Well, This Isn't Good News -- GDP Now Forecast Pert Near 0 Percent -- April 9, 2016

GDP Now (a dynamic link):

The GDPNow model forecast for real GDP growth (seasonally adjusted annual rate) in the first quarter of 2016 is 0.1 percent on April 8, down from 0.4 percent on April 5. After this morning's wholesale trade report from the U.S. Bureau of the Census, the forecast for the contribution of inventory investment to first-quarter real GDP growth fell from –0.4 percentage points to –0.7 percentage points.

California state releases details on four proposed routes for bullet train, southern California. The Los Angeles Times is reporting:

The roughly 164 miles of track from the Central Valley to Anaheim will be the most technically complex, environmentally sensitive and financially taxing part of the $64-billion project to connect San Francisco to Southern California by 2029.

Among the key disclosures in the reports was a plan to enter Union Station with surface tracks, abandoning an option to arrive at the rail hub on a viaduct with an elevated platform. The state also revealed that it was considering sharing tracks with the Metrolink commuter rail service on a portion of the 12-mile stretch from Burbank to Los Angeles — which could affect the bullet train system's capacity and speed.

The general path for four sections of rail in Southern California has been well defined — taking the bullet train from Bakersfield up a 4,000-foot incline to Tehachapi and then through the Mojave Desert to a station in Palmdale. From there it would descend through the San Gabriel Mountains in long tunnels to a station at the Burbank airport. It would make its way along an existing railroad right of way to Union Station and then travel along another rail corridor to Anaheim's new transportation hub.

But the reports released Friday, known as supplemental alternatives analyses, laid out the tremendously different effects associated with the still-to-be-decided route options.
For example, each of the three possible paths from Palmdale to Burbank through the rugged San Gabriels would require up to 24 miles of tunnels as deep as 2,000 feet below the surface, one report says. The tunnels would be about four miles longer than earlier indicated.

One of the routes would require a single tunnel of nearly 17 miles that would cut through geologically complex shattered rock and fault zones. Another would displace as many 918 homes, while yet another alternative would displace 87 homes. But the vibration and noise, the report said, would affect many more.

This project is easily a 4-generation endeavor. Children being born today will be the lawyers, engineers, and politicians spearheading this project 40 years from now. Their children will be going to school with plans to follow in their parents' footsteps working on this railroad.