher rates than the national average. Why’s that? Confiscatory taxes/fees/fines/assessments and mandates?
In 2008, when the Gilroy and Morgan Hill chambers invited me to debate former Supervisor Rod Diridon in the pre-election debate on Prop. 1A, I said the same thing that I said to the “Godfather of the Bullet Train” in 1996, the Honorable Judge and Sen. Quentin Kopp. Private sector solutions are the only sound, sustainable transport solutions for local, state and federal governments.
I repeated my position in testimony before the Assembly Transportation Committee in the Capitol in 2010 in support of proposed legislation to defund the Bullet Train.
Nothing has changed over the years since to make me change my position. In fact, construction and operating costs have increased dramatically, and will increase more before it’s completed. In a guest opinion published by the Gilroy Dispatch in 2008, I predicted that gas taxes would have to increase to $10 per gallon to fund the CAHSRA’s monstrosity. Their fiscal bottomless pit is now so deep that I now double my previous estimate to $20 per gallon. But then, what will we do if we tax people out of their cars?
Instead of creating another socialist public sector transit boondoggle, I think that we ought to learn from our history, and switch to private sector rail, which is the only sustainable way to run a railroad.
CAHSRA has, predictably, answered AB 377 with a new “business plan” that’s no different than their previous plan to crucify the taxpayers. Asking a blood sucking leech to have a new diet is an exercise in futility. We cannot afford the blood-sucking leeches that our leaders have already plastered on our backs. No wonder people are fleeing California in record numbers.
Joseph P. Thompson, Esq.
Past-President, 1999-2001, 2006, Gilroy-Morgan Hill Bar Assn.
And how are you associated with this private sector you are so interested in getting funded?
Caltrain literally has 100 trains a day going either in our out of their San Jose station. I think there would be significant demand further south through the central valley (and beyond) if passenger rail options were available.
Even CHSRA admits the project will never break even.
And if it is ever completed, it will still be faster and cheaper to drive or fly.
Common sense will eventually in California, because even the USSR collapsed. I hope to live to see it, because it will be glorious!
EDITOR: A TAXPAYER-FRIENDLY SOLUTION TO CALIFORNIA HIGH SPEED RAIL? QUID PRO QUO; TAXPAYERS WIN SOUND, SUSTAINABLE TRANSPORT FOR THE FORESEEABLE FUTURE
Federal Register 9-26-2025 notice of Surface Transportation Board Docket #36873 regarding UPRR proposed merger with NS opens a rare window of opportunity for those who seek sound, sustainable transport solutions.
As with past rail mergers, e.g., SPRR & UPRR in 1996, the government can impose conditions, e.g., union employee protections, trackage use agreements, etc.
So, when California shippers face truck driver shortages, they look for the nearest intermodal options. At present, they have UPRR’s Lathrop Intermodal Facility, and a BNSF one in Stockton, for North American Continent destinations, e.g., East Coast, Southeast, Eastern Canada, etc. They enjoy truck-competitive service, and at 40%-on average less freight charges. We have cleaner air, and less road congestion. When WyoDOT shuts down I-80 due to “white-out” conditions on the high plains, ag intermodal trailers and containers roll on thru North Platte, the largest classification rail yard in the
USA, like we used to see with the “Salad Bowl Express” from Salinas to NYC, via SP-Ogden-UP-Council Bluffs-CNW- Chicago-PC, with a guaranteed 7th day arrival for California ag shippers. Our Class Ones are doing it today in 3 days.
So, as a condition to approving the merger, the government could impose conditions, e.g., intermodal facilities (formerly “Piggyback Ramps”) in all ag Counties in California so local drayage could get those shipments to a nearby
intermodal facility, reducing air pollution and highway congestion. In exchange UPRR can have the partially–completed infrastructure that CAHSRA has constructed. Put CAHSRA in a liquidating Ch. 9 bankruptcy, cancel all burdensome contracts, sell at auction anything salable. Creditors’ claims paid by the Ch. 9 liquidating trustee, otherwise all debts cancelled. Have the trustee pursue fraudulent transfers for the benefit of creditors in liquidation.
Government ought not allow this opportunity to go to waste.
Caveat viator.
Joe Thompson
(408) 607–7351 cell phone
Past-President, 1999-2001, 2006, Gilroy-Morgan Hill Bar Assn.;
Past-Chair, Legislation Committee, Transportation Lawyers Assn.