4 ms·
> LA to Vegas would rival the distance of the longest European high speed lines, but with many fewer stops between and a fraction of the passengers between. Ma
by rafram 1y ago
> LA to Vegas would rival the distance of the longest European high speed lines, but with many fewer stops between and a fraction of the passengers between.
Many fewer stops: that's a good thing. A fraction of the passengers? No, that's absolutely false. Brightline estimates 50 million trips between LA and Vegas every year [1], which is more than, for example, the total number of tourists to Paris every year.
> their population skews to one massive metropolitan center
Japan, sure, being a long and skinny group of islands definitely helps. But is that actually true of Europe? Germany has a great high-speed rail network (current on-time performance issues aside) with a very pluricentric population.
[1]: https://www.brightlinewest.com/overview/project#:~:text=Today%2C%20nearly%2050%20million%20annual,million%20one%2Dway%20passengers%20annually. https://www.brightlinewest.com/overview/project#:~:text=Toda...
- legitster 1y agoOn their website, total traffic is 50 million, of which Brightline only anticipates about 9 million riders annually. Their pricing is expected to be over $100 a person one-way: https://www.sfgate.com/travel/article/ticket-prices-leaked-high-speed-rail-california-20059294.php https://www.sfgate.com/travel/article/ticket-prices-leaked-h... So this puts it at pretty low ridership and much higher ticket prices than equivalent lines around the world. (I'm very supportive of the project! It's just worth being realistic about the economics here. My understanding of Germany's high speed network is that it is pretty comparable to the Acela - high speed in certain corridors, reasonably affordable, and dense population along the corridors. Which is pretty realistic goal for parts of the US. But often we compare to France's network which really outperforms nearly every other country outside of Japan.