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California allocates $14.7 million for Pismo Beach infrastructure improvements

August 24, 2022

By KAREN VELIE

Millions of dollars have been approved for pavement improvements and constructing bike lanes in Pismo Beach, the California Transportation Commission (CTC) announced on Monday. In addition, the state assigned more than $86 million for infrastructure projects in Santa Barbara County.

The CTC allocated more than $2.2 billion to repair and improve transportation infrastructure throughout the state at its August meeting. The funding includes more than $1.6 billion in funding from the federal Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act of 2021 and nearly $336 million in funding from Senate Bill 1.

“Thanks to a historic influx of federal funding and our ongoing investments powered by SB 1, California continues to make major progress in rebuilding, revitalizing and reimagining our infrastructure to support a cleaner, safer and more equitable transportation system,” said Caltrans Director Tony Tavares.

Projects approved this week in Santa Barbara and San Luis Obispo counties include:

Pismo Beach to receive $14.7 million in pavement improvements and upgrades compliant with the Americans with Disabilities Act. Project plans include curb ramps from Gracia Way to north Pismo Beach. The project also includes widening the shoulders and constructing bike lanes as complete streets elements.

In Santa Barbara County, the state approved a $25 million replacement of the San Jose Creek Bridge on Highway 101 near State Route 217 in Goleta.

North of Goleta in the Gaviota area, the state plans to spend $61 million to remove and replace the pavement on Highway 101 from south of the Gaviota Beach State Park to Old Coast Highway. The CTC also agreed to provide $550,000 to improve the water pressure at the Gaviota Safety Roadside Rest Areas on Highway 101, which will allow for the installation of a new water line between the northbound and southbound facilities.


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Just think how much infrastructure improvements could have been done with the $100 billion or so that has been flushed down the Jerry Brown Memorial Train Wreck running between two cities no one goes to on purpose. Just for perspective, that works out to something like $90 million for EACH city and the county if it had been prorated among the counties in the state by population. This dwarfs the subject “allocation”. With this kind of money, the City of SLO could paint all their pavement green.


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Every other first world nation in the world has high speed trains. Hell, it takes only three hours to get from London to Paris. Eleven hours to get from Paris to Rome. In the U.S. there is very little train travel.


Somehow, the U.S., the richest nation in the world, cannot afford a high speed rail system. In the south, the Koch Brothers, who are highly leveraged in fossil fuels, are actively blocking the building of trains. Shameful.


Fortunately, the neo-liberal economics that has prevailed in the U.S. since 1981 is beginning to be eclipsed by a new era of spending that will finally bring the U.S. into the 21st century, thanks to Joe Biden and his perseverance with an equally divided Congress.


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Terrain dictates the route of high speed trains. Paris to London, even under the Channel, is relatively flat. That railbed begins underground nearly 3 miles from the shoreline. There is no TVG from Paris to Rome. Venice, yes, but not Rome. Those big Alps things are in the way…


It’s not that we can’t afford to build extreme tech high speed trains, even with the enormous cost associated with union graft. It’s that, one—America has a highway system that works just fine. Two—air travel that also works just fine. But passenger rail service that has lost money since just before the 2nd World War (only slightly boosted during the war for military use, but travel and fuel was very limited for civilians). Amtrak today, and from day one, has never returned a profit to the US government that runs it (our taxes BTW). The Acela from NY to Boston (you know, the high speed train that everyone said we must have?) requires an expenditure of around 1 billion dollars a year, but ticket sales cover less than a 1/5 of that.


The so-called high speed rail here in California, will never return the terrifically bloated cost of building it. One has to only simply calculate the number of people who really need to go from LA to SF every day. You may have fingers or toes left over. Never mind getting it over the San Andreas fault without the rails separating an inch every year. And do you really think the army of environmentalists will agree that a railroad is just the most natural thing to plow wide gaps through the Sierras for?


Americans, normally, are just not much in a hurry to get anywhere.


0

Unfortunately with all the stops our train will never get up to “high speed”.


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Joe who? Even if every other country has high speed trains, there is no possibility that they paid anywhere near $210 million per mile of track to get it. So, there must be something wrong with the way the government is doing it. Most likely there are more lying politicians here that need to be paid off.


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Yeah, more salary and benefit increases for every city employee, what economic downturn, city employees are getting raises………


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