Tony Daniels, Program Director of the California High Speed Rail (CHSR) Project, is leaving, being replaced by Clifford Eby. Daniels was well-respected in his industry as a man who really understood High Speed Rail. His replacement, Eby is with Parsons Brinckerhoff and recently left his appointment as the Acting and Deputy Administrator of the Federal Railroad Administration (FRA). He was there from 2005 to 2009. Prior to 2005 he was with Parson Corporation as a Senior Vice-President. His specialty is Innovative Finance and Economic Impacts.
Tony Daniels confirmed the story and said he will continue to work for Parsons Brinckerhoff. "It was time to transfer from that position and I was very pleased to see that role taken up for PB by Cliff Eby, a well-respected man in PB and the Railroad Industry," said Daniels.
CHINA TRIP
At the High Speed Rail Board meeting, CEO van Ark, announced he would leave shortly with the governor to begin a 10 day trip to China. No information about their agenda or what they expect to achieve from the visit was readily available.
BAY AREA PROGRAM ENIVIRONMENTAL IMPACT REPORT (EIR) CERTIFICATION
As expected, the Bay Area to Central Valley Program Level EIR was certified on Thursday over the voices of many who challenged the document on factual information. Some areas not properly addressed were ridership, routing, traffic along the new route along Monterey Highway, vibration mitigation, lack of Union Pacific permission to be on the corridor and many more important issues.
"At the High Speed Rail Authority (HSRA) board meeting, March 4th, Dan Leavitt notified the board that he will post a document that addresses those areas that the "court identified as needing additional work" for the Bay Area to Central Valley corridor." That means instead of answers, those commenting on this "new" program Environmental Impact Report (EIR) on anything outside of that narrowly defined scope found this statement instead, "this subject was not a topic area noted by the Superior Court in the town of Atherton case as requiring additional CEQA work."
Stuart Flashman, lead attorney on the previous winning lawsuit, which caused the decertification of the old Program EIR and the need for the creation of a new Program EIR, warned the Authority to "stop, take a deep breath, and reconsider its current course of action." " The Authority has already spent many months and hundreds of thousands of dollars of public money on legal battles instead of doing things right the first time. Does this board really think it wise to follow Authority staff down that road again? CEQA can be a problem for a public agency that wants to do things, 'quick and dirty.'" At the hearing Flashman promised he would see them in court if the Authority certified the Program EIR and they did.
Comments
Go Flashman go!
"Deep breaths" are not required by CEQA. The peninsula NIMBYs won on a few minor, technical deficiencies that have been rectified. Their original case was no good, and their goal was a Lilliputian delay delay delay while trying to change public opinion.
The public deserves a good well thought out plan for HSR. And until that exists the public should continue to ask hard questions and expect honest, factual answers.
Why in the world would our Governor go to China with CEO van Ark? And, "No information about their agenda or what they expect to achieve from the visit was readily available."
We have an economic crisis here in California. We need every one of our elected officials to put their travel plans and budgets on hold and come up with some real solutions.
Hi Christine, it came out today that it was a foreign trade trip planned along time ago however what the article didn't say was that CEO van Ark from the High Speed Rail Project would attend however the CEO himself said he was going. The articlel(link below) says that 100 Bay Area Council, the business advocacy group will go to China. Supposedly they are planning to sign an Memorandum of Understanding with a High Speed Rail firm. Not sure if that is correct since I believe it's the rail authority who usually does that. So if the Governor doesn't sign the budget by Thursday, the state will have to wait until he comes back. It appears outside sources will pay for the trip costs.
http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/c/a/2010/09/06/BAV81F8EAH.D...
As goes California , so goes the USA. So ... GO CAL. GO ! Can't wait to see the first big news on the start of construction.
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