4 ms·

Killing 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 cheap

Killing 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.

privong 8y ago
> we have buses and planes that can do the same thing as this train[...]without tax dollars to construct or maintain. Tax dollars pay for road construction and maintenance. Tax dollars also subsidize airport construction and operation.
ebikelaw 8y ago
There is no bus or plane that can do anything like what HSR can do. That's the entire point of the project. It will triple the capacity of our north-south transportation system at a fraction of the cost of equivalent airport capacity. This is something that people don't understand when they haven't travelled enough to experience good rail systems. Rail has massive capacity, 100k people per hour per track direction. That's 500 lanes of theoretical freeway capacity, or 1000 lanes under realistic operating conditions, and it's more than the total capacity between all Bay Area and all L.A.-area airports, even if you operated that route solely with widebody jets, which we don't.
- DrScump 8y ago
  100k people per hour per track direction Your source for this statistic?
  - mmt 8y ago
    I don't have any primary sources offhand, but the closest thing I last looked at was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_rail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_rail which has a number of 25k/h for light rail (pretty low speed, single-deck, presumably short trains). I'd say 4x that amount for a full-sized HSR train is credible. It's just that that's a maximum. I don't believe that ridership will ever be high enough to approach that number, unless air travel is outlawed.
    - IshKebab 8y ago
      > I don't believe that ridership will ever be high enough to approach that number Trains in the rush hour in the UK are pretty much always full, with people standing up. The tube at rush hour looks like this: https://static.standard.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2016/05/06/15/tube.jpg?w968h681 https://static.standard.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2... If it's not too expensive or infrequent I imagine it will be very popular.
      - mmt 8y ago
        > Trains in the rush hour Especially given the picture you provide, I think you're talking about intra-urban rail (subway, metro, even suburban commuter). That's a far cry from a 350-mile, 3-hour inter-city link. Show me the picture for the London-Edinburgh "rush hour".
        IshKebab 8y ago
        Done: https://i2-prod.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article158562.ece/ALTERNATES/s810/a-busy-train-carriage-from-southend-to-liverpool-pic-jk-press-781702887.jpg https://i2-prod.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article158562.ece/ALTE... Southend to Liverpool is 3-4 hours on the train.
        DrScump 8y ago
        How close does it get to the stated 25,000 passengers per hour throughput metric?
        mmt 8y ago
        Keep in mind that's for light rail, only 1/4 of what the commenter claimed for HSR. With 3 occupants per vehicle, 4 freeway lanes could carry 25k, not as outlandish-sounding as 25.
        mmt 8y ago
        Not done. That's only, what, 240 miles? Which means it's not exactly high speed, is it? It could probably reach the 25k/hr that my sibling commentor is asking for, but not the 100k claimed for HSR. Additionally, if it's Southend-on-Sea, that's not a major urban area. At 25k/hr, you could move the entire population to Liverpool in a little over 7 hours. I smell a contrivance. Lastly, the name of that picture describes the train carriage as "busy" not something like "typical", so even then I'm skeptical. Try again. London to Edinburgh. High speed. Typical rush hour.
- mmt 8y ago
  > It will triple the capacity of our north-south transportation system at a fraction of the cost of equivalent airport capacity. > This is something that people don't understand You may be confusing a lack of understanding with straight up apathy. Put another way, I don't think people care if the capacity is tripled. They're not interested in traveling with 100,000 of their closest friends that hour. They're interested in getting where they want to go, faster/cheaper/easier. Pushing system capacity as a feature has a bit of a socialist bent, and that's a hard sell in the US. >That's 500 lanes of theoretical freeway capacity, or 1000 lanes under realistic operating conditions Also, I think your calculation are off by at least an order of magnitude. I thought that freeways can carry about 2000 vehicles per hour (on modestly congested urban freways). Assuming at least dual-occupancy vehicles, that's only 25 lanes. > more than the total capacity between all Bay Area and all L.A.-area airports, even if you operated that route solely with widebody jets, which we don't. This is an excellent argument against all that extra capacity being some kind of critical feature. If (you may be arguing "when" not "if", but that's not a given) we really need it, we could upgrade airport capacity to use more widebody jets. In essence, we already have spare capacity (which could, by the way, be used to go other places), and you're suggesting it's critical that we take the opportunity to greatly increase the spare capacity just to go between the Bay Area and LA. I disagree.
melling 8y ago
How do buses and cars accomplish the same thing? Getting buses and cars to 180 mph even if they’re self-driving sounds a bit crazy. Trains can move tens of thousands a people an hour at much faster speeds.

privong 8y ago

> we have buses and planes that can do the same thing as this train[...]without tax dollars to construct or maintain. Tax dollars pay for road construction and maintenance. Tax dollars also subsidize airport construction and operation.

ebikelaw 8y ago

There is no bus or plane that can do anything like what HSR can do. That's the entire point of the project. It will triple the capacity of our north-south transportation system at a fraction of the cost of equivalent airport capacity. This is something that people don't understand when they haven't travelled enough to experience good rail systems. Rail has massive capacity, 100k people per hour per track direction. That's 500 lanes of theoretical freeway capacity, or 1000 lanes under realistic operating conditions, and it's more than the total capacity between all Bay Area and all L.A.-area airports, even if you operated that route solely with widebody jets, which we don't.

DrScump 8y ago
100k people per hour per track direction Your source for this statistic?
- mmt 8y ago
  I don't have any primary sources offhand, but the closest thing I last looked at was https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_rail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Light_rail which has a number of 25k/h for light rail (pretty low speed, single-deck, presumably short trains). I'd say 4x that amount for a full-sized HSR train is credible. It's just that that's a maximum. I don't believe that ridership will ever be high enough to approach that number, unless air travel is outlawed.
  - IshKebab 8y ago
    > I don't believe that ridership will ever be high enough to approach that number Trains in the rush hour in the UK are pretty much always full, with people standing up. The tube at rush hour looks like this: https://static.standard.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2016/05/06/15/tube.jpg?w968h681 https://static.standard.co.uk/s3fs-public/thumbnails/image/2... If it's not too expensive or infrequent I imagine it will be very popular.
    - mmt 8y ago
      > Trains in the rush hour Especially given the picture you provide, I think you're talking about intra-urban rail (subway, metro, even suburban commuter). That's a far cry from a 350-mile, 3-hour inter-city link. Show me the picture for the London-Edinburgh "rush hour".
      - IshKebab 8y ago
        Done: https://i2-prod.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article158562.ece/ALTERNATES/s810/a-busy-train-carriage-from-southend-to-liverpool-pic-jk-press-781702887.jpg https://i2-prod.mirror.co.uk/incoming/article158562.ece/ALTE... Southend to Liverpool is 3-4 hours on the train.
        DrScump 8y ago
        How close does it get to the stated 25,000 passengers per hour throughput metric?
        mmt 8y ago
        Keep in mind that's for light rail, only 1/4 of what the commenter claimed for HSR. With 3 occupants per vehicle, 4 freeway lanes could carry 25k, not as outlandish-sounding as 25.
        mmt 8y ago
        Not done. That's only, what, 240 miles? Which means it's not exactly high speed, is it? It could probably reach the 25k/hr that my sibling commentor is asking for, but not the 100k claimed for HSR. Additionally, if it's Southend-on-Sea, that's not a major urban area. At 25k/hr, you could move the entire population to Liverpool in a little over 7 hours. I smell a contrivance. Lastly, the name of that picture describes the train carriage as "busy" not something like "typical", so even then I'm skeptical. Try again. London to Edinburgh. High speed. Typical rush hour.
mmt 8y ago
> It will triple the capacity of our north-south transportation system at a fraction of the cost of equivalent airport capacity. > This is something that people don't understand You may be confusing a lack of understanding with straight up apathy. Put another way, I don't think people care if the capacity is tripled. They're not interested in traveling with 100,000 of their closest friends that hour. They're interested in getting where they want to go, faster/cheaper/easier. Pushing system capacity as a feature has a bit of a socialist bent, and that's a hard sell in the US. >That's 500 lanes of theoretical freeway capacity, or 1000 lanes under realistic operating conditions Also, I think your calculation are off by at least an order of magnitude. I thought that freeways can carry about 2000 vehicles per hour (on modestly congested urban freways). Assuming at least dual-occupancy vehicles, that's only 25 lanes. > more than the total capacity between all Bay Area and all L.A.-area airports, even if you operated that route solely with widebody jets, which we don't. This is an excellent argument against all that extra capacity being some kind of critical feature. If (you may be arguing "when" not "if", but that's not a given) we really need it, we could upgrade airport capacity to use more widebody jets. In essence, we already have spare capacity (which could, by the way, be used to go other places), and you're suggesting it's critical that we take the opportunity to greatly increase the spare capacity just to go between the Bay Area and LA. I disagree.

melling 8y ago

How do buses and cars accomplish the same thing? Getting buses and cars to 180 mph even if they’re self-driving sounds a bit crazy. Trains can move tens of thousands a people an hour at much faster speeds.