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> Newsom said the state will complete a 110-mile (177 km) high-speed rail link between Merced and Bakersfield. Wow. Merced to Bakersfield. I mean, why not ligh

> Newsom said the state will complete a 110-mile (177 km) high-speed rail link between Merced and Bakersfield. Wow. Merced to Bakersfield. I mean, why not light the money on fire instead? The point of something like this is to essentially warp the topology regarding what constitutes "nearby" between smaller cities and large metro areas. If you can do that, you've massively changed how both labor costs, real estate prices, and even tourism/recreation work. OK, "light the money on fire" is probably overstating the case -- there's probably some multiplying effect in making the central valley more connected, and maybe it's also the easiest segment to actually get built. But the magnitude of positive effects is also probably an order down.

jerf 8y ago
"there's probably some multiplying effect in making the central valley more connected" There is no law of the universe that says a multiplier must be greater than 1.0. It is entirely possible, and indeed, easy to build a piece of infrastructure that will never pay back.
- electrograv 8y ago
  > There is no law of the universe that says a multiplier must be greater than 1.0. It is entirely possible, and indeed, easy to build a piece of infrastructure that will never pay back. Just because there’s no law of the universe that prevents you from throwing money down the drain, doesn’t mean you ought to do so.
  - jerf 8y ago
    That's a non-sequitor to my post.
- Wowfunhappy 8y ago
  Well, it's at least better than a multiplier of "0", which would be the result of "lighting money on fire".
  - jakebol 8y ago
    Even after such infrastructure is built, a > 0 multiplier assumes the economic impact of the project would be greater than the lifetime costs of upkeep and maintenance of the infrastructure (and current and future taxes to support such infrastructure + interest on debt payments used in its initial construction). And excludes the opportunity cost of allocating that future capital to other projects. Ex. NY still throws money into the canal project, even though the canal has long since been economically unviable (but politically it is still viable and so it remains...).
  - ummonk 8y ago
    Lighting $10 on fire is a lot better than spending $100 and getting $50 back. You take a bigger net loss with the latter move.
    - deleted 8y ago
      [deleted]
    - geezerjay 8y ago
      > Lighting $10 on fire is a lot better than spending $100 and getting $50 back. That's not how the math works with infrastructure projects. With infrastructure projects there is the upfront cost and immediate returns, but there are also all other externalities and savings from shift in consumer demand and, for example, urban renewal and requalification. For instance, how much would you save if you cut on the number of cars entering a urban center? This means less pollution, less traffic, less commutting times, etc etc etc Does that have no value?
  - jerf 8y ago
    There's no guarantee the multiplier has to be positive, either. And that's before you consider opportunity cost.
martinald 8y ago
I think the idea is reading more into it that they complete this bit first and the expand to SF and LA when they can figure out funding for it. A lot of stuff is already built on this route, many viaducts and bridges etc.
- djsumdog 8y ago
  Yea, once you get one segment build and demand starts coming in, it will be easier to push for completing it.
- kansface 8y ago
  Correct me if I'm wrong, but I read some time ago that there is no plausible path to send a rail into SF.
  - erentz 8y ago
    It runs up the existing Caltrain route to King St. and later to the new inconceivably badly conceived bus station they built downtown via a curvy slow tunnel under the streets.
    - martinald 8y ago
      Yeah. Caltrain electrification is desperately needed regardless of HSR and I hope it goes ahead even with this. The current timetable is not frequent enough (I believe they were targeting 6 trains an hour each way with the electrification) and is very slow.
    - Animats 8y ago
      A desperate attempt to save the real estate value of the existing "downtown" from the general move of "downtown" southward to SOMA and Mission Bay.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - burfog 8y ago
muzz 8y ago
That is the part that is already under construction. The money cannot be lit on fire because it has already been spent.
- dekhn 8y ago
  nono, the money is already on fire, and they have to give it to somebody.
- jessriedel 8y ago
  Not $3.5B of it. It sounds like the governor really would like to light it on fire rather than give it back: > “Abandoning high-speed rail entirely means we will have wasted billions of dollars with nothing but broken promises and lawsuits to show for it,” he said. “And by the way, I am not interested in sending $3.5 billion in federal funding that was allocated to this project back to Donald Trump.”
  - masonic 8y ago
    If you'll end up with a product that can't get sufficient fare return to cover all operating costs (let alone debt service), you're better off shutting it down in place, like Brazil's Transnordestina.
    - jessriedel 8y ago
      I don't think New York City's MTA even covers its operating costs out of revenue.
    - dredmorbius 8y ago
      Untrue. Transportation systems rarely deliver the bulk of their benefits to direct users. The indirect effects of increased activity, commerce, industry, trade, opportunities, etc., accrue to the entire region, and not just the users of the system. This is why, historically, transit projects have tended to be heavily funded by indirect beneficiaries. In cities: merchants and employers, both of whom benefit by increased customer and worker populations. The case of Denver, Colorado shows the impacts improved transport can have on an otherwise remote city. Prior to the construction a connecting line to the Transcontinental Railroad, the city had fewer than 5,000 residents. A decade later, that rose to over 35,000. Mind, at the time, this was the best, cheapest, and fastest transport option available, but improved mobility can have tremendous impacts on growth and activity patterns. https://www.uncovercolorado.com/historic-colorado-railroad-depots/ https://www.uncovercolorado.com/historic-colorado-railroad-d... Similarly, automobile drivers pay only a relatively small fraction of the direct costs of highway transport, with much else provided through general funds, property taxes (for state/local construction), income, and fuel taxes (the latter at least an indirect contribution). Imposing a 100% farebox recovery obligation is highly flawed policy.
kozikow 8y ago
Build the central piece. If that succeeds, later expand to SF-LA?
- jandrese 8y ago
  How can it possibly succeed though? It looks for all the world like a boondoggle. It looks like someone tried to make an actually useful SF<->LA route and couldn't figure out how to make it work near the city. While it would no doubt be way more expensive and difficult, getting this into the big cities would at least give it a reason to exist.
rubicon33 8y ago
Someone PLEASE explain to me WHY the governing bodies on this project decided to start with Merced -> Bakersfield. I'm seriously dumfounded. I have lost a ton of faith, what little I already had, with this government. Does ANYONE have a reasonable explanation?
- RyJones 8y ago
  Who owned the land that was purchased or acquired for the project? Which campaigns do they donate to? Are the areas of concern toxic waste dumps, old gas stations, or contain old pipelines that would be expensive to remediate?
  - Varcht 8y ago
    Yes, these are the questions to ask, related [0]. In the article they mention the number of parcels needed grew by 500, did owners subdivide in order to increase returns? [0] https://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/article218398575.html https://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/article218398575.html
    - RyJones 8y ago
      excellent, thanks. I was not cynical enough, I see
- Diggity 8y ago
  That region is flat and has few physical obstacles to a rail line (like mountains, major inclines, major declines etc) Getting a rail line between a major city (LA/San Jose/San Diego/SF etc) requires going through pretty serious mountain ranges. There is already rail line between them in their own geographical pockets (LA-San Diego, SF-San Jose-Oakland)
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - btilly 8y ago
jdminhbg 8y ago
> Wow. Merced to Bakersfield. I mean, why not light the money on fire instead? Newsom explains in a quote given in the article: not spending the money means "giving it back to Donald Trump."
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- iaabtpbtpnn 8y ago
  But it's not Donald Trump's money, it's the federal government's money, which means it's OUR money...
- inferiorhuman 8y ago
  So use the money to build and LA-SF system. Merced to Bakersfield is insanity.
rmason 8y ago
Why not complete it to San Jose at least. People headed to SF could catch a train into the city. But the real advantage would be home buyers. Instead of saving up for a 800 sq foot house without a garage that cost $1.2 million they could ride the train a half hour where the same house would cost what $400K in Fresno?
- goobynight 8y ago
  That $400k house will immediately go up in price. You see this in Chinese cities. New train station? Congrats. Now you're finding a new place because your landlord is selling.
  - rmason 8y ago
    Right now critics will label it the ghost train to nowhere. At least if it connected to San Jose it would prove somewhat useful. Perhaps its better to never buy the rolling stock or hire staff? Otherwise there will be stories in the press about trains running where the staff outnumbers the passengers?
  - opportune 8y ago
    Alternatively now someone in Fresno who makes $25/hour doing something blue collar has access to a market where that same job may pay $40/hour. There is a huge amount of pent up demand for blue collar jobs in the Bay area that is being stifled due to the lack of appropriate living arrangements for people making non-six-figure incomes (especially for families).
  - geezerjay 8y ago
    > New train station? Congrats. Now you're finding a new place because your landlord is selling. And that's ok because you can get onto that same train and look for affordable appartments anywhere in the train's catchment area, which now is far larger than when you first started looking for a rental.
- alexhutcheson 8y ago
  They would have to build new track across the California Coast Ranges[1]. Mountain crossings are expensive and difficult, and mountain crossings that need to maintain the curve and grade requirements of HSR are even more so. The crazy cost overruns for mountain crossings (this one and the Tehachapi Pass) are what killed the project. This new de-scoped HSR project is basically "the part of HSR phase 1 that doesn't require us to cross any mountains". In California that's obviously very limiting. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Coast_Ranges https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Coast_Ranges
User23 8y ago
It’s just enough activity to get to keep the allocated federal money.
seppin 8y ago
Where is the money already collected via taxes going to?
alexhutcheson 8y ago
Merced, Madera, Fresno, Tulare, and Kern counties have a combined population of ~2.9 million. For the $77 billion price tag, you could buy a Toyota Prius for every single resident of the entire area served by HSR (including children), and still have ~$8 billion left over.
- ohples 8y ago
  8 billion is probably not enough to pay for all the added parking needed, cover higher accidents rates, more roads, etc.
  - geezerjay 8y ago
    How much would it cost to increase highway capacity to support all the traffic?
- jessriedel 8y ago
  This is the wrong comparison. They are paring down to the Merced-Bakersfield line to avoid spending the full $77B.
- dragonwriter 8y ago
  > Merced, Madera, Fresno, Tulare, and Kern counties have a combined population of ~2.9 million. For the $77 billion price tag, you could buy a Toyota Prius for every single resident of the entire area served by HSR (including children), and still have ~$8 billion left over. The $77 billion price tag was the most recent year-of-expenditure estimate (which kept going up,in no small part because the year of expenditures kept getting later) for the whole originally planned system (well, the SF to LA part, not including the Sacramento and San Diego connections that were to be done afterwards.) The small segment Newsome refers to isn't anywhere close to $77B.
  - alexhutcheson 8y ago
    Good catch, I misread. I would be interested to see the projected cost of the de-scoped project. Operating & maintenance costs would also be critical to determining whether this actually makes any sense.
ummonk 8y ago
Lighting the small amount of money already spent on fire is far preferable to spending the hundred billion or so that would be needed to complete hsr.
maxxxxx 8y ago
I live close to LA but if I have to drive to Bakersfield for the train I may just as well keep driving. This makes no sense and I bet in typical US fashion they will stop there and people will say that public transit doesn't work. You can't just build a train in the middle of nowhere. You need some level of connection to population centers.
philwelch 8y ago
There's a wise saying--"never half-ass two things. Whole-ass one thing." California high speed rail is a great idea if they commit to it and deliver the full product. If that would be prohibitively expensive, take a step back, figure out why this country can't build things anymore, and address the blockers you can while swallowing the cost of the blockers you can't address. Either that, or give up. There's no damn point building a multi-billion-dollar monument to the decline of American civilization.
Shivetya 8y ago
The simple truth is, heavy rail does not work. There is no where outside of Japan with its very high population density that it does work. Europe you say? On average a European resident will use urban and intercity trains only five hundred miles more than Americans will. It is romanticism, ribbon cutting, and not realism, that keeps this illusion that trains will solve transportation issues alive. In Europe driving and flying are growing far faster than trains except in limited parts of Britain and Switzerland so with regards to American implementation, even the urban light rail systems are all follies outside of NYC simply because they are not where the people want to be but instead where planners want people to be. then to top it off they cannot be volume adjusted because you cannot just reroute a train. buses are by far more economical and flexible, they just aren't sexy for ribbon cutting whores that politicians are. on a side note, one hole in California's budget is the same in every high tax state. The law change to the Federal Tax system to have the rich pay more of their share by not letting them deduct as much from the Federal Taxes. This did two things, for the rich to pay more of their money in taxes and keep high tax states from off loading their taxes indirectly to lower tax states. California has a homeless problem that is incredible and needs to get its prison population numbers down. spending the money to help the poor is a far better solution than funding a rich man's train.
- zanny 8y ago
  > then to top it off they cannot be volume adjusted because you cannot just reroute a train That is not in any way how you plan trains. You don't build them for variable load. The baseline load becomes what the trains can supply, and the economy grows around that. I'd love to know where there is underutilized commuter rail in the US for cheap I can take advantage of by moving to for an unnaturally low cost of living - because that is what legitimately misplanned trains do. They self-correct by creating a cheap transit hub to pull people and business towards. Progressive and developing economies the world over have reaped the benefits of high speed rail a thousand times over now. Saying "heavy rail doesn't work" is ignorant of how almost every first world nation and many others have a comprehensive commuter rail network outside the US and Canada. > California has a homeless problem that is incredible and needs to get its prison population numbers down. spending the money to help the poor is a far better solution than funding a rich man's train. State investment isn't a zero sum game, or one where you have a fixed absolute finite amount of money and can only allocate one central budget one way. There are absolutely limits to how much you can tax your economy, even selectively, without having negative consequences on your economy - and there are definitely plenty of arguments California is already past that threshold. But its way too simplistic to be in a discussion about state budgets and say "spend this money on X instead".

jerf 8y ago

"there's probably some multiplying effect in making the central valley more connected" There is no law of the universe that says a multiplier must be greater than 1.0. It is entirely possible, and indeed, easy to build a piece of infrastructure that will never pay back.

electrograv 8y ago
> There is no law of the universe that says a multiplier must be greater than 1.0. It is entirely possible, and indeed, easy to build a piece of infrastructure that will never pay back. Just because there’s no law of the universe that prevents you from throwing money down the drain, doesn’t mean you ought to do so.
- jerf 8y ago
  That's a non-sequitor to my post.
Wowfunhappy 8y ago
Well, it's at least better than a multiplier of "0", which would be the result of "lighting money on fire".
- jakebol 8y ago
  Even after such infrastructure is built, a > 0 multiplier assumes the economic impact of the project would be greater than the lifetime costs of upkeep and maintenance of the infrastructure (and current and future taxes to support such infrastructure + interest on debt payments used in its initial construction). And excludes the opportunity cost of allocating that future capital to other projects. Ex. NY still throws money into the canal project, even though the canal has long since been economically unviable (but politically it is still viable and so it remains...).
- ummonk 8y ago
  Lighting $10 on fire is a lot better than spending $100 and getting $50 back. You take a bigger net loss with the latter move.
  - deleted 8y ago
    [deleted]
  - geezerjay 8y ago
    > Lighting $10 on fire is a lot better than spending $100 and getting $50 back. That's not how the math works with infrastructure projects. With infrastructure projects there is the upfront cost and immediate returns, but there are also all other externalities and savings from shift in consumer demand and, for example, urban renewal and requalification. For instance, how much would you save if you cut on the number of cars entering a urban center? This means less pollution, less traffic, less commutting times, etc etc etc Does that have no value?
- jerf 8y ago
  There's no guarantee the multiplier has to be positive, either. And that's before you consider opportunity cost.

martinald 8y ago

I think the idea is reading more into it that they complete this bit first and the expand to SF and LA when they can figure out funding for it. A lot of stuff is already built on this route, many viaducts and bridges etc.

djsumdog 8y ago
Yea, once you get one segment build and demand starts coming in, it will be easier to push for completing it.
kansface 8y ago
Correct me if I'm wrong, but I read some time ago that there is no plausible path to send a rail into SF.
- erentz 8y ago
  It runs up the existing Caltrain route to King St. and later to the new inconceivably badly conceived bus station they built downtown via a curvy slow tunnel under the streets.
  - martinald 8y ago
    Yeah. Caltrain electrification is desperately needed regardless of HSR and I hope it goes ahead even with this. The current timetable is not frequent enough (I believe they were targeting 6 trains an hour each way with the electrification) and is very slow.
  - Animats 8y ago
    A desperate attempt to save the real estate value of the existing "downtown" from the general move of "downtown" southward to SOMA and Mission Bay.
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- burfog 8y ago

muzz 8y ago

That is the part that is already under construction. The money cannot be lit on fire because it has already been spent.

dekhn 8y ago
nono, the money is already on fire, and they have to give it to somebody.
jessriedel 8y ago
Not $3.5B of it. It sounds like the governor really would like to light it on fire rather than give it back: > “Abandoning high-speed rail entirely means we will have wasted billions of dollars with nothing but broken promises and lawsuits to show for it,” he said. “And by the way, I am not interested in sending $3.5 billion in federal funding that was allocated to this project back to Donald Trump.”
- masonic 8y ago
  If you'll end up with a product that can't get sufficient fare return to cover all operating costs (let alone debt service), you're better off shutting it down in place, like Brazil's Transnordestina.
  - jessriedel 8y ago
    I don't think New York City's MTA even covers its operating costs out of revenue.
  - dredmorbius 8y ago
    Untrue. Transportation systems rarely deliver the bulk of their benefits to direct users. The indirect effects of increased activity, commerce, industry, trade, opportunities, etc., accrue to the entire region, and not just the users of the system. This is why, historically, transit projects have tended to be heavily funded by indirect beneficiaries. In cities: merchants and employers, both of whom benefit by increased customer and worker populations. The case of Denver, Colorado shows the impacts improved transport can have on an otherwise remote city. Prior to the construction a connecting line to the Transcontinental Railroad, the city had fewer than 5,000 residents. A decade later, that rose to over 35,000. Mind, at the time, this was the best, cheapest, and fastest transport option available, but improved mobility can have tremendous impacts on growth and activity patterns. https://www.uncovercolorado.com/historic-colorado-railroad-depots/ https://www.uncovercolorado.com/historic-colorado-railroad-d... Similarly, automobile drivers pay only a relatively small fraction of the direct costs of highway transport, with much else provided through general funds, property taxes (for state/local construction), income, and fuel taxes (the latter at least an indirect contribution). Imposing a 100% farebox recovery obligation is highly flawed policy.

kozikow 8y ago

Build the central piece. If that succeeds, later expand to SF-LA?

jandrese 8y ago
How can it possibly succeed though? It looks for all the world like a boondoggle. It looks like someone tried to make an actually useful SF<->LA route and couldn't figure out how to make it work near the city. While it would no doubt be way more expensive and difficult, getting this into the big cities would at least give it a reason to exist.

rubicon33 8y ago

Someone PLEASE explain to me WHY the governing bodies on this project decided to start with Merced -> Bakersfield. I'm seriously dumfounded. I have lost a ton of faith, what little I already had, with this government. Does ANYONE have a reasonable explanation?

RyJones 8y ago
Who owned the land that was purchased or acquired for the project? Which campaigns do they donate to? Are the areas of concern toxic waste dumps, old gas stations, or contain old pipelines that would be expensive to remediate?
- Varcht 8y ago
  Yes, these are the questions to ask, related [0]. In the article they mention the number of parcels needed grew by 500, did owners subdivide in order to increase returns? [0] https://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/article218398575.html https://www.fresnobee.com/news/local/article218398575.html
  - RyJones 8y ago
    excellent, thanks. I was not cynical enough, I see
Diggity 8y ago
That region is flat and has few physical obstacles to a rail line (like mountains, major inclines, major declines etc) Getting a rail line between a major city (LA/San Jose/San Diego/SF etc) requires going through pretty serious mountain ranges. There is already rail line between them in their own geographical pockets (LA-San Diego, SF-San Jose-Oakland)
- deleted 8y ago
  [deleted]
- btilly 8y ago

jdminhbg 8y ago

> Wow. Merced to Bakersfield. I mean, why not light the money on fire instead? Newsom explains in a quote given in the article: not spending the money means "giving it back to Donald Trump."

deleted 8y ago
[deleted]
iaabtpbtpnn 8y ago
But it's not Donald Trump's money, it's the federal government's money, which means it's OUR money...
inferiorhuman 8y ago
So use the money to build and LA-SF system. Merced to Bakersfield is insanity.

rmason 8y ago

Why not complete it to San Jose at least. People headed to SF could catch a train into the city. But the real advantage would be home buyers. Instead of saving up for a 800 sq foot house without a garage that cost $1.2 million they could ride the train a half hour where the same house would cost what $400K in Fresno?

goobynight 8y ago
That $400k house will immediately go up in price. You see this in Chinese cities. New train station? Congrats. Now you're finding a new place because your landlord is selling.
- rmason 8y ago
  Right now critics will label it the ghost train to nowhere. At least if it connected to San Jose it would prove somewhat useful. Perhaps its better to never buy the rolling stock or hire staff? Otherwise there will be stories in the press about trains running where the staff outnumbers the passengers?
- opportune 8y ago
  Alternatively now someone in Fresno who makes $25/hour doing something blue collar has access to a market where that same job may pay $40/hour. There is a huge amount of pent up demand for blue collar jobs in the Bay area that is being stifled due to the lack of appropriate living arrangements for people making non-six-figure incomes (especially for families).
- geezerjay 8y ago
  > New train station? Congrats. Now you're finding a new place because your landlord is selling. And that's ok because you can get onto that same train and look for affordable appartments anywhere in the train's catchment area, which now is far larger than when you first started looking for a rental.
alexhutcheson 8y ago
They would have to build new track across the California Coast Ranges[1]. Mountain crossings are expensive and difficult, and mountain crossings that need to maintain the curve and grade requirements of HSR are even more so. The crazy cost overruns for mountain crossings (this one and the Tehachapi Pass) are what killed the project. This new de-scoped HSR project is basically "the part of HSR phase 1 that doesn't require us to cross any mountains". In California that's obviously very limiting. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Coast_Ranges https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_Coast_Ranges

User23 8y ago

It’s just enough activity to get to keep the allocated federal money.

seppin 8y ago

Where is the money already collected via taxes going to?

alexhutcheson 8y ago

Merced, Madera, Fresno, Tulare, and Kern counties have a combined population of ~2.9 million. For the $77 billion price tag, you could buy a Toyota Prius for every single resident of the entire area served by HSR (including children), and still have ~$8 billion left over.

ohples 8y ago
8 billion is probably not enough to pay for all the added parking needed, cover higher accidents rates, more roads, etc.
- geezerjay 8y ago
  How much would it cost to increase highway capacity to support all the traffic?
jessriedel 8y ago
This is the wrong comparison. They are paring down to the Merced-Bakersfield line to avoid spending the full $77B.
dragonwriter 8y ago
> Merced, Madera, Fresno, Tulare, and Kern counties have a combined population of ~2.9 million. For the $77 billion price tag, you could buy a Toyota Prius for every single resident of the entire area served by HSR (including children), and still have ~$8 billion left over. The $77 billion price tag was the most recent year-of-expenditure estimate (which kept going up,in no small part because the year of expenditures kept getting later) for the whole originally planned system (well, the SF to LA part, not including the Sacramento and San Diego connections that were to be done afterwards.) The small segment Newsome refers to isn't anywhere close to $77B.
- alexhutcheson 8y ago
  Good catch, I misread. I would be interested to see the projected cost of the de-scoped project. Operating & maintenance costs would also be critical to determining whether this actually makes any sense.

ummonk 8y ago

Lighting the small amount of money already spent on fire is far preferable to spending the hundred billion or so that would be needed to complete hsr.

maxxxxx 8y ago

I live close to LA but if I have to drive to Bakersfield for the train I may just as well keep driving. This makes no sense and I bet in typical US fashion they will stop there and people will say that public transit doesn't work. You can't just build a train in the middle of nowhere. You need some level of connection to population centers.

philwelch 8y ago

There's a wise saying--"never half-ass two things. Whole-ass one thing." California high speed rail is a great idea if they commit to it and deliver the full product. If that would be prohibitively expensive, take a step back, figure out why this country can't build things anymore, and address the blockers you can while swallowing the cost of the blockers you can't address. Either that, or give up. There's no damn point building a multi-billion-dollar monument to the decline of American civilization.

Shivetya 8y ago

The simple truth is, heavy rail does not work. There is no where outside of Japan with its very high population density that it does work. Europe you say? On average a European resident will use urban and intercity trains only five hundred miles more than Americans will. It is romanticism, ribbon cutting, and not realism, that keeps this illusion that trains will solve transportation issues alive. In Europe driving and flying are growing far faster than trains except in limited parts of Britain and Switzerland so with regards to American implementation, even the urban light rail systems are all follies outside of NYC simply because they are not where the people want to be but instead where planners want people to be. then to top it off they cannot be volume adjusted because you cannot just reroute a train. buses are by far more economical and flexible, they just aren't sexy for ribbon cutting whores that politicians are. on a side note, one hole in California's budget is the same in every high tax state. The law change to the Federal Tax system to have the rich pay more of their share by not letting them deduct as much from the Federal Taxes. This did two things, for the rich to pay more of their money in taxes and keep high tax states from off loading their taxes indirectly to lower tax states. California has a homeless problem that is incredible and needs to get its prison population numbers down. spending the money to help the poor is a far better solution than funding a rich man's train.

zanny 8y ago
> then to top it off they cannot be volume adjusted because you cannot just reroute a train That is not in any way how you plan trains. You don't build them for variable load. The baseline load becomes what the trains can supply, and the economy grows around that. I'd love to know where there is underutilized commuter rail in the US for cheap I can take advantage of by moving to for an unnaturally low cost of living - because that is what legitimately misplanned trains do. They self-correct by creating a cheap transit hub to pull people and business towards. Progressive and developing economies the world over have reaped the benefits of high speed rail a thousand times over now. Saying "heavy rail doesn't work" is ignorant of how almost every first world nation and many others have a comprehensive commuter rail network outside the US and Canada. > California has a homeless problem that is incredible and needs to get its prison population numbers down. spending the money to help the poor is a far better solution than funding a rich man's train. State investment isn't a zero sum game, or one where you have a fixed absolute finite amount of money and can only allocate one central budget one way. There are absolutely limits to how much you can tax your economy, even selectively, without having negative consequences on your economy - and there are definitely plenty of arguments California is already past that threshold. But its way too simplistic to be in a discussion about state budgets and say "spend this money on X instead".