47 ms·

> mountain ranges, seismic rifts, and mansion districts Have they consulted Japan, which has successfully built HSR through precisely the same sort of terrain,

> mountain ranges, seismic rifts, and mansion districts Have they consulted Japan, which has successfully built HSR through precisely the same sort of terrain, geophysical, and human limitations that California appears to have, including being on some of the most seismically active places on the planet? I swear, Americans have some sort of bipolar disorder when it comes to high speed rail. They love the concept of it, but when it comes to actually implementing it, nothing actually gets done, or people complain that 'it's going to be too expensive' or 'America is too big' or 'we have seismic zones'. It's very hilarious and a bit sad, looking in from the outside. For the record, urban rapid transit is no better. New York City (and maybe San Francisco) being the exception, essentially every other large American city has nearly non-existent public transport. European cities are significantly better, and East/Southeast Asian ones (HK, Tokyo, Seoul, Singapore) are in a completely different league altogether.

flomo 3y ago
Or just flying is cheap and easy so we don't have a masochistic fixation on choo-choos. There's only a couple places in America where trains even work in theory, and yeah they should have better ones.
- delta_p_delta_x 3y ago
  > is cheap and easy Are you sincerely telling me you'd honestly rather prepare to leave 5+ hours before your departure, drive 30+ km to the middle of nowhere, arrive at the airport 3+ hours before your departure, only to wait in multiple queues and be violated by the TSA, and then stuff yourself along with hundreds of others in a metal tube 10 km in the air and suffer possible ear ache, lousy service, irritating passengers, etc etc? > choo-choos European, Japanese, and Chinese high speed railways are far from 'choo-choos'. You can get first-class service on the ground for the price you pay for a cramped economy seat on almost all carriers.

flomo 3y ago

Or just flying is cheap and easy so we don't have a masochistic fixation on choo-choos. There's only a couple places in America where trains even work in theory, and yeah they should have better ones.

delta_p_delta_x 3y ago
> is cheap and easy Are you sincerely telling me you'd honestly rather prepare to leave 5+ hours before your departure, drive 30+ km to the middle of nowhere, arrive at the airport 3+ hours before your departure, only to wait in multiple queues and be violated by the TSA, and then stuff yourself along with hundreds of others in a metal tube 10 km in the air and suffer possible ear ache, lousy service, irritating passengers, etc etc? > choo-choos European, Japanese, and Chinese high speed railways are far from 'choo-choos'. You can get first-class service on the ground for the price you pay for a cramped economy seat on almost all carriers.