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There is high speed transit from San Francisco to Los Angeles today. It's called Southwest Airlines. Tickets are $45 for SFO-LAX each way in February right no

There is high speed transit from San Francisco to Los Angeles today. It's called Southwest Airlines. Tickets are $45 for SFO-LAX each way in February right now (less than the expected cost of the train ticket). Other pairs (OAK-BUR, SJC-BUR) are similar ($49-$57 each way). Before you say that it's ridiculous, consider how else $64 billion (current official estimated total construction cost of the project -- not counting operating cost)[0] could be spent: - Commercial air travel costs around $0.10 per passenger-mile if you buy in bulk[1]. That means $64 billion could buy 640 billion passenger-miles of air travel. If allocated to the 11 million people who live in Los Angeles and San Francisco counties, the state could buy each resident 58,000 air miles of travel -- equivalent to about 88 round-trips between LAX and SFO. - If the LAX-SFO air corridor becomes too busy, that $64 billion could also be spent upgrading existing fleets by buying 147 brand new A380s at an average list price of $435 million each. [2] - If the environmental impact is a concern (not that laying tracks and punching holes through the Central Valley is free of impact), then buy new Teslas instead. Lots of them. At $35,000 per Model 3, you could buy 1.8 million new Teslas using that money. Add some solar panels to each purchase and you could still buy more than a million -- more than enough for every San Franciscan to get a brand new Tesla. [0] https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/01/13/confidential-report-california-bullet-train-could-cost-billions-more-than-expected/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/01/13/confidential-report-c... [1] http://www.opshots.net/2015/04/aircraft-operating-series-aircraft-operating-expenses/ http://www.opshots.net/2015/04/aircraft-operating-series-air... [2] http://www.airbus.com/content/dam/corporate-topics/publications/backgrounders/Backgrounder-Airbus-Commercial-Aircraf-price-list-EN.pdf http://www.airbus.com/content/dam/corporate-topics/publicati... (Edit: added citation for $64 billion official estimate)

pretendscholar 9y ago
>At $35,000 per Model 3, you could buy 1.8 million new Teslas using that money. Add some solar panels to each purchase and you could still buy more than a million -- more than enough for every San Franciscan to get a brand new Tesla. Which would be useless without the billions spent in maintenance every year for the roads and other maintenance. Its such a silly argument. If you include the full cost of airport construction it wouldn't be so pretty either. Having heterogeneous forms of transit is an intrinsic benefit as each are better under certain weather conditions and use cases.
joejohnson 9y ago
Including time to get to the airport and through security, flying LAX -> SFO is not high speed :/
- slapshot 9y ago
  Going through the Central Valley and stopping in Fresno, Madera, Kings-Tulare, Bakersfield... (etc) to get to Los Angeles is not faster either. Buy a fully autonomous car and go point-to-point faster/cheaper/better. The train will stop at SFO and BUR -- if the train's last-mile delivery is better then we should focus on that last-mile rather than the stretch in the middle that is already well-solved.
  - abritinthebay 9y ago
    This is peak Hacker News: "Don't buy a $50 train ticket - buy a not-actually-invented yet probably $120,000 car instead". The high-speed rail project is a shit show, but more cars is not the answer either.
    - dragonwriter 9y ago
      More cars, or at least more car trips,—independent of whether they need drivers or what kind of powerplant they have—is, in fact, exactly the problem at which HSR is directed.
    - erikpukinskis 9y ago
      Almost no one will buy autonomous cars. You will just hail one for less than the cost of gas. Only rich people and people in and out of a car all day (full time parents, car-based workers, etc) will buy them.
      - ubernostrum 9y ago
        You will just hail one for less than the cost of gas. If the cost of the ride is less than the cost of gas, how is the operator making a profit? Especially since they have to cover more than just the cost of gas. (an Uber-style "use VC money to subsidize below-cost services" model is not sustainable in the long term, by the way)
taoistextremist 9y ago
Tesla batteries can be pretty damaging to the environment to produce. Rail is a lot cleaner in that regard if you can get an electrified rail (not sure if this works with high speed). Rail is also a much more efficient way, with regards to energy, to transport that many people as opposed to buying near 2 million Teslas.
- randoramax 9y ago
  > Rail is a lot cleaner in that regard if you can get an electrified rail (not sure if this works with high speed). Jeez! You know Tesla batteries and you don't know that high speed trains are electric?? WTH
  - kelnos 9y ago
    Rail doesn't run on batteries; the track is electrified, which overall gives you a lower environmental impact than manufacturing a ton of Tesla batteries.
  - taoistextremist 9y ago
    Yeah, I wasn't thinking, I guess, brain fart because I was thinking how the US refers to systems of non-electrified rails that can carry trains at above 115-mph as "higher-speed".
marcell 9y ago
FYI Same day prices are much much higher, buying a ticket leaving tomorrow from SJC->LAX is around $220, and SFO->LAX is basically sold out.
- dwg 9y ago
  True. However assuming the price of high speed rail tickets will be fixed because it is a public service, the government could similarly operate an airline instead of high speed rail using the same fixed price system. What would be the cost then?
  - jbooth 9y ago
    That's not how Amtrak works now, they price it the same way as airlines, last minute is more expensive. I'm in NYC and would never, ever fly to Boston or DC. For what that's worth.
    - dwg 9y ago
      Two points on this: 1. I'm not sure how that affects my point. 2. In my experience the price difference for last minute on Amtrak has been at most about 20% (though I'm not a frequent Amtrak traveler).
- tuna-piano 9y ago
  Take a look at European high speed rail prices. They act similarly to airline prices, increasing close to departure to high levels.
  - switch007 9y ago
    What's that you say? You're in Manchester but need to pop down to London (2 hours 10 mins, 209 miles) tomorrow for a meeting? That'll be £338/$467.
    - dx034 9y ago
      The UK is not a good example on how rail systems can work. Rather look at France, Germany, Switzerland or Japan. HSR tickets in most countries have an upper limit, only the (partly) privatised UK system has these absurd prices.
skybrian 9y ago
You're leaving out some costs. More airplanes doesn't increase capacity to the extent it's limited by airports. You'll need to add expanding the airports and maybe building new ones. Also, what about the stations between SF and LA? Or, if you use cars, then you need to include widening the highways in congested areas. Of course bus lines would be much cheaper, if we can convince people to use them. How often do you take a bus between SF and LA?
- dzhiurgis 9y ago
  > Of course bus lines would be much cheaper, if we can convince people to use them. Pretty easy - electric buses with seats that resemble business class instead of Ryanair.
  - dx034 9y ago
    Additional lanes for buses and a law that allows autonomous buses in dedicated lanes to go 100mph. That way you're faster than car or train at lower cost.
ghostbrainalpha 9y ago
> - If the LAX-SFO air corridor becomes too busy, that $64 billion could also be spent upgrading existing fleets by buying 147 brand new A380s at an average list price of $435 million each. [2] Sorry but I'm super confused... 147 planes that cost $435 million each, would total 64 Billion dollars. And that appears to be 64 Billion on top of the 64 Billion you already plan on spending from above. That cost of the project in the article has jumped to 10 Billion. Where are you getting your number from?
- slapshot 9y ago
  The cost of the Central Valley segment ALONE is $10 billion. The total cost SF-LA is $64 billion: https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/01/13/confidential-report-california-bullet-train-could-cost-billions-more-than-expected/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/01/13/confidential-report-c...
rayiner 9y ago
There is also the question of who benefits from HSR. If you look at the Northeast Regional, it's primarily business travelers looking for a more comfortable way to work while hopping between Boston and DC. That money could be so much better spent in ways that have an actual impact on lower income people.
- kelnos 9y ago
  Agreed. Our local and regional transit story is so poor right now. Improving that would drastically improve the lives of lower- and middle-income people who have to drive on our over-congested highways day after day.
  - inferiorhuman 9y ago
    At least in the Bay Area, part of the draw of HSR is that it's also the motivation for improvements to Caltrain (electrification, grade separation, mythical extension to downtown).
    - rayiner 9y ago
      So we're going to spend $66 billion on something that primarily benefits higher income people just for the indirect benefits it might have for local transit?
      - ajmurmann 9y ago
        Why is it relevant if it benefits people with high or low income? Are we back to Marxist class warfare?
        rayiner 9y ago
        I’m kind of smitten with the idea that if we’re going to spend a bunch of public money, it shouldn’t be used to subsidize a service directed st higher income people.
      - 9y ago
ebikelaw 9y ago
What you’re leaving out is CO2. California is committed to reducing CO2, but emissions from transportation are the largest component of state emissions, and they are growing. Air travel cannot be done except by burning hydrocarbon fuels. Train travel, while still energy-intensive at high speeds, can be powered by any electric source. Therefore rail, and not air, has the capability to cut the state’s CO2 emissions.
- sjg007 9y ago
  They are working on electric powered jets kind of like the Chevy Volt. That may reduce the CO2 burden.
  - redorb 9y ago
    until battery power/weight ratio gets 10x better electric flying vehicles (specifically passenger jets) are dead in the water. I don't know that we're making the right trade from atmospheric pollution co2 vs the pollution of throwing away batteries.
  - pretendscholar 9y ago
    This is one of my biggest gripes about the tech community. We can't wait for tech that may or may not come to fruition when we have working solutions now. Don't let great be the enemy of the good.
  - 0xffff2 9y ago
    They who? I work in aerospace and while I have heard many proposals (most 20-40 years from commercial production) for improving efficiency, including hybrid electric systems, I have never once seen anyone propose an electric commercial passenger aircraft.
- bluthru 9y ago
  As a rule of thumb high speed rail is 1/10 the CO2 of flying. However, I wonder what the carbon footprint of creating the tracks is?
Someone1234 9y ago
Assuming 640 billion passenger-miles of air travel, the railway still makes rational sense. Once the land is purchased, levelled, and conditioned you now have a space that can have trains running on it for the next fifty, one hundred, or more years. Look at the UK's railway lines, some of them have been operating for two hundred years and counting. This type of short term thinking is why infrastructure spending in the US is at an all time low. Instead of spending for tens of years into the future, we only evaluate the costs relative to the next five years and therefore make decisions more valuable to tomorrow than next week. Once CA buys this route, they own this route forever. And in a state gaining more and more people every day, cutting out land for infrastructure is only going to get more painful in time.
- jeffrey_t_b 9y ago
  Well, even if you say that capital expenses are irrelevant considering the very long time frame, you still have to make the argument that operating expenses of the rail are smaller. What are they, and are they smaller than air travel (~$0.10/passenger-mile)? The only estimate of that I could find with two minutes of googling is ~$0.39/passenger-mile (via http://ti.org/antiplanner/?p=88 http://ti.org/antiplanner/?p=88 supposedly using the National Transit Database). That means that a rail line is even _worse_ in the long run.
  - JumpCrisscross 9y ago
    > That means that a rail line is even _worse_ in the long run Critical qualifier: in the United States. The British rail system, as I understand it, runs with significantly lower variable costs than e.g. Amtrak or BART.
  - toyg 9y ago
    Rail costs go down as traffic and network expand. Most of the US is under-served by rail, and California is pretty ridiculous too. I was shocked by how few stations Amtrak had when I last visited (about 7 years ago). Like for most things, if you invest, costs go down in the long term.
  - deaddodo 9y ago
jarjoura 9y ago
You're not answering the question of how people from Fresno can easily get to SF or LA. Traveling from city center to city center is also a far less stressful way to travel, and you can do things like work on a train that make TAXI -> AIRPORT LINES -> TERMINAL WAITING -> PLANE -> BAGGAGE CLAIM -> TAXI annoying.
- ggg9990 9y ago
  The people of Fresno are simply not numerous enough to justify a major infrastructure project to get them to SF and LA.
  - wwweston 9y ago
    Not yet. But if you built a major infrastructure that could make SF or LA a morning commute, it'd sure do some interesting things to population distributions and land prices.
    - cjalmeida 9y ago
      This. Take a look at the Rhine Ruhr region and you'll see a vibrant place with high standards of living where you don't need to sell a kidney to buy a house.
    - k_sh 9y ago
      This is what the folks behind the HSR are banking on, and also why I voted for it
    - rayiner 9y ago
      Which explains why after almost two decades of Acela, Wilmington is booming!
  - forthwall 9y ago
    There are 7 million people who live in the Central Valley who do not have adequate and affordable air travel, the population centers of the stops Fresno, Merced, Kings/Tulare are justified, even more, if you account how much cheaper it would be for people to commute to urban areas, and how many people can move to these cheaper areas to live.
randoramax 9y ago
You ignore the value in the intermediate stops. Think about living within 45 minutes from San Francisco downtown, somewhere in between LA and SF. Also think how bloody miserable are flights in economy, and taking your shoes off before boarding a plane. Trains are luxury!
- borkt 9y ago
  a 40 minute flight between the two destinations in economy is not at all miserable, certainly not miserable enough to justify the expense on this project that will never be completed.
- kelnos 9y ago
  The intermediate stops bite both ways, though: if you're on a train that stops several times in the central valley, and in SJ, I'd expect your travel time to be a bit more than 45 minutes. Why not spend (a small fraction of) that money to improve Caltrain and service between Caltrain and the central valley in a different manner?
  - chipotle_coyote 9y ago
    They are spending money to improve Caltrain; the plan is to move to electrified trains by 2021. It's the "service between Caltrain and the Central Valley" part that's a more significant challenge. I'm not convinced that the current HSR project is the best way to do it, but I'm also not aware of any serious counterproposal -- and it's hard to even imagine one that wouldn't also be a huge, expensive undertaking with limitless opportunity for missed schedules, cost overruns and undue optimism.
    - ubernostrum 9y ago
      I'm not convinced that the current HSR project is the best way to do it Most criticism boils down to a "perfect is the enemy of the good" problem. Anything that isn't the most perfect possible solution from a given critic's viewpoint is attacked as a "boondoggle" while ignoring that opening up the corridor and making it easier to travel between SF, LA, and smaller cities in between will be a good thing (and that there's plenty of evidence for it in similar rail lines elsewhere).
MrFoof 9y ago
There's a lot of reasons as to why this is the case, but the bulk of it is labor. * Trains ultimately require close to 1 staff member per 4 passengers, much more than a budget airline. * Unions and legacy salaries further add to those personnel costs. The average Amtrak employee ($75K/yr) nearly makes as much as the average commercial pilot ($77K/yr). * Since train journeys take longer, the labor cost per trip is considerably higher, especially for long haul routes. When you're doing a long trip like Chicago to Los Angeles, a train takes a lot longer than a plane, so you're paying for yet more labor for that trip. 44 hours of labor for the train versus 4 hours for the plane. There's a good video that breaks down the costs that make up your train ticket: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwjwePe-HmA&t=29s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwjwePe-HmA&t=29s
- meddlepal 9y ago
  > Trains ultimately require close to 1 staff member per 4 passengers, much more than a budget airline. Err, why? I've taken my share of commuter and Acela rides in the Northeast and there is nowhere near that level of staffing.
- ComputerGuru 9y ago
  Do you have a source for the 1 employee per four passengers? Metra trains here in Chicago typically have only one conductor.
  - MrFoof 9y ago
    Watch the video, which cites sources (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2p-HoK9KXEAamNTTkdSaERqdGc/view https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2p-HoK9KXEAamNTTkdSaERqdGc...). This isn't just staff active on the train, but maintenance, administration, back office, etc. Amtrak employs ~20,000 people. When you get to the number of annual passengers, and how many trips they operate a year, it breaks down to ~4 passengers per employee per trip.
- dx034 9y ago
  > * Trains ultimately require close to 1 staff member per 4 passengers, much more than a budget airline. Maybe in the US. In Europe, a train with 500-750 people capacity has one train driver and maybe 3-4 staff (plus on-board restaurant but that's run at a profit). No staff at smaller train stations and only minimal staff at many larger ones. Maintenance needs staff but that's the same at airports.
kelnos 9y ago
Hell, let's just redirect that money toward better local (SF, SJ, LA, OC, SD) and regional transit (stuff like Modesto/Fresno/Monterey/Napa/Sonoma/Sacramento<->SJ/SF and Bakersfield/SB/SLO/SD<->LA/OC). Local traffic congestion and poor transit options are where we're hurting the most. This doesn't improve the situation for travel between NorCal and SoCal, but I think this is already pretty well-served by air travel, as you point out. This also doesn't help people who live in, say, Modesto or Fresno get to SoCal (they'd have to train up to SJ and fly down to LA or SD, or drive), but is fixing that really a high priority need when compared to the rest?
dragonwriter 9y ago
> If the environmental impact is a concern (not that laying tracks and punching holes through the Central Valley is free of impact), then buy new Teslas instead. Lots of them. At $35,000 per Model 3, you could buy 1.8 million new Teslas using that money. The main justification for HSR is reducing freeway construction and maintenance costs that will be needed to keep up with expected travel without it that will be reduced by it. Not dealing with pollution impacts of travel or buying cars for the freeway travel, but reducing the freeway construction and maintenance costs. Buying a bunch of Teslas doesn't address that at all. (Actually, the state buying more cars increases the problem.)
cromwellian 9y ago
Yes, this so-called high-speed transit requires going to the airport 2 hours early, going through onerous security and checkin processes, plus 30-40 minute board times, airport runway/taxi delays, delays at the destination, deboarding, getting luggage, and getting from the airport to the destination. Mythbusters already tried this experiment, and they were able drive from SF to LA door to door in the same time it took to fly, end to end, 5 - 6 hrs. If you've ever traveled between cities in France or Japan on high speed rail you know its infinitely better than an airport. I can arrive at an Shinkansen 5 minutes before departure, travel a similar distance between SF->LA in 2.5hrs or less, in a super comfortable train, that I'm free to walk around it. At my destination, getting to/from the high speed rail is also super-convenient, hassle free, doesn't require driving, and overall, is cheap. Short distance air travel is majorly annoying no matter the cost. I hate the airport in/out experience.
- toast0 9y ago
  > At my destination, getting to/from the high speed rail is also super-convenient, hassle free, doesn't require driving, and overall, is cheap. This doesn't make a lot of sense in LA; you're going to a need a car wherever you end up -- it's huge sprawl; and most people aren't visiting to go to downtown LA, so they probably need a car. Can I rent a car at Union Station? Maybe (if I get there before 5pm), but do they have room to accommodate a larger facility needed if the volume increases? I can rent one at LAX, LGB, SNA, BUR, or any of the other LA area airports I forgot about.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    > This doesn't make a lot of sense in LA; you're going to a need a car wherever you end up If only someone had thought to include regional transit improvements alongside and coordinated with HSR. Oh, wait, wait, they did.
    - toast0 9y ago
      Sure, if the HSR project ends up doing just regional transit improvements, and don't end up actually building the HSR, that's probably a better use of money. I expect HSR money is going to get Caltrain grade separation and electrification done, which seemed like it would take 30-50 years otherwise, even though it was planned to finish in 10 years for the last 20 years.
microdrum 9y ago
You forgot that control of private people and their property is what projects like this end up being about in a single-party state like California. It isn't about transportation: it is about control. Southwest airlines does not solve the problem, because it does not give politicians or public sector unions or public sector unions' pensioners control over money. Only a train project can do that for them.
- wahern 9y ago
  Airports and roads are all funded by public monies. A new runway for SFO was projected to cost over $2 billion in 1999 (in 1999 dollars). Highspeed rail was projected to cost less than expanding highways and airports. Not sure what it looks like with the increases. OTOH, the budgets for those other modes also tend to balloon over time.
autokad 9y ago
I'm not disagreeing with you completely, but your 50$ each is a bit optimistic. can I get that price any time? not now, when I go to a website and try to find something for tomorrow its 109$ (Expedia). the travel time listed is 1:30 compared to 2:30 (from numbers I heard) so you do chop off one hour of ride time. however, air port security checks, being kicked from your seat, sf airport not directly in the city, the one hour starts to mean a whole lot less
saosebastiao 9y ago
Okay, so you've got SF <-> LA down. Now give me the calculations for the rest of the 351 city pairings made possible by a system with 27 stops. HSR doesn't just serve the endpoints, and the passenger volume from that Cartesian set of city pairings vastly exceeds the passenger volume from the endpoints. It's not even in the same ballpark.
themagician 9y ago
I do SFO to LAX, SNA, SAN weekly. It is not really fast and you are highlighting a special rate. Tickets easily go for $150 depending on the day, time, etc. First, you have to deal with the security boondoggle. Add 30 minutes for that, because you never know what you are going to get. Because of how SFO was built and the fact that they can't use both runways simultaneously with even a hint of bad weather, good luck leaving on time. Pad at least 30 minutes to your destination arrival time to be safe (but I've had plenty of early morning flights get delayed an hour or two waiting for fog to lift). And then when you get into LAX… good luck getting out. Add an hour just to get out of the airport traffic. Unless you want to go north, you are better off flying into SNA… but tickets into SNA cost $175. On a good day you can do it in 3 hours. On a bad day it's 6. The cost is $50-$200, and it's always a stressful and shitty experience. I just recently took the Amtrak all the way down. I took 12 hours and cost $93 for a business class ticket. Yeah, it took forever. But it was really pleasant. It just takes forever. It be nice to have something in-between.
- Johnny555 9y ago
  The other advantage of rail is that rail is generally less affected by weather. (which anyone that's sat at SFO or waited in the air or elsewhere on the ground for an SFO fog delay will appreciate) Last time I was in Japan, a typhoon hit, and was working its way up the islands. My flight up to Tokyo was already cancelled due to high winds, but I was able to get a Shinkansen ticket and arrive in time to catch my flight before Narita was affected by the Typhoon. The flight would have been 90 minutes (not including travel time to the airport), and the train was 5 hours, but still, it was a comfortable journey and I'd do it again. If I were traveling from downtown to downtown, the airplane time would be more like 4 hours (60 minutes to get to airport with padding to get to gate on time, 90 minute flight (scheduled time is over 2 hours, but usually the flight is around 90 minutes gate to gate), then at least 90 minutes to get off the plan and catch an express bus to Tokyo.
  - toyg 9y ago
    Rail is also more environmentally efficient, once the initial infrastructure is put in place. Airplanes burn tons of fossil fuels, trains can run on renewables.
dkural 9y ago
You are comparing operating costs of air travel to capital costs of rail travel - you need far beyond airplanes. The trains themselves are not that expensive, after all. You need to consider capital investment required for that air travel: How much does it cost to build the airports, repair centers, specialized land equipment, etc. to enable 640 billion passenger miles, and buy all the land required? Then you need to add airplane purchase costs - that's not optional either; before you even get to operating costs. You need to of course include airports for each city on the trains' route. The train goes through a massive population corridor across dozens of towns and cities, not just SF and LA. What's the capital cost of connecting these people to air travel?
fvdessen 9y ago
It's the same thing in Europe. On a passenger/km basis, and without subsidies, budget air transport costs ten times less than train (look at company expenses and how much people they transport). It is also much safer. It is counter intuitive, but that's how it is.
product50 9y ago
If in fact the $64B could be spent on your proposals, you have a point. Otherwise, it is better to spend the $64B in this landmark project vs. it being diverted somewhere else where neither you nor me could figure out what happened to it. This is a landmark project - let it happen. Your future generations will thank you.
- bmmayer1 9y ago
  Except maybe the $64B doesn't need to be spent at all and can be returned to the taxpayers. The point OP was making is that it's unnecessary to build HSR because there's an existing company (several actually) that provides the same service at a fraction of the price, at no cost to the taxpayer.
  - product50 9y ago
    The fact of the matter is that those $64B will not be returned to the taxpayers and will probably be diverted to other less relevant projects.
    - bmmayer1 9y ago
      Actually infrastructure projects like this (and including this one I believe) are usually paid for with bonds which means id the project doesn't happen, the money is never borrowed in the first place.
drb91 9y ago
It’s not really that high speed if you factor in parking, tsa, terminal quirks and delays, and working with checked baggage. Personally I’d much rather take a form of transit where I can bring a water bottle and avoid being groped by security for literally no rational reason at all.
megy 9y ago
> Tickets are $45 for SFO-LAX each way in February right now (less than the expected cost of the train ticket). Other pairs (OAK-BUR, SJC-BUR) are similar ($49-$57 each way). And how do I magically get from the airport to the city and city to the airport? Is it free? Is it instant?
stmfreak 9y ago
The real killer is that the $64B total project cost was the initial estimate. And costs are now up 77%! So we are likely north of $100B total cost. And bond repayments triple that to $300B over 30 years. Funds which are currently being diverted from the State's Highway Improvement fund. All so Brown can build a monument to 1800's rail technology that poorly competes with the 1900's airline industry.
- 1024core 9y ago
  > The real killer is that the $64B total project cost was the initial estimate. And costs are now up 77%! So we are likely north of $100B total cost. Actually, the initial estimate was close to $100B. But when the public reacted with shock, they handwaived and said the cost would now be $68B. Just like that: poof! $32B knocked off the budget. Of course we all know that the initial cost was more accurate; and the final cost will be a lot more than $100B.
anonymous5133 9y ago
You make some very good points, however, I still support the HSR even with the higher costs. Why? First, I think it will major way to somewhat solve california's high cost of housing. If you are using HSR to commute then you can go further out. I could technically have a reasonable commute from Merced, Fresno or Madera all of which have super low cost of housing as well as tons of land to build on.
omgwtfbyobbq 9y ago
The problem with air travel is throughput. There are 6+ million trips between SF and LA per year, and any significant increase either replaces other flights or requires another two airports in SF/LA, which ain't cheap. http://cahsr.blogspot.com/2009/10/la-sf-nations-second-busiest-air-route.html http://cahsr.blogspot.com/2009/10/la-sf-nations-second-busie... HSR between LA and SF would be able to handle 15+ million people per year, on top of providing routes between other cities in CA, some of which don't have anything except for bus/car routes, and it would also free up capacity for more long distance domestic and international flights.
eyeareque 9y ago
This project is going to be more than just la to sf route. It will allow people to live further away from the over crowded Bay Area (probably Southern California too) and getting more commuters off of our clogged highways. Besides, sf to la has an additional hour+ wasted with Security and 1 hr travel time to the airport (if you live in SF).
erispoe 9y ago
HSR's right-of-way will be here for centuries. If you buy 147 brand new A380s, they'll be outdated in a decade or two.
JoeAltmaier 9y ago
Trains also carry freight. Make more off of that in fact. So passenger benefits are kind of moot?
DiNovi 9y ago
this ignores rail stops in communities outside of SFO and LAX...

pretendscholar 9y ago

>At $35,000 per Model 3, you could buy 1.8 million new Teslas using that money. Add some solar panels to each purchase and you could still buy more than a million -- more than enough for every San Franciscan to get a brand new Tesla. Which would be useless without the billions spent in maintenance every year for the roads and other maintenance. Its such a silly argument. If you include the full cost of airport construction it wouldn't be so pretty either. Having heterogeneous forms of transit is an intrinsic benefit as each are better under certain weather conditions and use cases.

joejohnson 9y ago

Including time to get to the airport and through security, flying LAX -> SFO is not high speed :/

slapshot 9y ago
Going through the Central Valley and stopping in Fresno, Madera, Kings-Tulare, Bakersfield... (etc) to get to Los Angeles is not faster either. Buy a fully autonomous car and go point-to-point faster/cheaper/better. The train will stop at SFO and BUR -- if the train's last-mile delivery is better then we should focus on that last-mile rather than the stretch in the middle that is already well-solved.
- abritinthebay 9y ago
  This is peak Hacker News: "Don't buy a $50 train ticket - buy a not-actually-invented yet probably $120,000 car instead". The high-speed rail project is a shit show, but more cars is not the answer either.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    More cars, or at least more car trips,—independent of whether they need drivers or what kind of powerplant they have—is, in fact, exactly the problem at which HSR is directed.
  - erikpukinskis 9y ago
    Almost no one will buy autonomous cars. You will just hail one for less than the cost of gas. Only rich people and people in and out of a car all day (full time parents, car-based workers, etc) will buy them.
    - ubernostrum 9y ago
      You will just hail one for less than the cost of gas. If the cost of the ride is less than the cost of gas, how is the operator making a profit? Especially since they have to cover more than just the cost of gas. (an Uber-style "use VC money to subsidize below-cost services" model is not sustainable in the long term, by the way)

taoistextremist 9y ago

Tesla batteries can be pretty damaging to the environment to produce. Rail is a lot cleaner in that regard if you can get an electrified rail (not sure if this works with high speed). Rail is also a much more efficient way, with regards to energy, to transport that many people as opposed to buying near 2 million Teslas.

randoramax 9y ago
> Rail is a lot cleaner in that regard if you can get an electrified rail (not sure if this works with high speed). Jeez! You know Tesla batteries and you don't know that high speed trains are electric?? WTH
- kelnos 9y ago
  Rail doesn't run on batteries; the track is electrified, which overall gives you a lower environmental impact than manufacturing a ton of Tesla batteries.
- taoistextremist 9y ago
  Yeah, I wasn't thinking, I guess, brain fart because I was thinking how the US refers to systems of non-electrified rails that can carry trains at above 115-mph as "higher-speed".

marcell 9y ago

FYI Same day prices are much much higher, buying a ticket leaving tomorrow from SJC->LAX is around $220, and SFO->LAX is basically sold out.

dwg 9y ago
True. However assuming the price of high speed rail tickets will be fixed because it is a public service, the government could similarly operate an airline instead of high speed rail using the same fixed price system. What would be the cost then?
- jbooth 9y ago
  That's not how Amtrak works now, they price it the same way as airlines, last minute is more expensive. I'm in NYC and would never, ever fly to Boston or DC. For what that's worth.
  - dwg 9y ago
    Two points on this: 1. I'm not sure how that affects my point. 2. In my experience the price difference for last minute on Amtrak has been at most about 20% (though I'm not a frequent Amtrak traveler).
tuna-piano 9y ago
Take a look at European high speed rail prices. They act similarly to airline prices, increasing close to departure to high levels.
- switch007 9y ago
  What's that you say? You're in Manchester but need to pop down to London (2 hours 10 mins, 209 miles) tomorrow for a meeting? That'll be £338/$467.
  - dx034 9y ago
    The UK is not a good example on how rail systems can work. Rather look at France, Germany, Switzerland or Japan. HSR tickets in most countries have an upper limit, only the (partly) privatised UK system has these absurd prices.

skybrian 9y ago

You're leaving out some costs. More airplanes doesn't increase capacity to the extent it's limited by airports. You'll need to add expanding the airports and maybe building new ones. Also, what about the stations between SF and LA? Or, if you use cars, then you need to include widening the highways in congested areas. Of course bus lines would be much cheaper, if we can convince people to use them. How often do you take a bus between SF and LA?

dzhiurgis 9y ago
> Of course bus lines would be much cheaper, if we can convince people to use them. Pretty easy - electric buses with seats that resemble business class instead of Ryanair.
- dx034 9y ago
  Additional lanes for buses and a law that allows autonomous buses in dedicated lanes to go 100mph. That way you're faster than car or train at lower cost.

ghostbrainalpha 9y ago

> - If the LAX-SFO air corridor becomes too busy, that $64 billion could also be spent upgrading existing fleets by buying 147 brand new A380s at an average list price of $435 million each. [2] Sorry but I'm super confused... 147 planes that cost $435 million each, would total 64 Billion dollars. And that appears to be 64 Billion on top of the 64 Billion you already plan on spending from above. That cost of the project in the article has jumped to 10 Billion. Where are you getting your number from?

slapshot 9y ago
The cost of the Central Valley segment ALONE is $10 billion. The total cost SF-LA is $64 billion: https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/01/13/confidential-report-california-bullet-train-could-cost-billions-more-than-expected/ https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/01/13/confidential-report-c...

rayiner 9y ago

There is also the question of who benefits from HSR. If you look at the Northeast Regional, it's primarily business travelers looking for a more comfortable way to work while hopping between Boston and DC. That money could be so much better spent in ways that have an actual impact on lower income people.

kelnos 9y ago
Agreed. Our local and regional transit story is so poor right now. Improving that would drastically improve the lives of lower- and middle-income people who have to drive on our over-congested highways day after day.
- inferiorhuman 9y ago
  At least in the Bay Area, part of the draw of HSR is that it's also the motivation for improvements to Caltrain (electrification, grade separation, mythical extension to downtown).
  - rayiner 9y ago
    So we're going to spend $66 billion on something that primarily benefits higher income people just for the indirect benefits it might have for local transit?
    - ajmurmann 9y ago
      Why is it relevant if it benefits people with high or low income? Are we back to Marxist class warfare?
      - rayiner 9y ago
        I’m kind of smitten with the idea that if we’re going to spend a bunch of public money, it shouldn’t be used to subsidize a service directed st higher income people.
    - 9y ago

ebikelaw 9y ago

What you’re leaving out is CO2. California is committed to reducing CO2, but emissions from transportation are the largest component of state emissions, and they are growing. Air travel cannot be done except by burning hydrocarbon fuels. Train travel, while still energy-intensive at high speeds, can be powered by any electric source. Therefore rail, and not air, has the capability to cut the state’s CO2 emissions.

sjg007 9y ago
They are working on electric powered jets kind of like the Chevy Volt. That may reduce the CO2 burden.
- redorb 9y ago
  until battery power/weight ratio gets 10x better electric flying vehicles (specifically passenger jets) are dead in the water. I don't know that we're making the right trade from atmospheric pollution co2 vs the pollution of throwing away batteries.
- pretendscholar 9y ago
  This is one of my biggest gripes about the tech community. We can't wait for tech that may or may not come to fruition when we have working solutions now. Don't let great be the enemy of the good.
- 0xffff2 9y ago
  They who? I work in aerospace and while I have heard many proposals (most 20-40 years from commercial production) for improving efficiency, including hybrid electric systems, I have never once seen anyone propose an electric commercial passenger aircraft.
bluthru 9y ago
As a rule of thumb high speed rail is 1/10 the CO2 of flying. However, I wonder what the carbon footprint of creating the tracks is?

Someone1234 9y ago

Assuming 640 billion passenger-miles of air travel, the railway still makes rational sense. Once the land is purchased, levelled, and conditioned you now have a space that can have trains running on it for the next fifty, one hundred, or more years. Look at the UK's railway lines, some of them have been operating for two hundred years and counting. This type of short term thinking is why infrastructure spending in the US is at an all time low. Instead of spending for tens of years into the future, we only evaluate the costs relative to the next five years and therefore make decisions more valuable to tomorrow than next week. Once CA buys this route, they own this route forever. And in a state gaining more and more people every day, cutting out land for infrastructure is only going to get more painful in time.

jeffrey_t_b 9y ago
Well, even if you say that capital expenses are irrelevant considering the very long time frame, you still have to make the argument that operating expenses of the rail are smaller. What are they, and are they smaller than air travel (~$0.10/passenger-mile)? The only estimate of that I could find with two minutes of googling is ~$0.39/passenger-mile (via http://ti.org/antiplanner/?p=88 http://ti.org/antiplanner/?p=88 supposedly using the National Transit Database). That means that a rail line is even _worse_ in the long run.
- JumpCrisscross 9y ago
  > That means that a rail line is even _worse_ in the long run Critical qualifier: in the United States. The British rail system, as I understand it, runs with significantly lower variable costs than e.g. Amtrak or BART.
- toyg 9y ago
  Rail costs go down as traffic and network expand. Most of the US is under-served by rail, and California is pretty ridiculous too. I was shocked by how few stations Amtrak had when I last visited (about 7 years ago). Like for most things, if you invest, costs go down in the long term.
- deaddodo 9y ago

jarjoura 9y ago

You're not answering the question of how people from Fresno can easily get to SF or LA. Traveling from city center to city center is also a far less stressful way to travel, and you can do things like work on a train that make TAXI -> AIRPORT LINES -> TERMINAL WAITING -> PLANE -> BAGGAGE CLAIM -> TAXI annoying.

ggg9990 9y ago
The people of Fresno are simply not numerous enough to justify a major infrastructure project to get them to SF and LA.
- wwweston 9y ago
  Not yet. But if you built a major infrastructure that could make SF or LA a morning commute, it'd sure do some interesting things to population distributions and land prices.
  - cjalmeida 9y ago
    This. Take a look at the Rhine Ruhr region and you'll see a vibrant place with high standards of living where you don't need to sell a kidney to buy a house.
  - k_sh 9y ago
    This is what the folks behind the HSR are banking on, and also why I voted for it
  - rayiner 9y ago
    Which explains why after almost two decades of Acela, Wilmington is booming!
- forthwall 9y ago
  There are 7 million people who live in the Central Valley who do not have adequate and affordable air travel, the population centers of the stops Fresno, Merced, Kings/Tulare are justified, even more, if you account how much cheaper it would be for people to commute to urban areas, and how many people can move to these cheaper areas to live.

randoramax 9y ago

You ignore the value in the intermediate stops. Think about living within 45 minutes from San Francisco downtown, somewhere in between LA and SF. Also think how bloody miserable are flights in economy, and taking your shoes off before boarding a plane. Trains are luxury!

borkt 9y ago
a 40 minute flight between the two destinations in economy is not at all miserable, certainly not miserable enough to justify the expense on this project that will never be completed.
kelnos 9y ago
The intermediate stops bite both ways, though: if you're on a train that stops several times in the central valley, and in SJ, I'd expect your travel time to be a bit more than 45 minutes. Why not spend (a small fraction of) that money to improve Caltrain and service between Caltrain and the central valley in a different manner?
- chipotle_coyote 9y ago
  They are spending money to improve Caltrain; the plan is to move to electrified trains by 2021. It's the "service between Caltrain and the Central Valley" part that's a more significant challenge. I'm not convinced that the current HSR project is the best way to do it, but I'm also not aware of any serious counterproposal -- and it's hard to even imagine one that wouldn't also be a huge, expensive undertaking with limitless opportunity for missed schedules, cost overruns and undue optimism.
  - ubernostrum 9y ago
    I'm not convinced that the current HSR project is the best way to do it Most criticism boils down to a "perfect is the enemy of the good" problem. Anything that isn't the most perfect possible solution from a given critic's viewpoint is attacked as a "boondoggle" while ignoring that opening up the corridor and making it easier to travel between SF, LA, and smaller cities in between will be a good thing (and that there's plenty of evidence for it in similar rail lines elsewhere).

MrFoof 9y ago

There's a lot of reasons as to why this is the case, but the bulk of it is labor. * Trains ultimately require close to 1 staff member per 4 passengers, much more than a budget airline. * Unions and legacy salaries further add to those personnel costs. The average Amtrak employee ($75K/yr) nearly makes as much as the average commercial pilot ($77K/yr). * Since train journeys take longer, the labor cost per trip is considerably higher, especially for long haul routes. When you're doing a long trip like Chicago to Los Angeles, a train takes a lot longer than a plane, so you're paying for yet more labor for that trip. 44 hours of labor for the train versus 4 hours for the plane. There's a good video that breaks down the costs that make up your train ticket: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwjwePe-HmA&t=29s https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fwjwePe-HmA&t=29s

meddlepal 9y ago
> Trains ultimately require close to 1 staff member per 4 passengers, much more than a budget airline. Err, why? I've taken my share of commuter and Acela rides in the Northeast and there is nowhere near that level of staffing.
ComputerGuru 9y ago
Do you have a source for the 1 employee per four passengers? Metra trains here in Chicago typically have only one conductor.
- MrFoof 9y ago
  Watch the video, which cites sources (https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2p-HoK9KXEAamNTTkdSaERqdGc/view https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B2p-HoK9KXEAamNTTkdSaERqdGc...). This isn't just staff active on the train, but maintenance, administration, back office, etc. Amtrak employs ~20,000 people. When you get to the number of annual passengers, and how many trips they operate a year, it breaks down to ~4 passengers per employee per trip.
dx034 9y ago
> * Trains ultimately require close to 1 staff member per 4 passengers, much more than a budget airline. Maybe in the US. In Europe, a train with 500-750 people capacity has one train driver and maybe 3-4 staff (plus on-board restaurant but that's run at a profit). No staff at smaller train stations and only minimal staff at many larger ones. Maintenance needs staff but that's the same at airports.

kelnos 9y ago

Hell, let's just redirect that money toward better local (SF, SJ, LA, OC, SD) and regional transit (stuff like Modesto/Fresno/Monterey/Napa/Sonoma/Sacramento<->SJ/SF and Bakersfield/SB/SLO/SD<->LA/OC). Local traffic congestion and poor transit options are where we're hurting the most. This doesn't improve the situation for travel between NorCal and SoCal, but I think this is already pretty well-served by air travel, as you point out. This also doesn't help people who live in, say, Modesto or Fresno get to SoCal (they'd have to train up to SJ and fly down to LA or SD, or drive), but is fixing that really a high priority need when compared to the rest?

dragonwriter 9y ago

> If the environmental impact is a concern (not that laying tracks and punching holes through the Central Valley is free of impact), then buy new Teslas instead. Lots of them. At $35,000 per Model 3, you could buy 1.8 million new Teslas using that money. The main justification for HSR is reducing freeway construction and maintenance costs that will be needed to keep up with expected travel without it that will be reduced by it. Not dealing with pollution impacts of travel or buying cars for the freeway travel, but reducing the freeway construction and maintenance costs. Buying a bunch of Teslas doesn't address that at all. (Actually, the state buying more cars increases the problem.)

cromwellian 9y ago

Yes, this so-called high-speed transit requires going to the airport 2 hours early, going through onerous security and checkin processes, plus 30-40 minute board times, airport runway/taxi delays, delays at the destination, deboarding, getting luggage, and getting from the airport to the destination. Mythbusters already tried this experiment, and they were able drive from SF to LA door to door in the same time it took to fly, end to end, 5 - 6 hrs. If you've ever traveled between cities in France or Japan on high speed rail you know its infinitely better than an airport. I can arrive at an Shinkansen 5 minutes before departure, travel a similar distance between SF->LA in 2.5hrs or less, in a super comfortable train, that I'm free to walk around it. At my destination, getting to/from the high speed rail is also super-convenient, hassle free, doesn't require driving, and overall, is cheap. Short distance air travel is majorly annoying no matter the cost. I hate the airport in/out experience.

toast0 9y ago
> At my destination, getting to/from the high speed rail is also super-convenient, hassle free, doesn't require driving, and overall, is cheap. This doesn't make a lot of sense in LA; you're going to a need a car wherever you end up -- it's huge sprawl; and most people aren't visiting to go to downtown LA, so they probably need a car. Can I rent a car at Union Station? Maybe (if I get there before 5pm), but do they have room to accommodate a larger facility needed if the volume increases? I can rent one at LAX, LGB, SNA, BUR, or any of the other LA area airports I forgot about.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  > This doesn't make a lot of sense in LA; you're going to a need a car wherever you end up If only someone had thought to include regional transit improvements alongside and coordinated with HSR. Oh, wait, wait, they did.
  - toast0 9y ago
    Sure, if the HSR project ends up doing just regional transit improvements, and don't end up actually building the HSR, that's probably a better use of money. I expect HSR money is going to get Caltrain grade separation and electrification done, which seemed like it would take 30-50 years otherwise, even though it was planned to finish in 10 years for the last 20 years.

microdrum 9y ago

You forgot that control of private people and their property is what projects like this end up being about in a single-party state like California. It isn't about transportation: it is about control. Southwest airlines does not solve the problem, because it does not give politicians or public sector unions or public sector unions' pensioners control over money. Only a train project can do that for them.

wahern 9y ago
Airports and roads are all funded by public monies. A new runway for SFO was projected to cost over $2 billion in 1999 (in 1999 dollars). Highspeed rail was projected to cost less than expanding highways and airports. Not sure what it looks like with the increases. OTOH, the budgets for those other modes also tend to balloon over time.

autokad 9y ago

I'm not disagreeing with you completely, but your 50$ each is a bit optimistic. can I get that price any time? not now, when I go to a website and try to find something for tomorrow its 109$ (Expedia). the travel time listed is 1:30 compared to 2:30 (from numbers I heard) so you do chop off one hour of ride time. however, air port security checks, being kicked from your seat, sf airport not directly in the city, the one hour starts to mean a whole lot less

saosebastiao 9y ago

Okay, so you've got SF <-> LA down. Now give me the calculations for the rest of the 351 city pairings made possible by a system with 27 stops. HSR doesn't just serve the endpoints, and the passenger volume from that Cartesian set of city pairings vastly exceeds the passenger volume from the endpoints. It's not even in the same ballpark.

themagician 9y ago

I do SFO to LAX, SNA, SAN weekly. It is not really fast and you are highlighting a special rate. Tickets easily go for $150 depending on the day, time, etc. First, you have to deal with the security boondoggle. Add 30 minutes for that, because you never know what you are going to get. Because of how SFO was built and the fact that they can't use both runways simultaneously with even a hint of bad weather, good luck leaving on time. Pad at least 30 minutes to your destination arrival time to be safe (but I've had plenty of early morning flights get delayed an hour or two waiting for fog to lift). And then when you get into LAX… good luck getting out. Add an hour just to get out of the airport traffic. Unless you want to go north, you are better off flying into SNA… but tickets into SNA cost $175. On a good day you can do it in 3 hours. On a bad day it's 6. The cost is $50-$200, and it's always a stressful and shitty experience. I just recently took the Amtrak all the way down. I took 12 hours and cost $93 for a business class ticket. Yeah, it took forever. But it was really pleasant. It just takes forever. It be nice to have something in-between.

Johnny555 9y ago
The other advantage of rail is that rail is generally less affected by weather. (which anyone that's sat at SFO or waited in the air or elsewhere on the ground for an SFO fog delay will appreciate) Last time I was in Japan, a typhoon hit, and was working its way up the islands. My flight up to Tokyo was already cancelled due to high winds, but I was able to get a Shinkansen ticket and arrive in time to catch my flight before Narita was affected by the Typhoon. The flight would have been 90 minutes (not including travel time to the airport), and the train was 5 hours, but still, it was a comfortable journey and I'd do it again. If I were traveling from downtown to downtown, the airplane time would be more like 4 hours (60 minutes to get to airport with padding to get to gate on time, 90 minute flight (scheduled time is over 2 hours, but usually the flight is around 90 minutes gate to gate), then at least 90 minutes to get off the plan and catch an express bus to Tokyo.
- toyg 9y ago
  Rail is also more environmentally efficient, once the initial infrastructure is put in place. Airplanes burn tons of fossil fuels, trains can run on renewables.

dkural 9y ago

You are comparing operating costs of air travel to capital costs of rail travel - you need far beyond airplanes. The trains themselves are not that expensive, after all. You need to consider capital investment required for that air travel: How much does it cost to build the airports, repair centers, specialized land equipment, etc. to enable 640 billion passenger miles, and buy all the land required? Then you need to add airplane purchase costs - that's not optional either; before you even get to operating costs. You need to of course include airports for each city on the trains' route. The train goes through a massive population corridor across dozens of towns and cities, not just SF and LA. What's the capital cost of connecting these people to air travel?

fvdessen 9y ago

It's the same thing in Europe. On a passenger/km basis, and without subsidies, budget air transport costs ten times less than train (look at company expenses and how much people they transport). It is also much safer. It is counter intuitive, but that's how it is.

product50 9y ago

If in fact the $64B could be spent on your proposals, you have a point. Otherwise, it is better to spend the $64B in this landmark project vs. it being diverted somewhere else where neither you nor me could figure out what happened to it. This is a landmark project - let it happen. Your future generations will thank you.

bmmayer1 9y ago
Except maybe the $64B doesn't need to be spent at all and can be returned to the taxpayers. The point OP was making is that it's unnecessary to build HSR because there's an existing company (several actually) that provides the same service at a fraction of the price, at no cost to the taxpayer.
- product50 9y ago
  The fact of the matter is that those $64B will not be returned to the taxpayers and will probably be diverted to other less relevant projects.
  - bmmayer1 9y ago
    Actually infrastructure projects like this (and including this one I believe) are usually paid for with bonds which means id the project doesn't happen, the money is never borrowed in the first place.

drb91 9y ago

It’s not really that high speed if you factor in parking, tsa, terminal quirks and delays, and working with checked baggage. Personally I’d much rather take a form of transit where I can bring a water bottle and avoid being groped by security for literally no rational reason at all.

megy 9y ago

> Tickets are $45 for SFO-LAX each way in February right now (less than the expected cost of the train ticket). Other pairs (OAK-BUR, SJC-BUR) are similar ($49-$57 each way). And how do I magically get from the airport to the city and city to the airport? Is it free? Is it instant?

stmfreak 9y ago

The real killer is that the $64B total project cost was the initial estimate. And costs are now up 77%! So we are likely north of $100B total cost. And bond repayments triple that to $300B over 30 years. Funds which are currently being diverted from the State's Highway Improvement fund. All so Brown can build a monument to 1800's rail technology that poorly competes with the 1900's airline industry.

1024core 9y ago
> The real killer is that the $64B total project cost was the initial estimate. And costs are now up 77%! So we are likely north of $100B total cost. Actually, the initial estimate was close to $100B. But when the public reacted with shock, they handwaived and said the cost would now be $68B. Just like that: poof! $32B knocked off the budget. Of course we all know that the initial cost was more accurate; and the final cost will be a lot more than $100B.

anonymous5133 9y ago

You make some very good points, however, I still support the HSR even with the higher costs. Why? First, I think it will major way to somewhat solve california's high cost of housing. If you are using HSR to commute then you can go further out. I could technically have a reasonable commute from Merced, Fresno or Madera all of which have super low cost of housing as well as tons of land to build on.

omgwtfbyobbq 9y ago

The problem with air travel is throughput. There are 6+ million trips between SF and LA per year, and any significant increase either replaces other flights or requires another two airports in SF/LA, which ain't cheap. http://cahsr.blogspot.com/2009/10/la-sf-nations-second-busiest-air-route.html http://cahsr.blogspot.com/2009/10/la-sf-nations-second-busie... HSR between LA and SF would be able to handle 15+ million people per year, on top of providing routes between other cities in CA, some of which don't have anything except for bus/car routes, and it would also free up capacity for more long distance domestic and international flights.

eyeareque 9y ago

This project is going to be more than just la to sf route. It will allow people to live further away from the over crowded Bay Area (probably Southern California too) and getting more commuters off of our clogged highways. Besides, sf to la has an additional hour+ wasted with Security and 1 hr travel time to the airport (if you live in SF).

erispoe 9y ago

HSR's right-of-way will be here for centuries. If you buy 147 brand new A380s, they'll be outdated in a decade or two.

JoeAltmaier 9y ago

Trains also carry freight. Make more off of that in fact. So passenger benefits are kind of moot?

DiNovi 9y ago

this ignores rail stops in communities outside of SFO and LAX...