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California approves final high-speed rail link connecting San Francisco to LA
- xtalx 2y agoThis won’t get done in the next 25 years, if ever.
- deleted 2y ago[deleted]
- jandrese 2y ago[flagged]
- toomuchtodo 2y agoIsn’t that an opportunity to build up new multi use development at a lower cost? Recent HN thread discussed what must come first, mass transit or development for example. In this case, the mass transit can come first, with interconnections to existing higher density mass transit systems as needed.
- readthenotes1 2y agoMost places could build a lot of 5+1s for the $128 billion cost. Not so sure California can†. https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-03-11/new-cost-estimate-for-high-speed-rail-puts-california-bullet-train-100-billion-in-the-red https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2023-03-11/new-cost... †https://www.msn.com/en-us/movies/news/high-rise-building-in-la-to-house-homeless-in-600-000-units/ar-BB1oNikN https://www.msn.com/en-us/movies/news/high-rise-building-in-...
- HPsquared 2y agoIt's a lot more profitable (in the good way) to build the rails and stations first, on cheap land, and have the cities grow around those. The builders of the railway get to capture the increased land value, rather than having to buy (or otherwise pay off) huge uninterrupted tracts of very expensive developed land containing thousands of homes etc. Buy low, sell high and all that.
- renewiltord 2y ago[flagged]
- petesergeant 2y agoTangentially, one of my big hopes of this upcoming election in the UK is that Labour get a big enough majority in parliament that they can force through a lot of infrastructure projects with minimal process. We could have a golden age again where parliament pass individual acts supporting simplified processes for HS2, a third Heathrow runway, etc, given the upcoming super-majority
- pestatije 2y agothird Heathrow runway?...say that often and loud enough and your Labour majority goes up in smoke
- ducttapecrown 2y agohttps://hsr.ca.gov/2024/06/27/news-release-california-high-speed-rail-authority-board-clears-final-environmental-milestone-to-connect-downtown-san-francisco-to-downtown-los-angeles/ https://hsr.ca.gov/2024/06/27/news-release-california-high-s... https://www.buildhsr.com/ https://www.buildhsr.com/
- fuzzythinker 2y agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_High-Speed_Rail https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_High-Speed_Rail
- Invictus0 2y ago$100 billion for 463 miles of track is outrageous, and that's surely to double by the time it's completed. In 1964, Japan was able to build its 320 mile long Shinkansen from Tokyo to Osaka in just 5 years for less than $12B, inflation adjusted.
- bsimpson 2y agoNew York has the most famous mafia, but it does seem like Americans have just accepted that all our urban infrastructure construction is rife with corruption. See also the Central Subway in SF, the Big Dig in Boston, and the general perception that anything infrastructure related will cost infinity dollars and approximately never be completed.
- pokepim 2y agoAmerican exceptionalism
- lazide 2y agoIt’s largely a factor of all this being ‘nice to have’, no one having a reason to cut through the BS, combined with an outrage driven media/culture. Because let’s be serious - California doesn’t actually need high speed rail. No one sane wants, or needs, to rock the boat - especially since doing so just gets a giant eye of Sauron pointed at them. Extra bonus? Turning the crank endlessly on this while everyone complains gets them rich.
- 0_____0 2y agoDo we really need airports? Or paved roads for that matter? Hell, Vermont gets by just fine with dirt roads, and they're better to drive on than many roads in CA. Also HSR is something that a large contingent of people in CA have been kvetching about for decades, not sure your "everyone is afraid to say anything" holds water here.
- throwawaymaths 2y ago
- oldpersonintx 2y ago[dead]
- handelaar 2y agohttps://archive.is/D6LT5 https://archive.is/D6LT5
- twelvechairs 2y agoOf course what they should do to fund it is what they figured out in Hong Kong or Singapore decades ago. Have government requisition land around stations and redevelop it as high density towers and profit on the sales.
- givemeethekeys 2y agoWouldn't they have to confiscate the land first?
- throwup238 2y agoCaltrans would buy it the land this case. They've got a pretty significant real estate portfolio that they've acquired for a variety of projects over the decades. One random house I think they still own is Julia Child's childhood home in Pasadena.
- givemeethekeys 2y agoI imagine the price of land thats going to be rezoned into residential would be much higher than land thats marked for transportation.
- twelvechairs 2y agoIf you dont want government to compulsorily purchase land first, you can also do "value capture" which is in essence saying "anything developed to the new planning controls needs to pay money based on the difference between old and new controls". The economics is quite simple for developers to cost in but it needs to be there early, not imposed after all the developers have bought land without factoring it in.
- nothercastle 2y agoIt’s better and more transparent if done early but later is better than never
- johnea 2y agoFor anyone who's used high speed railin Japan, Europe or China knows how much more efficient it is than flying. It really is sad just how hard it is to build anything in the US at this point. As a San Diego resident, it's also sad that it was a state representative from San Diego that first introduced this idea to the state legislature, and yet now, San Diego has been dropped from the planned route. 8-(
- ghaff 2y agoIt really depends. I try to train in Europe when time and price aren’t overriding considerations but flying is often faster/cheaper over any real distance—especially between countries.
- vondur 2y agoI doubt it will ever be completed. If they can at least linkup the Bakersfield area with SoCal that would be a win. There are a lot of people commuting between the LA area and Bakersfield.
- readyman 2y ago[dead]
- fuzzythinker 2y agoI would welcome this when I was traveling between LA & SF many years ago. I drove to Bakersfield to catch the Caltrain that takes me to Oakland. May not be a reason for many as the Caltrains weren't that packed.
- BobaFloutist 2y agoThey might be busier if they can take a high speed train directly between Bakersfield and LA, though.
- RichardCA 2y agoIf they succeed in getting it through the Tehachapi's, it will be a civil engineering feat without precedent in California history. I am not holding my breath that it will come in 10 years, or even in my lifetime.
- rubiquity 2y agoI might be fairly cynical but after recent public infrastructure massive bids and failures it seems obvious this will result in $100B of wealth transfer from the public to the private for 0 miles of rail.
- issa 2y agoThis doesn't seem like that cynical of a take at all. The US is terrible at infrastructure projects. I feel like you would never go wrong betting against them. Or at least betting that they take 10x the time and cost than predicted.
- parineum 2y agoThe initial bill for HSR was one of the first things I remember voting on. If I recall correctly, it was a bond for 8b dollars. I voted against it because I had extreme doubts that would be the end of it. If it actually cost $8B, I would have supported it.
- joenot443 2y agoThe Brightline rail in Florida which connects Miami to Orlando began construction in 2014 had its first service in 2018 and full route in 2023. I took it last year, it was just fine. I’ve begun to see that sometimes the private sector can be much, much better at managing these infrastructure projects than the State of California .
- dehrmann 2y agoThere's a strong argument that the money would have been more effective on local mass transit projects since they'd see more immediate use and are easier to complete.
- anamax 2y agoDoes the predicted revenues (predicted fare * predicted ridership) exceed the interest on the bonds? I ask because it didn't in previous iterations.
- kylehotchkiss 2y agoIs this like a perpetual approval or does it expire in 5 years and have to get a new environmental review? My understanding of this project so far is that it will need 2 more democrat presidents with infrastructure bills to get 78% funded and somehow we’ll figure out the other 22% later or have japans sovereign wealth fund foot the bill
- 39896880 2y agoThe sad thing is, I can't tell if this is a joke.
- kylehotchkiss 2y agoI’m being snarky but Japan does support other countries railroad projects (like how they loaned Delhi Metro) which is how they can get the projects done, so maybe it could work for us too
- smittywerben 2y agoI'm on board with Japan doing it.
- csomar 2y agoFinancing is different from doing it. Also, from my country’s experience they usually give loans (and are not a partner/owner); so they don’t really care about the project outcome.
- anotheruser13 2y agoJR Central is partnering with the people that want to build a bullet train from Dallas to Houston. We'll see if it ever happens. I'm hoping so!
- kylehotchkiss 2y agoThat seems like such a great route. I’m not as familiar with the area but I’m presuming the land acquisition part won’t be too bad?
- rmason 2y agoHave they ever defined what 'high speed' means? I well remember travelling to Florida in the nineties when motels offering 'high speed Internet' meant they had high speed modem dial up in each room. In Japan and China they have trains running in excess 0f 250 mph. In America the only train I know over 100 mph is the Acela which runs from Washington D.C. to New York City. Although they are promising that Acela will go 150 mph sometime in the future. France had trains going over 150 mph in the seventies when I was first there.
- gabruoy 2y agoYes. In fact California defining how fast their high speed rail must go is part of what put them in their current situation because they aimed too high when no one in the USA has ever built anything like what they are trying to do. In their own legislation for the project the train must have a top speed of over 200 miles per hour and must go from LA to San Fransisco in 2 hours and 40 minutes, which necessitates an average speed of over 150 miles per hour.
- ac29 2y agoIf they went with a more modest goal of 250kph (155mph) maximum speed (Class I HSR), it almost certainly would have been easier and cheaper to build. The problem with that is that the Bay Area -> LA times would have been 4+ hours which would have been a pretty hard sell vs flying or even driving.
- shiroiushi 2y agoI'm sorry, but most of what you wrote here is wrong. First, Japan doesn't have any (operational) trains going 250mph. The Tokaido shinkansen between Tokyo and Osaka has a top speed of 300kph, which is 186mph. The Tohoku line in north Japan reaches 320kph (200mph) according to Wikipedia, and this seems to be the fastest in the country (I haven't ridden that one myself, but I have ridden the Tokaido multipel times and verified its speed with a GPS speedometer app.). The new maglev Chuo shinkansen, when it's open for service in 10 years, will go 505kph (314mph). China does have some maglev train currently; I can't be bothered to look up its max speed, but it's a short line that just goes to that city's airport. It's not a long-distance train line, really more of a demo. America has at least 2 trains that go over 100mph: the Acela, which runs from DC to Boston (not NYC), and the Northeast Regional, which runs on the same route on the same tracks. The Northeast Regional hits a max speed of 125mph, and the Acela hits 150mph. The catch is, these trains only hit their max speeds for somewhat brief durations on certain parts of the line (mainly between Philly and Newark NJ), so their average speeds are actually rather lousy because in other places they have to slow down a lot because the track sucks, the tunnels are a century old, there's a cargo train in the way, etc. If the US built an all-new track (with new tunnels where needed) between DC and Boston, they could use the exact same trains they use now and have much, much faster average speeds, but they really don't want to do that. Finally, there is a definition in the US for "high speed rail", and the Acela meets that definition because its max speed is pretty high. (Of course, the definition completely ignores average speed.)
- 999900000999 2y agoI voted for the initial 10 billion bond many many years ago. It's amazing how long it's taken, how does a train take over a decade ? Even just high speed from Bakersfield to LA would help tons of people. There's no reason we can't have high speed throughout the nation. Imagine taking a train from LA to NYC in 30 hours. Too many pockets to line...
- erikpukinskis 2y ago> * Imagine taking a train from LA to NYC in 30 hours.* Who is the customer for that ticket?
- defrost 2y agoPeople who can't spare 72 hours to travel on The Ghan ? Long train journeys are a thing for some- with a private car there's also the appeal of views out the window while working on a script | program | report and having a car on a transport flat behind. Not for everyone, but there are customers.
- shrubble 2y agoI have flown from Pensacola to Rochester, MN and it basically takes almost a day with plane changes, delays etc. 1000 miles distance. With a delayed flight it was 17 hours, I could almost have driven that distance by car in the same elapsed time. With security and other hassles you basically burn a day in flight; so 30 hours NY/LA and being able to sleep, have high speed Internet, make normal phone calls, move around a bit, and eat (hopefully) normal food would not really cost any more time.
- thunkshift1 2y agoWhy cant they start a daily airbus between the two cities. It will most certainly cost less and adoption can be evaluated before putting in massive costs
- TrapLord_Rhodo 2y agoWhy do we keep trying to import european/chinese ideas and force them to fit the american mode. LA has plenty of transit options, trains and buses that never get used... Americans hate public transportation and no one ever uses them even when they are built. Why does the government keep trying to do these giant infrastructure projects that puts billions of dollars in the pockets of consultants and have very little chance of completing on time and on budget? Why does socialism keep creeping into every inch of our republic? Leave these ideas to private industry which is proven to be more efficient over and over again....
- drtgh 2y agoIMHO, those distances of 463 miles (745 Km) seem more suitable for maglev trains, which I imagine would put those cities at a distance of around 3 hours, including wait times at station to board. By airplane, I imagine the total time from Los Angeles airport to San Francisco airport, including wait times to board and latter to pick up luggage, may be around 4 hours? Just crossed my mind quickly, I did not made numbers.
- kylehotchkiss 2y agoIf LA could just make their existing SLOW heavy trains go to the airport (Amtrak/Metrolink/SD's Coaster), an incredible amount of traffic could be reduced. I live in SD and would like to take LAX more often, but the closest station is Union Station and a bus ride or uber is required between the two, which limits viability. LA metro rail leaves a lot to be desired safety wise.