California High Speed Rail - Boondoggle or Boon? (San Diego, San Jose: 2015, construction)

[1AngryTaxPayer]

Originally Posted by MechAndy

Merced to Bakersfield?
Ha Ha.

Can we load chickens and goats? I'm interested.

[Logicist027]

It's a great idea with terrible implementation.

First of all the route is dumb. That ridiculous section up Gilroy is nonsense.

Second it doesn't need so many stops. Hanford!? Seriously!

Third if they want to go through the central valley that's fine, but don't start there. They should have done a line that people actually care about like LA-SD or LA-Vegas first. Starting with this nonsense of Merced to Bakersfield is only going to **** off people in the central valley and get no help from the people in the major cities it's designed for. It's a lose-lose situation

Finally it's not going to be fast, automated or grade separated in major sections. That's means it won't be seen as a major asset. Not only that but it will probably cost so much to operate that it will need subsidies to stay afloat. It's one thing to subsidize building the thing, it's another to subsidize it to exist afterwards for two very important and large cities within a reasonable distance. If we can't do this right it's going to make doing rail in the US look like a dumb idea outside of a private player. Most likely Dallas - Houston will be the best high-speed rail in the country when it finally gets built.

Once again, if you are going to go over time and over budget building your first rail, at least make it amazing. The 6th street bridge cost more than the original budget but people see it and immediately said it's an icon. Will anyone think this HSR will become an icon? Nope!

[NORTY FLATZ]

HSR is a great idea. San Diego to Fontana (and points West) then, on to Las Vegas.)

Imagine being parked, 6 miles (either way) from Zzyzx Rd, only to have a 175mph train go zipping by...and your A/C just went out due to overheating...

And the train fare is $5 each way...and you burned $90 in fuel...

[BOORGONG]

Originally Posted by NORTY FLATZ

HSR is a great idea. San Diego to Fontana (and points West) then, on to Las Vegas.)

Imagine being parked, 6 miles (either way) from Zzyzx Rd, only to have a 175mph train go zipping by...and your A/C just went out due to overheating...

And the train fare is $5 each way...and you burned $90 in fuel...

You must be a commie-nist. Sheesh.

[BBMW]

Yeah, a $5 fair. How much would the fair have to be to cover bothe tge operating costs, and the interest on the debt floated to build it?

Originally Posted by NORTY FLATZ

HSR is a great idea. San Diego to Fontana (and points West) then, on to Las Vegas.)

Imagine being parked, 6 miles (either way) from Zzyzx Rd, only to have a 175mph train go zipping by...and your A/C just went out due to overheating...

And the train fare is $5 each way...and you burned $90 in fuel...

[cb73]

I remember reading an article a while back talking about people who have made a ton of money of the high speed rail project. Consultants, various companies who got contracts but for whatever reason couldn't fulfill them. I'm sure I remember some of California's "elite" profiting from this.

I did look around online yesterday and saw the California website with all the contracts--like 10,000--for various things so pinning down who is profiting from the $9 billion or so already sunk into this would be impossible. Maybe that's the point.

I understood Governor Brown's vision of what this could be--like Europe's trains. However, I just never saw this as workable in California.

[sav858]

Originally Posted by cb73

I remember reading an article a while back talking about people who have made a ton of money of the high speed rail project. Consultants, various companies who got contracts but for whatever reason couldn't fulfill them. I'm sure I remember some of California's "elite" profiting from this.

I did look around online yesterday and saw the California website with all the contracts--like 10,000--for various things so pinning down who is profiting from the $9 billion or so already sunk into this would be impossible. Maybe that's the point.

I understood Governor Brown's vision of what this could be--like Europe's trains. However, I just never saw this as workable in California.

Yep, they hired way too many consultants and contractors. Total fleece.

[ZeApelido]

California High Speed Rail is becoming useless real fast.

The progress of "near" autonomous driving is pretty rapid and very soon you will be able to drive from SF to LA in 6 hours all while you can watch movies in your car (you'll probably still have to be in the driver's seat).

So would I prefer to

A) commute to the train station to catch a train at a specific time, take a 3 hr train ride with a bunch of other people, then rent a car in LA in say 5 hours total

or

B) get in my car whenever I want, go exactly wherever I want, and take a bit more time

?

People who still choose to own a car will have the fuel / battery recharge costs likely be lower than the cost of the train ticket. Especially if you have more than 1 person in the car.



It's not 2008 anymore. I guarantee you by the time they build this thing, no one is going to use it because the personal vehicle capabilities will offer a much better experience.

[davdaven]

High-speed rail is a good idea, but California's execution has been a complete disaster. Due to our strict "environmental" regulations, it has been incredibly easy to block this project every step of the way, and we ended up with an illogical route so we could get the political buy-in necessary to supposedly build it.

The busiest air corridor in the U.S. is between LA and Las Vegas. SF to LA is #8 and San Diego to Vegas is #10. The large Central Valley cities of Bakersfield and Fresno are poorly served by airlines. Factor in the broad scope of long-distance commuters to/from Silicon Valley and bam! You have a few logical rail corridors:

1. Los Angeles to Las Vegas via the Inland Empire
2. San Diego to Los Angeles via Orange County
3. Los Angeles to San Francisco via Bakersfield and Fresno

So why are we trying to build rail to Palmdale and Gilroy? Both alignments have been egregious political exercises in getting something in return, to the detriment of the overall state. Both could have been easily served by beefing up existing rail lines (Metrolink and Caltrain, respectively) to provide the needed connections to the high-speed network. Same goes for the little finger sticking up to Sacramento.

Sure it would be great to spend the money on freeways and airports instead, but those short-term gains would be offset by the long-term capacity limitation of both systems. High-speed rail is far more efficient, which is why it has been implemented throughout Europe and Asia. It's crazy to think that Italy, which builds unreliable cars and has regular worker strikes, was able to pull this off decades before the U.S.

[BBMW]

How about the state just expand airport capacity in LA, SF, and SD? They all need it desperately. And it can likely be done cheaper and quicker than this boondoggle. And then that added capacity could be used to provide expanded service to a lot more cities.

Originally Posted by davdaven

High-speed rail is a good idea, but California's execution has been a complete disaster. Due to our strict "environmental" regulations, it has been incredibly easy to block this project every step of the way, and we ended up with an illogical route so we could get the political buy-in necessary to supposedly build it.

The busiest air corridor in the U.S. is between LA and Las Vegas. SF to LA is #8 and San Diego to Vegas is #10. The large Central Valley cities of Bakersfield and Fresno are poorly served by airlines. Factor in the broad scope of long-distance commuters to/from Silicon Valley and bam! You have a few logical rail corridors:

1. Los Angeles to Las Vegas via the Inland Empire
2. San Diego to Los Angeles via Orange County
3. Los Angeles to San Francisco via Bakersfield and Fresno

So why are we trying to build rail to Palmdale and Gilroy? Both alignments have been egregious political exercises in getting something in return, to the detriment of the overall state. Both could have been easily served by beefing up existing rail lines (Metrolink and Caltrain, respectively) to provide the needed connections to the high-speed network. Same goes for the little finger sticking up to Sacramento.

Sure it would be great to spend the money on freeways and airports instead, but those short-term gains would be offset by the long-term capacity limitation of both systems. High-speed rail is far more efficient, which is why it has been implemented throughout Europe and Asia. It's crazy to think that Italy, which builds unreliable cars and has regular worker strikes, was able to pull this off decades before the U.S.