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> California's high speed rail may never be completed. It will be, but only because it's not really optional in the long term. It's super-expensive, but the al
by jewayne 3y ago
> California's high speed rail may never be completed.
It will be, but only because it's not really optional in the long term. It's super-expensive, but the alternatives are even more expensive in the very long term.
- Mountain_Skies 3y agoZoom is much less expensive. Though not a replacement for all use cases, the best 'bang for the buck' for transportation infrastructure comes from demand destruction. Of course, there are many ways to destroy demand, some with unacceptable side effects, but more emphasis on structuring business in ways that can lessen the demand for business travel is going to be much more valuable with less cost than building more ways of moving ugly bags of mostly water long distances.
- jewayne 3y agoI love the bizarre class biases you get on forums like these. I hate to break it to you, but the majority of jobs still require physical presence -- over 70%, in fact. And business travel is already way down -- it now represents only 12% of US air travel. And people still move far from family for various reasons. Are they supposed to maintain all of their relationships via Zoom? Sorry, the solution is not going to be "everybody stay home".
- nradov 3y agoSo what? No one is going to commute to work on the California HSR routes. Much of the original business case was based on business travel. Now it seems the passenger demand may be lower than expected.
- nradov 3y agoI doubt it. The alternative to high speed rail is adding more lanes to I-5, and perhaps expanding capacity at some of the major airports. Those upgrades would be cheaper than HSR.