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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 av

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".

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".