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I find it all frustrating as heck. The hardest part about building a railway is the land-rights. You need a straight path from A->B, wide enough for at least t
by Someone1234 6y ago
I find it all frustrating as heck.
The hardest part about building a railway is the land-rights. You need a straight path from A->B, wide enough for at least two lines and fence. But once you have that then re-using that corridor as railway technology improves is very cheap proportionately (e.g. train densities, train speeds, etc).
The problem is that no generation wants to take on the initial "buy in," even if it gets more and more expensive as time goes on (since there's more property/interested parties along the route).
- bgorman 6y agoThe problem is that politics are so corrupt/inefficient in the US that the projects go 4x over budget/time with no consequences for the politicians/bureaucrats/contractors who let things like this happen. Just look at the Honolulu Rapid Transit Projects and California High Speed Rail projects.
- Someone1234 6y agoThe overruns in California (relative to European norms) have been attributed to: Higher property prices, mountain ranges, and legal challenges (from property owners, environmental groups, and so on). If you have specific information on "corruption" then you can update the Wikipedia article on the project here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_High-Speed_Rail#Project_budget_concerns https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_High-Speed_Rail#Pro...
- flomo 6y agoEven ignoring the "expected" inflation of costs. IMO the bottom line with California HSR is it would require far more tunneling than is feasible to construct. They studied it extensively, and LA-SF high speed rail just didn't make sense.