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Only 31% of California voters want to keep paying for bullet train
- d4l3k 8y agoKey graphic: https://www.trbimg.com/img-5b0779e9/turbine/la-pol-g-ca-usc-poll-bullet-train_web_2/ https://www.trbimg.com/img-5b0779e9/turbine/la-pol-g-ca-usc-... 31% for, 48% against, 19% undecided for all Californian voters.
- Hydraulix989 8y agoAlso worth noting the huge disparity between Bay Area voters (overwhelmingly FOR continuing the project) vs. LA voters (this is an LA Times article).
- jessaustin 8y agoIs LA Times against it because LA residents are, or are LA residents against it because LA Times is?
- ubernostrum 8y agoPeople think of California as one of the bluest blue states, but it's very far from homogeneous. The LA metro area, for example, contains several affluent and strongly Republican communities, which means that if you poll educated/affluent/traditional-news-reading people in that area you're going to get results that lean more conservative than what people often expect (and Republicans/conservatives in the US are generally against public transit and public-works projects). You can get the same thing in the Bay area if you poll in the right places. See Atherton's lawsuits to try to stop Caltrain electrification, for example.
- Hydraulix989 8y agoPolitics aside, is there any more practical reason Bay Area would prefer to have this train more than LA (e.g. people in Bay Area visit LA more often than people in LA visit Bay Area)?
- ubernostrum 8y agoSFO and LAX send a lot of traffic to each other (each one is the other's top domestic destination), and there doesn't seem to be a directional preference: https://www.transtats.bts.gov/airports.asp?pn=1&Airport=LAX&carrier=FACTS https://www.transtats.bts.gov/airports.asp?pn=1&Airport=LAX&... https://www.transtats.bts.gov/airports.asp?pn=1&Airport=SFO&carrier=FACTS https://www.transtats.bts.gov/airports.asp?pn=1&Airport=SFO&... There may be a practical argument that the HSR would make it easier to commute to SF from further away, which might relieve housing pressure a bit. But I really do think it mostly comes down to politics, and to there being more people in the SF area whose politics lean toward public transit/public works than in the LA area.
- Apes 8y agoLet's call it the monkey defense. If you don't like something the majority supports, scream and fling as much shit at it for as long as possible until no one is left that can bear the stench or the spectacle. Then claim you were right about it being a failure all along.
- AndrewBissell 8y agoThe people who said this would be a massive boondoggle and voted against the bond in the first place were right all along.
- jessaustin 8y agoEvery big public project is a massive boondoggle. Should we just stop doing things?
- AndrewBissell 8y agoWe should at least prioritize the things we actually need. A fifth of what's been spent on the high speed rail line could go a long way to upgrade California's water infrastructure.
- basementcat 8y agoThe Golden Gate Bridge was finished ahead of schedule and under budget.
- Patrick_Devine 8y agoMaybe, but the Bay Bridge wasn't, and they were built around the same time. http://www.americanmanufacturing.org/blog/entry/dont-forget-the-bay-bridge-project-was-a-boondoggle http://www.americanmanufacturing.org/blog/entry/dont-forget-...
- jessaustin 8y agoThat link discusses the renovation of the eastern section that took place since 2000? Hardly comparable to the original construction of either bridge...
- marcell 8y agoThe cost argument is always interesting to me, when you consider it in context. We (in America) recently passed a tax cut that will cost around $150B/year for the next 10 years, and likely more if the temporary parts are made permanent. Even with cost overruns, that's almost enough to pay for 2 California bullet trains PER YEAR for the next decade. And yes, I know California is just 1 state out of 50, but even still, it just seems like people have really bad context on what is / is not an outrageous cost for government.
- dasil003 8y agoI bet you could get the number over 50% by offering to pay $20 to every voter who voted no and would be willing to change their vote. That would cost less than $70M (based on registered voters, not actual turnout).
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- mikeash 8y agoWaste shouldn’t be used to justify waste. The cost is outrageous for what you get. The tax cut doesn’t change that at all.
- rayiner 8y agoThe tax cut is at least money back in peoples’ pockets. This is a huge subsidy that’ll benefit a tiny fraction of people who need to routinely travel between LA and SF, and can afford to spend $86 doing so (probably over $100 when it finally opens, its gone up a lot already).
- jboles 8y agoKilling it would be short-sighted. If it gets killed, there would probably never be the opportunity to build it ever again. California is flush with tech money, put some of it to good use.
- stcredzero 8y agoI suspect that tech could do a better job at building it.
- toomuchtodo 8y agoI would argue that there's value in collaboration between innovators and an experienced group of civil engineering contractors operating under an accountable and transparent consortium arrangement. Less Boston's "Big Dig" [1], more Hallandsås tunnel [2]. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Dig#Problems https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Dig#Problems [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallands%C3%A5s_Tunnel https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hallands%C3%A5s_Tunnel
- gingernaut 8y ago"Moving fast and breaking things" is not acceptable in infrastructure.
- jerf 8y ago"Moving slow and never breaking ground" isn't really either. (Not literally true. Nominally, ground has been broken on the project. But it's a symbolic act without much referent in the real world so far.)
- gascan 8y agoI can't wait for a public beta on a bullet train.
- Agustus 8y agoKilling it would be far sighted. Technology is improving transportation methods, we have buses and planes that can do the same thing as this train at much cheaper rates and without tax dollars to construct or maintain.
- consto 8y agoThis website is blocked in Europe.
- jdavis703 8y agoAsk your representatives in parliament to consider implementing less internationally expansive laws or use a VPN.
- hadrien01 8y agoAsk your newspapers in the U.S. to consider respecting user privacy.
- AndrewGaspar 8y agoThe easiest and cheapest answer is the status-quo, which is ambiguity on whether you're compliant with GDPR, so it's completely logical they would just block access.
- casefields 8y agoIf your not big enough to be a bully and you try—you're gonna have a bad time.
- jdavis703 8y agoI can't vote for the executives of the newspapers here in the U.S. (that right is held by the board members of each of those companies). You can vote for your EU parliament representatives. If there's things you don't like about the law you and your fellow citizens have the chance to change it.
- bovine3dom 8y agoAvailable via AMP if you can stomach it: https://www.google.com/amp/www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-ca-usc-poll-bullet-train-20180525-story.html%3foutputType=amp https://www.google.com/amp/www.latimes.com/politics/la-pol-c...
- upofadown 8y agoNormally the majority will not support a public transportation project simply because the majority can not use it.
- rayiner 8y agoThis is the upper middle class robbing poor people. The projected fare would be $86 per ticket, about triple the cost of driving for a family of four. The people who are going to pay that are upper middle class travelers and business travelers. Which would be fine if the project was paying for itself, but it won’t be. It’ll be state subsidies for high income professionals. That money could be doing so much good (schools, public transit for lower income people, etc.). For example, the $100+ billion this will eventually cost could create a fund that would perpetually pay (with inflation increases) about $1,200 to every low-income K-12 student in the State.
- ohazi 8y agoAt that price I'll continue to fly Southwest. As currently designed, nobody is going to use this thing.
- bmarquez 8y agoIt seems like widening Highway 5 and adding a dedicated carpool lane, along with creating a Greyhound-like public transit route from Northern to Southern California would have been more cost effective.
- dmckeon 8y agoCount the overpasses on I-5 when you plan to widen it. I think that when self-driving cars become typical (say, >50% of freeway traffic) that alternating 2 & 3 lanes and exploiting them with platoons of SDCs may become feasible.
- ebikelaw 8y agoNo, the upper-middle-class robbing the poor has been the history of our highway system, which you can't use without owning a car and paying ~ $0.55/mile to operate it. We have shoveled hundreds of billions of dollars of subsidies down the throat of the automobile culture and we did not get a functioning transportation system from doing so. We got a massively regressive, barely functional system and all of its attendant externalities in the form of health problems for those living near the roads, and end-of-civilization CO2 pollution problems for people living everywhere. The cost of HSR suddenly sounds so much more reasonable if you frame it in terms of the road budget. HSR's all-in cost for right-of-way, tracks, stations, and trains is about four years worth of California's current road budget.
- nedwin 8y agoCan you imagine if you put every public infrastructure project to a vote?
- ebikelaw 8y agoWe did put this to a vote and it passed.
- mistrial9 8y agomany hidden assumptions and divisions here.. - Bay Area / Sacramento area voters versus LA versus who - the traffic and pollution of cars fits many individuals just fine, and the ability to think and act in larger groups is rarer than one might think - every govt project has cost problems, why is this different Trains with modern power sources seem like a really good idea; the rest is project management.
- DrScump 8y agoTrains with modern power sources seem like a really good idea Tell BART that. Their new Antioch extension will be diesel powered.
- zcbenz 8y agoFrom Wikipedia: "In July 2014 The World Bank reported that the per kilometer cost of California's high-speed rail system was $56 million, more than double the average cost of $17–21 million per km of high speed rail in China and more than the $25–39 million per km average for similar projects in Europe." "As of May 2015, both construction packages awarded have come in significantly under staff estimates." "In December 2016, an internal-use-only draft risk assessment produced by the Federal Railroad Administration was delivered to the California Rail Authority which warned that the ICS (Merced-Bakersfield) segment could cost as much as $9.5 billion instead of the $6.4 billion originally budgeted" https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_High-Speed_Rail https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_High-Speed_Rail
- johnbatch 8y agoLink to the Methodology and Survey: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1g5uibGxcEuknURkZZvT4Ah4Q9-IvalVz/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1g5uibGxcEuknURkZZvT4Ah4Q9-I... Question 26 is the headline. Question 25 is In general, do you [oppose] or [support] California’s project to build a high-speed rail system connecting Los Angeles, the Central Valley, and San Francisco? Strongly/somewhat Support =49 Strongly/somewhat Oppose = 43 Cross Tabs break these question down by race, education, political party, age, region, etc: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1p1sIIQSUED6MwcGxVYcImDAsn7e-nY-E/view?usp=sharing https://drive.google.com/file/d/1p1sIIQSUED6MwcGxVYcImDAsn7e...
- jhpriestley 8y agoI think this is a very misleading headline. 49 percent support the high speed rail project in this poll, based on a neutrally worded question. The 31% figure comes from a leading question that starts with "The latest estimates for California’s high-speed rail project are that it will cost up to $77 billion dollars and will be finished in 2033. This estimate is nearly twice as much as the original estimated cost." The full survey is here https://drive.google.com/file/d/1g5uibGxcEuknURkZZvT4Ah4Q9-IvalVz/view https://drive.google.com/file/d/1g5uibGxcEuknURkZZvT4Ah4Q9-I...
- merpnderp 8y agoSo leading questions are questions that supply two pertinent facts and a third pertinent if leading fact? Everyone wants a rail system to quickly take them where they need to go. Not everyone is willing to pay that much money, wait that long, or accept mind boggling mismanagement. For example which question would result in more accurate responses: do you want lower taxes vs. do you want lower taxes if it cuts state budgets by 10%?
- casefields 8y agoTotally misleading to be up front about expanding costs. No one has to right to know what the taxpayer could be on the hook for...
- IshKebab 8y agoIt's a classic loaded question technique. Emphasise the bad things before asking the question. This is pretty obvious. Do you think they would have got the same result if it was worded "A high speed train will reduce journey times by X%, reduce congestion by Y% on the roads and reduce CO2 pollution by Z%. Do you think we should build one?"
- AnimalMuppet 8y agoFor any given X, there are more people who want the government to do X than there are people who want to pay for the government to do X. But since it's government, we're going to pay for it. It's a bit leading, but not heavily. To be non-leading, it should also say that the high speed rail will take you from SF to LA in Y minutes, and tickets will cost $Z. Then it's non-leading; it's merely supplying additional information that not all poll respondents may know. But it's not all that leading of a question. The cost and completion date, while they reflect badly on the project, are not irrelevant to peoples' opinion of it...
- clishem 8y agoI flagged this article is geoblocked in Europe.
- jiggliemon 8y agoWhen you sell voters the sizzle and not the steak; this disillusion is just a matter of time. It was sold on an impossible premise; - Minimum 200 miles per hour (320 km/h) where conditions permit - Maximum travel time between SF and LA not to exceed 2 hr 40 min - Financially self-sustaining (operation and maintenance costs fully covered by revenue) A flight to SF is 1.5hrs from LA (take off and landing). And only costs $150 round trip. If you could reduce the hassle of “security” you have a better, faster, cheaper high speed transit system. It was supposed to cost $30b. It will cost north of $90b. And it will still need to be subsidized. And it will be slower than 2hr 40min. If you could possibly deliver what was sold - I’m sure the polling would reflect that. But what the people are getting is a shadow of what they approved.
- gok 8y agoThe SF/LA route has an even bigger problem: once you get to LA, then what? There's not really enough transit in the LA area to get where you actually mean to go, and that's almost certain to be true even if all the current transit projects finish. The Bay Area frankly isn't much better. You'll very likely to need to take a car (maybe an autonomous one) from the end points. And given that, flying seems even better. There are 3 big SFBA airports and 5 in the LA metro area; direct flights between those are more likely to get you closer to your endpoints. The more legitimate case for CAHSR is really opening up the middle of the state. But that could have been done much cheaper.
- melling 8y agoHow does China build 14,000 miles of high-speed rail, with another 10,000 on the way, while the United States essentially has zero miles? Countries are the same size. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_China#/media/File%3ARail_map_of_PRC.svg https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_China#/me... Their cheaper and more efficient infrastructure is could to pay dividends over the next few decades.
- toomuchtodo 8y agoDisregard of labor regulations and property rights, as well as cheap labor.
- casefields 8y agotl;dr https://ibb.co/iEPiao https://ibb.co/iEPiao
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- njoro 8y agoBecause of the US international dominance it hasn't really had to develop domestically to compete with other countries. Instead Americans compete among themselves, making commonly beneficial things controversial. At some point Americans will hopefully realize that spending significantly more money on essential things like education, housing and transport won't be competitive in the long run.