4 ms·

The problem isn't the amount of funding, the problem is competence administering the funding. California's HSR has tens of billions invested and no track laid.

The problem isn't the amount of funding, the problem is competence administering the funding. California's HSR has tens of billions invested and no track laid. I'd love to import European or Japanese rail administrators so that the investment could result in trains actually running, but that doesn't seem to be in the cards.

creato 3y ago
They'd run into the exact same problems getting rights of way. There may be incompetence in administration, but it's not the only problem.
- njarboe 3y ago
  Brightline is a privately company building a bullet train from LA to Las Vegas opening in 2027. The same company recently completed a new bullet train from Miami to Orlando.
  - bobthepanda 3y ago
    An interesting feature of the Brightline West project is that it does not go deep into populated urban areas to save money. The terminus in Las Vegas is south of the airport and the Strip. The terminus in “LA” is in Rancho Cucamonga, 37 miles east of LA and in a whole different county. CAHSR was partially sold as a downtown revitalization project, and so has expensive full speed approaches into Fresno, Bakersfield, Merced, etc.
  - woodruffw 3y ago
    > The same company recently completed a new bullet train from Miami to Orlando. Brightline is an accomplishment, but this significantly oversells it: the Orlando-Miami route tops out at 125mph, which is barely HSR by any normal standard. A good chunk of the route is on pre-existing lines that top out at 79mph. For comparison, trains on the LGV Nord (31 years old) operate at 190mph[1]. I hope they continue to invest in HSR, but I don't think we should settle for marketing here. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGV_Nord https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGV_Nord
lamp_book 3y ago
They did bring in a French HSR operator that built rail in Asia, but they bailed for projects in a less politically dysfunctional landscape… North Africa [1]. It’s our pork barrel political machinery that’s fucked up. [1] https://archive.is/2023.09.19-135838/https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/09/us/california-high-speed-rail-politics.html https://archive.is/2023.09.19-135838/https://www.nytimes.com...

creato 3y ago

They'd run into the exact same problems getting rights of way. There may be incompetence in administration, but it's not the only problem.

njarboe 3y ago
Brightline is a privately company building a bullet train from LA to Las Vegas opening in 2027. The same company recently completed a new bullet train from Miami to Orlando.
- bobthepanda 3y ago
  An interesting feature of the Brightline West project is that it does not go deep into populated urban areas to save money. The terminus in Las Vegas is south of the airport and the Strip. The terminus in “LA” is in Rancho Cucamonga, 37 miles east of LA and in a whole different county. CAHSR was partially sold as a downtown revitalization project, and so has expensive full speed approaches into Fresno, Bakersfield, Merced, etc.
- woodruffw 3y ago
  > The same company recently completed a new bullet train from Miami to Orlando. Brightline is an accomplishment, but this significantly oversells it: the Orlando-Miami route tops out at 125mph, which is barely HSR by any normal standard. A good chunk of the route is on pre-existing lines that top out at 79mph. For comparison, trains on the LGV Nord (31 years old) operate at 190mph[1]. I hope they continue to invest in HSR, but I don't think we should settle for marketing here. [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGV_Nord https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LGV_Nord

lamp_book 3y ago

They did bring in a French HSR operator that built rail in Asia, but they bailed for projects in a less politically dysfunctional landscape… North Africa [1]. It’s our pork barrel political machinery that’s fucked up. [1] https://archive.is/2023.09.19-135838/https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/09/us/california-high-speed-rail-politics.html https://archive.is/2023.09.19-135838/https://www.nytimes.com...