We await Mr PICHARDO with his crystal ball.........:cheeky:
#1 - The DR's gov has a subsidy to the electricity generating companies since inception (and before that).
#2 - The DR's gov WILL cut that subsidy soon to $0.00...
#3 - Low income families that can't pay the real electrical bill will get aid in the form of direct funds via a solidarity card to pay for the services (more like a discount card with a given monthly amount based on pre-calculated usage per family household size).
#4 - The DR's gov will overhaul the present electrical system (as I said here on DR1 before) to bring about deep changes in the way the power generating companies bill their services and the loss in transit due to non-theft.
#5 - The DR's gov (by the end of 2010) will have several power plants working to divert the public sector (gov) usage off the grid and sell the rest to the grid in a primary biller role (as first tier grid provider).
#6 - The electricity needs for the entire SD Metro and soon to be SDQ - STI high speed train, will be met by the plants under direct gov control. In fact the plants will operate in a for profit way, unlike the past system of the CDE (now defunct).
#7 - The DR's gov is much tilted towards the construction of Ethanol based electrical generators to avoid the need to buy imported fossil fuel in the long term. The DR's gov will use the vast amount of today unused land to make contracts with the private sector for sugarcane production solely aimed to Ethanol production to this end.
#8 - The SD Metro and soon to be SDQ -STI high speed train system, are the most commercially advanced systems of their kind in real use today in the known world, as such they represent the best ratio of cost/operation unlike the NYC Metro and their very, very, very costly system.
#9 - The implementation of a nation-wide energy savings system is underway, first the use of new energy saving bulbs is being done; soon to be followed by the entire private sector. Then after that, the creation of a new agency that will oversee the power savings rating of all electrical things imported into the DR will make sure to create guidelines to cut in the excess of high power consumption devices.
#10 - The SD Metro is by far 1000% better suited than the entire NYC metro system to pull in money from non-ridership revenues via third party income sources. The cars are fitted with LCD monitors to that aim (what did you think they're for?), LCD billboards will be placed on all stations and where they can be spotted with ease by riders. Shops inside the stations as well, etc...
#11 - The SD Metro will be pushed towards the private sector's labor pool, which is in direct service to assist to their work places via the Metro, with ambitious plans of saving to both employee and employers. In effect, rides will be sold for entire years with savings for both. At the same time the money raised via this kind of sales will end up in special accounts to raise dividends via interest until the FY budget is addressed.
#12 - The SD Metro only needs to cover the operational part of employees, cleanup, maintenance, goods, etc... The big load of power consumption will be out of the loop as the gov is going to assume the cost of energy as it has been doing for the electricity generating companies till now, regardless of who got to use it.
#13 - The actual subsidy of the gov to the energy grid with Metro and all, as studied, will in fact drop by 40 to 55%! That's all the while providing power for free to the Metro system...
#14 - The SD Metro system is rated to operate with very little major maintenance for a long period of time and with the setting of a highly technical shop in the yards (something I just let out here and now in DR1), The system can operate with very little costs to burden the system with over budget expenses for quite a long time after that.
#15 - Please! Pretty please! Don't compare the NYC subway (a remarkable system nevertheless) to the SD Metro (the youngest and 100% most advanced in all the technologies employed today in Metro systems in use in the WORLD). The SD Metro was built from scratch, not atop or paired with an existent system; as such, the SD Metro is the beneficiary of the most advanced technology that a Metro can have from the ground-up. Even the Madrid Metro and others that boast the same cars as us, can't say they're in our level of technology, given that ours was built from the designer's table of the mothership. The SD Metro is the most advanced Metro in the Western Hemisphere as soon as the system goes public into service! No ifs or buts about it.
The Metro system that was built in SD is the test bed for Almston and Siemens Metro Systems. They incorporated the top technologies each of the companies involved brought to the table. The SD Metro will be a model for LA to follow both in technology and construction.
The operating power consumption of the SD Metro in contrast to the NYC Subway is like comparing a Model T to a Prius today... That huge is the gap between the technologies employed by both systems!!!