5 ms·

What is the fair point? At this point we should be welcoming alternate form of transportation at any price point in my opinion as long as it is not 5-10x.

alephnerd 3y ago
The money spent on that long distance alternate transport can be better spent enhancing existing short distance transport. There is a finite pool of money that can be spent on infrastructure. Investing on enhancing and integrating the Capitol Corridor, ACE, Caltrains, BART, Muni, and VTA into a unified system has a better RoI than a 400-500mi rail line that will most likely have a train leaving on an hourly cadence. It's a similar story for Los Angeles and San Diego. Flights cost around $100-200 for a round trip and take around 3 hours even factoring in security and commute to and from the airport. It would be the same length of time commuting from a railway station to the other, the railway would take 2 additional hours, and the price would be roughly comparable.
- 1024core 3y ago
  > The money spent on that long distance alternate transport can be better spent enhancing existing short distance transport. > There is a finite pool of money that can be spent on infrastructure. Exactly. The metric should be passenger-miles, nothing else. That is the most useful metric. If spending $100B on SF to LA (400mi) impacts 1M passengers per year, then that's 400M passenger-miles, or 250 dollars per pax-mile. But if spending $5B on (say) SF to SJ (50mi) impacts 1M passengers per year, which is 50M passenger-miles, then it is 100 dollars per pax-mile, a much better tradeoff.
  - alephnerd 3y ago
    > The metric should be passenger-miles, nothing else San Jose to SF (Caltrain) has a yearly ridership of 5.5 Million. Los Angeles to SF has a yearly ridership of 2.2 Million. I don't think you've ever been to California, or at least haven't had to commute recently.
    - 1024core 3y ago
      > I don't think you've ever been to California, or at least haven't had to commute recently. I live in California, chief. You know what they say about making ASSumptions? And I was using round numbers to make the calculations easier and the point easier to understand.

alephnerd 3y ago

The money spent on that long distance alternate transport can be better spent enhancing existing short distance transport. There is a finite pool of money that can be spent on infrastructure. Investing on enhancing and integrating the Capitol Corridor, ACE, Caltrains, BART, Muni, and VTA into a unified system has a better RoI than a 400-500mi rail line that will most likely have a train leaving on an hourly cadence. It's a similar story for Los Angeles and San Diego. Flights cost around $100-200 for a round trip and take around 3 hours even factoring in security and commute to and from the airport. It would be the same length of time commuting from a railway station to the other, the railway would take 2 additional hours, and the price would be roughly comparable.

1024core 3y ago
> The money spent on that long distance alternate transport can be better spent enhancing existing short distance transport. > There is a finite pool of money that can be spent on infrastructure. Exactly. The metric should be passenger-miles, nothing else. That is the most useful metric. If spending $100B on SF to LA (400mi) impacts 1M passengers per year, then that's 400M passenger-miles, or 250 dollars per pax-mile. But if spending $5B on (say) SF to SJ (50mi) impacts 1M passengers per year, which is 50M passenger-miles, then it is 100 dollars per pax-mile, a much better tradeoff.
- alephnerd 3y ago
  > The metric should be passenger-miles, nothing else San Jose to SF (Caltrain) has a yearly ridership of 5.5 Million. Los Angeles to SF has a yearly ridership of 2.2 Million. I don't think you've ever been to California, or at least haven't had to commute recently.
  - 1024core 3y ago
    > I don't think you've ever been to California, or at least haven't had to commute recently. I live in California, chief. You know what they say about making ASSumptions? And I was using round numbers to make the calculations easier and the point easier to understand.