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That's a nonsequitur. The California coast is pretty dense, the rest of the state has large amounts of empty space and national parks. Nobody would build a high
by diego 7y ago
That's a nonsequitur. The California coast is pretty dense, the rest of the state has large amounts of empty space and national parks. Nobody would build a high-speed rail through Yosemite or Death Valley.
- jariel 7y agoIt's not a non-sequitur, it matters a lot in the end it implies on average considerably longer distances through less density.It matters in the calculation.
- trynumber9 7y agoThe same is also true of Taiwan to a smaller degree. They have a populated coast and then a sparse interior. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Taiwan#/media/File:Population_density_of_Taiwan_by_district.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Taiwan#/media/...
- franknine 7y agoCentral Taiwan is full of high mountains, tallest one is nearly 13,000ft https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yu_Shan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yu_Shan
- JumpCrisscross 7y ago> Nobody would build a high-speed rail through Yosemite or Death Valley Yet it detoured to stop in farmland.
- mlyle 7y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Taiwan#/media/File:Population_density_of_Taiwan_by_district.svg https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Taiwan#/media/... vs. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:California_population_map.png https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:California_populatio... The reddest areas on the California map would be orange on the Taiwan map. A San Jose to Bakersfield route (comparable in length to the Taiwan route) has a huge low-population density area around the middle, so basically there's no prospect of using the rail for shorter trips. And the number of daily trips between San Jose and Bakersfield is likely to be limited.
- diego 7y agoIt's still grasping at straws. The idea is to connect SF and LA, which are much larger than Taipei and Kaohsiung. In-between stops are a bonus.
- mlyle 7y agoThe initial stage is to connect Merced and Bakersfield, which has no clear payoff. All other stages of the project are indefinitely postponed. The post author compared San Jose to Bakersfield, as it's the same length as the Taiwan connection.