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Even if CAHSR is built as planned (I have my doubts about that) it won't be practical for people to live in the Central Valley and commute to the Bay Area for w

by nradov 1y ago

Even if CAHSR is built as planned (I have my doubts about that) it won't be practical for people to live in the Central Valley and commute to the Bay Area for work. It will just take too long to drive to the local rail station, ride to one of the three planned Bay Area stations, and then transfer to some other public transit to get to work. https://hsr.ca.gov/communications-outreach/maps/ https://hsr.ca.gov/communications-outreach/maps/ What we ought to do is encourage more economic development and business growth in the Central Valley instead of trying to cram more and more stuff into the Bay Area. The infrastructure there is already overloaded, and it's geographically constrained by water and mountains.

gedy 1y ago
Yeah if they had really wanted to help commuters, HSR should have been built down the 101 corridor on the central coast, not the central valley..
- wahern 1y ago
  A quick look at a topographic map of California suggests HSR through the Central Coast would be significantly more expensive, especially the southern half. Moreover, the Central Valley has more than 3x the population and significantly more land available for expansion, presumably in large part because of the topography. Also, I believe there are more Federal forest lands a Central Coast route would have to get through, which in retrospect might have proven a fatal choice. Paralleling I-5 seems like a much stronger argument, though I'm not sure that would have been better and it may have never gotten off the ground at all. For one thing, Stockton, Fresno, and Bakersfield might not have supported CAHSR if it bypassed them. But also, AFAIU, Federal funding was contingent on following the routes laid out in the national high-speed rail plan drawn up in the 1990s, and the recommended California line went through the big Central Valley cities. What's really held back CAHSR has been the law suits and related dithering (e.g. environmental reviews more prolonged because of the expected law suits). That sapped momentum, and momentum is everything; time is money. That loss of momentum also means CAHSR is having a much harder time getting over the humps, literally (tunneling through the mountains) and figuratively (financial support for the tunneling). If construction had proceeded as fast as it has in most other countries, people wouldn't be perennially debating the chosen CAHSR route.

by nradov 1y ago

gedy 1y ago

Yeah if they had really wanted to help commuters, HSR should have been built down the 101 corridor on the central coast, not the central valley..

wahern 1y ago
A quick look at a topographic map of California suggests HSR through the Central Coast would be significantly more expensive, especially the southern half. Moreover, the Central Valley has more than 3x the population and significantly more land available for expansion, presumably in large part because of the topography. Also, I believe there are more Federal forest lands a Central Coast route would have to get through, which in retrospect might have proven a fatal choice. Paralleling I-5 seems like a much stronger argument, though I'm not sure that would have been better and it may have never gotten off the ground at all. For one thing, Stockton, Fresno, and Bakersfield might not have supported CAHSR if it bypassed them. But also, AFAIU, Federal funding was contingent on following the routes laid out in the national high-speed rail plan drawn up in the 1990s, and the recommended California line went through the big Central Valley cities. What's really held back CAHSR has been the law suits and related dithering (e.g. environmental reviews more prolonged because of the expected law suits). That sapped momentum, and momentum is everything; time is money. That loss of momentum also means CAHSR is having a much harder time getting over the humps, literally (tunneling through the mountains) and figuratively (financial support for the tunneling). If construction had proceeded as fast as it has in most other countries, people wouldn't be perennially debating the chosen CAHSR route.