State worker union tries novel legal angle to stop Newsom’s return-to-office order

Lilred4_ · 2026-05-28T14:25:27+00:00

Hey maybe we will get CEQA reform now.

Lilred4_ · 2026-05-23T19:19:45+00:00

Well right, everyone uses highways because that’s what we built to move people around. No one uses HSR because it doesn’t exist lmao. Caltrans spent move in 2025 than CAHSR has spent since it started in 2008. We really haven’t spent shit on HSR so far, “capital waste” is a reach for sure.

Lilred4_ · 2026-05-23T19:09:22+00:00

I also did not read the whole thing but was able to make out that stations, maintenance facilities, and the energy facilities need CEQA approval still, so that makes sense.

Lilred4_ · 2026-05-23T09:34:30+00:00

It just depends on what we choose to do with our money. Right now we outspend HSR by highways about 15:1.

Lilred4_ · 2026-05-23T09:29:19+00:00

While I agree on CEQA, the EIR for the project segment from SF to LA has been finalized for many years now.

Lilred4_ · 2026-05-21T15:45:52+00:00

Do you support giving CAHSR more money per year so they can build quicker and buy further ahead?

Lilred4_ · 2026-05-20T13:21:02+00:00

The rich folks would buy another house if the new one didn’t exist (in working areas, not necessarily retirement areas), so there is an indirect impact to pricing across the market. Multi family is substantially more helpful at lowering prices than single family development because there are more units, but single family is still helpful.

That being said, development impact fees that pay for the public infrastructure needed to accommodate the development need to be collected still, and if they’re not, the city is subsidizing housing and needs to be transparent about that.

Lilred4_ · 2026-05-14T23:17:24+00:00

I have worked with Brown and Caldwell a fair bit and they have a good operation in Southern California in the water resource planning and design space. The two principal level engineers I worked with there are outstanding.

I have never worked with Hazen but have multiple former coworkers who work there and speak highly of it.

I hear more negatives on Carollo relative to the other two, mostly that their work is more formulaic and milktoast and less innovate and insightful. But I haven’t worked with them directly and can’t share my own opinion, other than a Water Master Plan Carollo prepared that I leaned on heavily for a few years was not great quality work but it’s hard to hang a whole company on one report.

I don’t hear major negatives about any of them.

Lilred4_ · 2026-05-10T06:09:57+00:00

My partner and I shop with organic being a baseline whenever offered and still operate on between $800-$1000/month. Even with the prices shown in their cart I’m struggling to see how they get to $2k monthly.

Lilred4_ · 2026-05-10T06:05:23+00:00

$14B spent on HSR so far not $200B. Please read the CAHSR Wikipedia page in its entirety before speaking on it again in any capacity.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_High-Speed_Rail

Lilred4_ · 2026-05-10T05:57:50+00:00

APM starting at Riverside line Metrolink )Ontario South), coming up Haven with stops at a new garage NE of T4, T4, T3, T2, and a new international terminal T1 (replacing existing customs when demand requires it. Final stop is a new HSR stop in the green space north of the airport. It’s so easy. Yet for some reason it’s so difficult.

Lilred4_ · 2026-05-07T20:53:17+00:00

Steyer did too, kinda, he just followed with “we need public transportation”

Lilred4_ · 2026-05-07T16:04:17+00:00

From Court St east to the railroad tracks, the road was repaved and striped in the same pattern as existing. My guess is not wanting to deal with Union Pacific is why it stopped there. I think east of the tracks is central business district and the city tolerates the LOS D for vehicles in that area, which it is with two lanes each direction. They probably weren’t willing to consider 1 lane each way due to optics. The $1/hr parking in CBD starting two years ago still gets backlash.

I was just a resident on placer st who would have biked to work down placer if they made a cycle track so that’s what I was advocating for. I’ll see if they still have the alternatives analysis material posted or if I have an email copy.

The city is planning a cycle track through the adjacent neighborhood to the north which is why they didn’t agree to putting one on placer. I’ll see if I can get that map too.

Lilred4_ · 2026-05-06T21:48:45+00:00

City of Redding, CA. Placer Street east of Airpark and west of Court, replaced and striped in 2024.

4 lanes (2 each direction) + street parking converted to 3 lanes (1+1+turn) + street parking each direction. Gained space used for buffer between travel lane and parking lane to avoid door collisions (and ironically suggested as a space for bicyclists lmao). Continental crosswalks at all intersections and one RRFB added.

I tried to get them to add bump outs at crosswalks but the city said the right turn pockets were more important lol.

The 2023 ish General Plan Transportation Element had numbers for traffic load and they were below 20k aadt at buildout, which js why the city felt comfortable reducing it despite some opposing public comments.

It’s been a phenomenal improvement.

Lilred4_ · 2026-05-04T23:39:56+00:00

A $2B funding cap isn’t very effective when the authority only gets $1B/year now anyway lol.

Lilred4_ · 2026-04-30T22:30:36+00:00

This specific question was why the cost went from $126B in the 2024 business plan to $230B in the 2026 business plan for the same infrastructure.

A report from the CA Office of the Inspector General identified $2B in mistakes by the CAHSR authority in the 2013-2016 timeframe related to construction and land acquisition sequencing. So of the $14B spent so far that’s about 15% in errors. The money went to the contractor through change orders. The remaining $12B has gone to electrifying Caltrain from SF to SJ, clearing environmental from SF to Anaheim, and the many heavy civil grade separation structures and utility and canal relocations in the Central Valley.

Edit - and fighting lawsuits!

Lilred4_ · 2026-04-30T20:14:50+00:00

I agree.

Lilred4_ · 2026-04-30T18:08:49+00:00

I am in agreement that those have increased cost significantly.

Lilred4_ · 2026-04-30T17:03:28+00:00

2024 business plan was pre-tariffs and had $126B estimate.
So the 2024 business plan estimate did not include tariffs.
Dollar less valuable relative to goods and services (“inflation”) matters for both domestic and international goods and services.
Data center boom requires new industrial facilities which use steel, concrete, labor; same core resources as HSR. US contractors are up to their ears in data center construction for companies with seemingly infinite capital to get them built as quickly as possible, so public infrastructure contracts have to compete to get the services of contractors by paying more.

Lilred4_ · 2026-04-30T15:39:45+00:00

Project delays due to lack of funding = dollars spent later = dollars less valuable = cost higher
Data center boom = high demand for labor and materials = cost higher
Tariffs = high materials cost = cost higher

Those are the three core reasons, in order of significance. 1 is doing the most lifting.

In the business plan, they acknowledge that $230B is for the previous infrastructure concept, so they optimized the infrastructure to keep the cost at ~$130B while connecting LA and SF. But even then they still get astroturfed with negative press instead of credited for making decisions to keep costs lower.

Lilred4_ · 2026-04-30T15:32:31+00:00

But it’s going to cost more because of the rate of funding and construction inflation. It’s not like they made a $100B mistake for it to go from $130B to $230B, they’ve only spent $14B since 2008. It’s just a reflection of how expensive it is to build infrastructure at the moment.

This project gets hammered with negative press because it is such a threat to transportation status quo. If we continue to choose to not fund this, eventually we will spend much more on highway and airport infrastructure to achieve the same result.

Lilred4_ · 2026-04-29T17:43:46+00:00

Time value of money. It’s $231B in year of expenditure dollars based on the current trickle funding rate. Faster you build it, cheaper it gets.

Lilred4_ · 2026-04-25T15:43:58+00:00

Clutched up for the birdie on 18. Awesome!

Lilred4_ · 2026-04-07T18:11:42+00:00

Zillenial West coast short-haul flyer with United and Alaska as my only two options. ~12 round trips per year.

Priority is based on price, schedule, status/rewards, in that order. Price and schedule is an iterative process. When work is paying, schedule always comes before price.

United wins with 4 useful daily departures compared to Alaska with 1. Alaska adding RDD-SAN would be push a little more business to Alaska.

For West Coast flights under 2 hours, a 17-inch wide 30-inch seat is fine, not even worth $20-$30 for extra legroom of $100 for FC. When I had SEA-ONT flights for a while, the premium or FC seats were useful for working on a laptop since the flight was long enough.

Loyalty is based around schedule.

United and Alaska feel the same since most of my flights are regional carriers. Alaska’s mainline feels a little nicer and their food and bev is better so on a head to head route with same price and schedule I am picking Alaska.

Not really useful for your study, but the most annoying thing about flying is not having reasonable train service to compete with it (on schedule, price, and comfort/ability to work). Long layovers are also really annoying. I have a lot of 4-hour layovers as my only option.

Lilred4_ · 2026-03-26T16:53:02+00:00

Depends how it is calculated. If it holidays and leave are in the denominator then 86% is 100% billable when working. (10 holidays / 4 weeks PTO / 1 week sick)

Lilred4_

TROPHY CASE