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California bullet train plan likely to run out of money before completion
- rayiner 8y agoCalifornia HSR was a bad idea from the outset, and it failed for the reason people said it would fail. That failure only reinforces why “we can’t have nice things” in the US (our governments are incompetent).
- yostrovs 8y agoIncompetence is certainly a part of it, along with graft, but the train really is something that nobody misses. Going from SF to LA is cheap, fast and easy now. Plus the geography and environmental regulations that pump billions into lawyer pockets that one has to meet doesn't help competing against the airplane.
- baroffoos 8y ago>but the train really is something that nobody misses. Clearly you have never been on a decent train. Its massively preferable to driving.
- alkibiades 8y agoi take the plane in this route about once a month and it’s super fast, cheap and easy. not convinced train would be that much of an improvement.
- ndnxhs 8y agoWell for one, plane trips release massively more carbon. I saw the stats on it and for one route the kg of co2 per person on a train was 3kg and the same trip by plane was over 100kg
- bnegreve 8y agoTrains are much easier to board. You can arrive two minutes before departure and take your seat without having to queue or wait. A two hours train trip is generally much shorter than a one hour plane trip.
- jerkstate 8y agoThis will only be true until a terrorist decides to bomb a train for whatever reason, and the "public" "demands" "security"
- bnegreve 8y agoYes, but trains may be a little safer from that perspective. They have hundreds of doors instead of just two, and each door lead to the land, not to a free fall. So you can threat the driver, but I don't see how you can prevent passengers from going away as soon as the train stops. Now I agree that terrorist can be creative sometimes
- Someone 8y ago”I don't see how you can prevent passengers from going away as soon as the train stops.” Stop the train between stations, in an area with free views all around for at least a hundred meters, put two terrorists with a gun and night vision devices on each end of the train, one on each side. Because of the height of the step down to the track, many people would already find it difficult getting out of the train if there is no platform, even if they wouldn’t be shot at.
- bnegreve 8y agoYou can hijack a plane with two people in the cockpit. People won't go out and police won't get in for obvious reasons. With trains, you need an army of guys spread along the train to shoot at people trying to get out. Each one of this guy can be neutralized by the police from outside or even or passengers from the inside (see thalys train attack). I'm not saying it's impossible but it certainly qualifies as more difficult. Well anyway, trains are more comfortable. That's the main reason why I like them better.
- bobthepanda 8y agoPlanes have issues with weather delays. SFO is one of the worst airports in the country with respect to on time performance. And short haul flights usually get shafted first. CAHSR would also have the benefit of reducing the need for short haul flights to use up landing slots at busy airports like SFO and LAX.
- acchow 8y agoPlane is not that fast. SFO is 20-40 minutes from SF (pending traffic) plus security lines plus some extra time for padding. Plus flight delays. LA falls within the ideal distance for HSR. Your monthly travel is also cheap because you scheduled it far ahead of time. Spontaneous flights to LA are expensive. If I want to fly to LA tbis saturday (one way) it will be $140.
- alkibiades 8y agohave you taken high speed rail in japan? it’s expensive. i remember it was cheaper to fly from tokyo to seoul than train from tokyo to osaka
- magduf 8y agoIt sounds like a comment by a typical American who's never been to a country with a good train system. The sheer ignorance of Americans about things outside their borders is astounding.
- yostrovs 8y agoI have been on fast trains in Europe and in Taiwan. My main problem is that they go too fast and you don't get to see any of the countryside. A lake will fly past you in about 1/8 of a second. It's a soulless way to move from one point to another. So that's my experience of traveling in Italy and Taiwan: I only saw cities, though I did travel extensively through those countries by train. Going by car, which I did recently in Benelux, is so much more pleasant. You stop by local restaurants when you're hungry, you check out culture outside the city center, you see how regular people live. You get to smell the environment. You really experience the country you're in. As far as HSR in America, thank goodness there's no need to argue about it anymore, as even the people who have embraced it wholeheartedly have decided to abandon the idea. We probably won't see HSR ever in the United States, as self driving cars will make it a silly idea in the next couple of decades.
- Symbiote 8y agoYou are comparing a high-speed train with a leisurely drive. Instead, you should compare the high-speed train with a motorway journey, stopping at the rest area for a McDonald's. Slower trains are available if you want to better enjoy the view.
- magduf 8y agoSelf-driving cars can never handle the number of passengers a modern train can. Highways max out at 1900 people per hour per lane, in ideal conditions. And you're completely forgetting how much carbon cars spew into the air for moving thousands of pounds of metal around just to transport a single person.
- mushbino 8y agoOne of the more important issues is that going from SF to Stockton or Modesto are not fast or easy. We have a housing crisis up here that could be significantly improved if one could reasonably, cheaply, quickly commute from a much more affordable area.
- dajohnson89 8y agoWill California embrace density more than it has?
- gedy 8y agoHSR down the 101 corridor south of the Bay Area would be awesome and welcome. Would help alleviate housing issues if people could commute from places like Paso Robles, etc. That winding central valley route was just stupid.
- mistrial9 8y agoHigh speed rail is beneficial over time; other parts of the world are doing it with success. It seems a very bad sign that a large project in the USA is so difficult, as mentioned elsewhere. Last quick comment is, don't discount the possibility that this is hardball from a new (attorney) Governor, and there are more chapters to this story coming.
- macinjosh 8y agoThe difference between America and Europe, Japan, etc. is that is so spread out. To get from place A to B in an airplane you essentially just need two runways. A train needs miles and miles of expensive track that wind around the landscape between the two places. It just doesn't make sense except in densely populated areas like the Northeast.
- londons_explore 8y agoThe track itself isn't the expensive bit. It's simply steel, concrete and gravel, and probably could cost <100k per mile. It's the compulsory land purchases and expensive consultants which are the main expense.
- dx034 8y agoTrack for high speed trains can be very expensive. Unless land is very flat, it's not uncommon for >50% of track to be on bridges/in tunnels.
- taobility 8y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing–Shanghai_high-speed_railway https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beijing–Shanghai_high-speed_ra... The HSR between Beijing and Shanghai has 87% length are elevated.
- acchow 8y ago> To get from place A to B in an airplane you essentially just need two runways This is definitely not true. SFO's Terminal 1 cost $2.4 billion. Let's not forget the huge amount of greenhouse gas emissions from airplane fuel.
- rawmodz 8y agoThe current incarnation of the bullet train is two things: An honorarium to Jerry Brown a payout to the union’s and bureaucrats to tide them over until the legislature can think up another boondoggle.
- acct1771 8y agoFYI, an apostrophe does not mean "holy shit, here comes an S".
- theNJR 8y agoWhile I have a frequency bias, I’ve never experienced more delays and outright cancelations than LAX-SFO. Southwest on this route seem particularly bad. I was excited, and voted for, the HSR.