3 ms·

50 years ago in Japan they invented fast trains to cover such distances. We didn’t adopt them in California because Americans prefer cars. Fast forward 40 year

50 years ago in Japan they invented fast trains to cover such distances. We didn’t adopt them in California because Americans prefer cars. Fast forward 40 years and it’s not so easy to get the right of way to build straight track. Now 10 years in we’re hoping to invent an even faster method of transportation so we can take a longer route.

vosper 9y ago
Not to get into this again, but California also only has 1/3 of Japan's population density, there's very little between the obvious Bay Area and LA endpoints, and there's no viable route up the coast so you have to go inland, which means putting rail through quite a lot of mountains. There's also no realistic world where you get from SF to LA on rail in close to the time it takes to fly (SF to Burbank is only an hour).
- melling 9y ago
  I was merely pointing out that this technology was invented in Japan. Since then it has also been installed and about 20 other countries, including France and Spain. The population excuse was debunked years ago. Also, no one said that it had to had to take an hour. If you go from downtown LA to downtown San Francisco, it’s a pretty nice accomplishment in 3 hours.
  - gozur88 9y ago
    HSR was first demonstrated in France. Japan is the country with the first commercial service.
- Retric 9y ago
  HSR works best when the population centers are separated by low population areas because you don't want to stop every 20 miles. So yes California is 163,696 mi² but ignore the paces with < 50 people per square mile and what's left has both plenty of density and population. Because it's really the eastern part of the state that's empty. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California#/media/File:California_population_map.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California#/media/File:Califor... EX: Modoc County only has freaking 8k people and it's 4,000 square miles.

vosper 9y ago

Not to get into this again, but California also only has 1/3 of Japan's population density, there's very little between the obvious Bay Area and LA endpoints, and there's no viable route up the coast so you have to go inland, which means putting rail through quite a lot of mountains. There's also no realistic world where you get from SF to LA on rail in close to the time it takes to fly (SF to Burbank is only an hour).

melling 9y ago
I was merely pointing out that this technology was invented in Japan. Since then it has also been installed and about 20 other countries, including France and Spain. The population excuse was debunked years ago. Also, no one said that it had to had to take an hour. If you go from downtown LA to downtown San Francisco, it’s a pretty nice accomplishment in 3 hours.
- gozur88 9y ago
  HSR was first demonstrated in France. Japan is the country with the first commercial service.
Retric 9y ago
HSR works best when the population centers are separated by low population areas because you don't want to stop every 20 miles. So yes California is 163,696 mi² but ignore the paces with < 50 people per square mile and what's left has both plenty of density and population. Because it's really the eastern part of the state that's empty. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California#/media/File:California_population_map.png https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California#/media/File:Califor... EX: Modoc County only has freaking 8k people and it's 4,000 square miles.