I’ve got to say, I strongly approve of our current governor. He’s little known or talked about in the Republican Party, surprisingly little talked about in the moderate circle, but for anyone who has been keeping a score card has shown up for conservatives in spades. Think about it, has supported gay marriage, supports fiscal conservatism (almost to a flaw) and is not backing down on opposition. In effect, he terminates it.

The governor’s decision was intended to increase the state’s chances of receiving high-speed rail money, officials said. California is competing with more than 40 applicants from 23 other states.

But the action has sparked debate among rail advocates about whether too high a priority is being placed on the high-speed train project at the expense of the second-busiest rail corridor in the nation, where budget-strapped commuter services have been trying to improve safety, add track and cut travel times from San Diego to Santa Barbara.

Eliminated from the state application for federal funds was almost $170 million for positive train control—computer-guided braking systems designed to prevent collisions and allow conventional trains to safely travel at 110 mph. Such automated systems, which the federal government wants installed by 2015, would have prevented the Metrolink crash in Chatsworth last year that killed 25 people in the worst rail accident in modern California history.

This is change, right in front of your very eyes. Instead of bolstering a system of Union thugs, and State Worker dead beats, he’s in favor of scrapping it all for a new system of travel. This is good for California, and I’m actually going to link to Hal to make my case. The air monopoly over travel has to go, and a bullet train is a very interesting option to travel. Yes, a two hour train ride doesn’t beat an hour in the air, but if the ticket is priced right, we’re talking.

Also removed was $969 million in railroad crossing improvements, track additions, overpasses and a variety of maintenance projects designed to benefit the busy corridor between San Diego and Los Angeles as well as the main rail line through Ventura and Santa Barbara counties. The routes are used by Amtrak, the Coaster, Metrolink and major freight lines such as Union Pacific and Burlington Northern Santa Fe.

One major goal of commuter rail services has been to reduce the travel time between San Diego and Los Angeles from about three hours to two hours.

“I am not happy about it,” said Art Brown, chairman of the government authority that oversees the Los Angeles-San Diego corridor. “There were lots of projects in the application to improve intracity rail service. The system will remain a slow-speed service, and safety has been one of our big concerns.”

He means safety of Union protection, not safety of the people of California. I think many of our safety woes could’ve been healed if only there was a rule that one can’t allegedly text teenager friends while on the job. A two hour trip from LA to SD is a foregone conclusion in a car, and cabs don’t get you anywhere, expeditiously. What’s needed is to get into the 21st century proper with a real alternative to travel by air.

The California Department of Transportation’s rail division, which had worked with transportation agencies in Southern California to prepare the application, was ready to submit the paperwork to Washington by the Oct. 2 deadline.

But Schwarzenegger quashed the request and told state officials to only seek $4.7 billion in federal rail stimulus funds for the high-speed train project to bolster its chances of getting funding.

For all those State Workers out there railing on Arnie, and using terms like “GAS” to describe him, talk about shooting yourself in the foot. This is a major initiative, and a huge boon to the state economy.  I know it doesn’t protect Union nest eggs, but it does provide some hope for a brighter tomorrow.

Under the federal economic stimulus plan, about $8 billion is available for high-speed train projects, which can include conventional rail improvements to increase train speeds. The federal Department of Transportation is expected to decide which projects to fund by January.

Planners say the high-speed network would ultimately cost at least $45 billion and stretch nearly 800 miles from San Diego to San Francisco, with a branch running to Sacramento. Trains would exceed 200 mph on some stretches, prompting officials to say that a trip between Los Angeles and San Francisco could take as little as two hours and 38 minutes.

In the days after learning that Caltrans was pressing ahead with its request to seek money for local projects, members of the California High Speed Rail Authority pushed the governor to keep the focus on winning funding for the bullet train.

Anaheim Mayor Curt Pringle, chairman of the authority’s board, talked with the governor by phone. The effort was aided by David Crane, a gubernatorial advisor who also is a high-speed rail board member.

Pringle said that state applications for federal money already ask for more than $1 billion for conventional rail projects—money that would come from a different pool of economic stimulus funds. About a third of the request—$390 million—is for rail corridors in Southern California, state records show.

“California is in the lead position to receive high-speed rail funding,” Pringle said in a recent interview. “We should not be competing with ourselves.”

But we all need back pay for the furlough. How can one ever shift away form the idea of protecting State Unions, and State Jobs? This is crazy talk.

The governor “took shovel-ready projects and put them aside, ” said Rich Tolmach, president of the California Rail Foundation. “Hundreds of millions of dollars were thrown away. Now these rail projects will not get their fair share of federal stimulus money.”

Tolmach and other critics said the Caltrans rail division and other transportation agencies would try to seek alternate funding, but those sources are not as large as the federal funds allocated for high-speed rail, and the state has little money because of an unprecedented and ongoing budget shortfall.

“We may never get this money now,” said Jim Mills, a former state senator who helped to create commuter rail service between San Diego and Los Angeles. “The lives of rail travelers will be jeopardized by this. One of the major items requested was positive train control, which can prevent the kind of accidents that have occurred on Metrolink.”

All five of them, let me tell you from personal experience. The freeways are packed in California, but the rail system is a ghost town. To build on this arcane system in such a way as to bolster what is already unprofitable, is insane. There’s little reason to do so, and Arnie gets my support. As for what this will cost us, sure, it looks like more (on paper) but I am betting that a huge Unions shake up would even it all out.

The Pacific Union crash stands to cost me a fair share of tens of millions of dollars in the short term. The legal wrangling will surely bring about more regulation, more red tape, and yet more Unions bullshit (which caused this in the first place). This dude was a Union guy through and through, and no case against not advancing ourselves as a society. Unless advancement means we need to protect against people texting (allegedly) from the driver seat of trains at train crossings.