Bullet train.

[Walter Brewer]

Questions/Comments regarding; "Believe in the bullet train", May 2

 

I do if it is non-stop between pairs of the three principal cities, and thus help to ease air traffic congestion, and compete with overall airline time schedules.

But intentions are to stop at many cities, and require yet another underused slightly faster feeder rail net.

 

If so productive, why isn't private enterprise chomping at the bit to invest for profit like the airlines? They have to pay for airport use, taxes for air traffic management etc.

 

Will you publish the research you did to show why the bullet train is zero emissions! The energy has to come mostly from some greenhouse gas and pollution generating energy source. Dept of Energy says intercity rail is no more energy efficient than airlines, or private autos.

 

Walt Brewer

catc...@charter.net

 

 

 

[Kirston Henderson]

on 5/3/07 6:48 PM, Walter Brewer at catc...@charter.net wrote:

Questions/Comments regarding; "Believe in the bullet train", May 2

Will you publish the research you did to show why the bullet train is zero emissions! The energy has to come mostly from some greenhouse gas and pollution generating energy source. Dept of Energy says intercity rail is no more energy efficient than airlines, or private autos.

Walt,

   I've got it!  They plan to operate it from electricity generated by a long string of big windmills.  About the only pollution produced by those windmills is a lot of dead birds.

Kirston

[Walter Brewer]

Not good enough! They probably think they can mount the windmills on the speeding train.

 

 Walt Brewer

[Jerry Roane]

Walt

You would be amazed at the number of people who hit me with that one.  I got that comment this weekend except they wanted to put the windmill on the roof of the TriTrack.  It points to the sad state of affairs with high school education system. 

I just got back from presenting elevated guideways to the ASA (Austin San Antonio Rail Line) board.  I had the 3 minute window to explain religion, philosophy and oh yea TriTrack.  My lips got stuck to each other three different times as I attempted to condense 27 years of electric car development into my 3 minute public comment period.  More than half the board was gone by the time public comment was allowed as with all these kinds of meetings.  It was VERY hard to sit through this meeting in particular as Carter Burgess presented their third funded study that duplicated the TTI study that promises the board that for every billion dollars spent they get three back.  This rail project requires eminent domain be applied to the UP Railroad land to take their property and shift their freight business to the middle of nowhere and build  completely new passenger rail on the old bed.  After they rejected the 500 million dollar market value of that right of way that is owned by the private company, I might add, they are now in negotiations to take the 500 million dollars worth of property which is what the railroad is willing to sell their property for and screw them out of their business asset.  Once the state legislature forks over the negotiated and lowered 500 million dollar payment for this dirt then they will start the total demolition of the rail bed to start over.  The entire meeting had zero mention of transportation but was 100% about real estate development around the 15, count them 15 stations, on this 112 mile route.  What was totally missing was that the increased property valuations they were rubbing their hands over comes off the backs of homeowners with increased property tax evaluations.  I personally can relate because according to the assessor my dirt here in Greater Austin last year was worth $66,000 and magically this year it is "worth" $120,000.  This dirt is 20 miles from this rail alignment but I bet my increased land evaluation was counted in this Carter Burgess re-re-re-re-study.   If you pay a consultant to produce a study that says X you will receive a study that says X.  In this study they had a dollar value for pollution.  I am not sure where that number came from but I was biting my tongue at that point.  Somehow pollution equals 12 million dollars.  Go figure!  When I went to engineering school we had to keep our units consistent.  Apparently dollars and pollution are equal units.  They did get a comment from the head of the board about how cheap it would be to add two lanes to I35 between San Antonio and Austin in the study results.  They thought it was too cheap. 

I did throw out as many names as I could jam into the 3 minute period and they did pick up on the dual mode study that TTI/CEETI is doing for TxDot.  They wanted to get a copy of that white paper when it comes out in September.  Overall it was an education for me to know how old you have to be to make decisions about the years 2012 through 2030.  You would think that someone on the team would be in the age bracket that would ever see the result.  I couldn't help myself on the air pollution from trains in Texas accounting for 10% of NOx pollution and I had to take a shot at CapMetro with their 6% of Austin's NOx pollution.  I stopped short of mentioning the hypocrisy of CapMetro giving out free rides on "ozone action days" since they are the reason we have ozone action days.  Other than those two jabs I was harmless.  I did mention that instead of blowing a billion dollars that we could build a dual guideway for 40 million.  I had intended to say that 10,000 cars would fill the line with cars every 2 seconds but I did get in that they are four seaters and cost $10,000 each.  When you are given 3 minutes to pitch the deal everything gets jumbled and hurried.  It is not the best vehicle (so to speak) to communicate but it is all I had.  My county representative left first before I spoke.  The CAMPO representative left in quick succession.  I really went to this thing just to get CAMPO to pay attention.  It was a bust from that standpoint and a fraud if you read the agenda stating that there would be a public comment period in the meeting when the quorum leaves half way through the re-re-re-re-study of how rich the developers are going to be.  I doubt I did any good but I said I would go so I went. The CapMetro guy could only talk about his push to install 1880s trolleys in the downtown 6 square miles and screw the rest of the taxpayers.  He put that off on the city council member's desires. 

Jerry Roane

[Walter Brewer]

At the risk of being Giged for too many postings, and it's only noon. (Pacific Time)

Even the responible LRT zealots come close to this nonsense. They convert the KWH at the system power bus bar to mpg of gasoline or diesel fuel. That shows big advantage for LRT. Somehow the 40% or so powerplant conversion is forgotten.

 

I know the feeling on the 3 munite comments or public interaction they like to call it. Just a symptom of the lack of competition I tried to point out in my recent competition/mission posting. Their minds are made up. There is no challenge. There is no technology oriented organization that can overcome the more of the same lobby.

[Kirston Henderson]

on 5/4/07 2:16 PM, Jerry Roane at JRo...@Austin.rr.com wrote:

> I just got back from presenting elevated guideways to the ASA (Austin
> San Antonio Rail Line) board. I had the 3 minute window to explain
> religion, philosophy and oh yea TriTrack. My lips got stuck to each
> other three different times as I attempted to condense 27 years of
> electric car development into my 3 minute public comment period. More
> than half the board was gone by the time public comment was allowed as
> with all these kinds of meetings. It was VERY hard to sit through this

> meeting in particular as Carter Burgess presented their* third *funded
> study that *duplicated *the TTI study that promises the board that for

> every billion dollars spent they get three back.

Jerry,

Those brief "public comment" sessions are always a farce and none of the
public officials pays any attention to them. Hence, they are a total waste
of time.

As for Carter Burgess, they have never seen a commuter rail or LRT
project that they didn't love. Perhaps is because they often make millions
and millions of dollars doing the design for the things.

Kirston Henderson
MegaRail®