17 ms·

It was approved by a ballot measure, so in this case it may be the "idiocy" (or will) of the voter. http://ballotpedia.org/wiki/index.php/California_Propositio

• mcintyre1994 13y ago
  I'm not from the area, so I don't know how such a ballot works but for voters who didn't have Musk-level engineering knowledge, was the choice the status quo of not fast trains and spending on fast trains?
  • pxtang 13y ago
    IIRC, the choice was between no trains and a train. I think a lot of people voted for it so they had a cheaper alternative than planes and a less time/effort intensive alternative than driving.
    • dice 13y ago
      Also because fuck the TSA.
      • Maxious 13y ago
        Too late: http://www.seattlepi.com/technology/businessinsider/article/The-TSA-Is-Expanding-Its-Reach-Far-Beyond-Airport-4713030.php http://www.seattlepi.com/technology/businessinsider/article/... > If you don't want to be searched at the train station, you have the freedom to not ride the train.
        • kamjam 13y ago
          I wonder what the security checkpoints would be like on the HyperLoop if it ever got built? They are saying capsules could depart 30 seconds apart. Imagine is there was an attack in on of them, with several others travelling at high speed just behind. http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23677205 http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-23677205 I'm sure there some contingency has been thought of, unfortunately it's just the world we live in these days :(
          • gizmo686 13y ago
            Forget about an attack. The system would need to be robust against simple malfunctions which could also result in a massive pile-up.
          • adventured 13y ago
            This system would seem very weak to criminals / terrorists / whatever firing bullets at it. It would be exceptionally difficult to track where the shot/s came from, and it would cause serious pressure problems.
            • alexeisadeski3 13y ago
              As opposed to aircraft sitting on the tarmac, which are not subject to such problems?
              • jfoster 13y ago
                Aircraft sitting on the tarmac doesn't have to take off if it has been shot at. In the process of taking off could be more of a problem, I suppose. On the other hand, at least airports are a relatively small area to keep secure.
                • alexeisadeski3 13y ago
                  Presumably the Hyperloop isn't actually in danger when shot at. The cars just slow down when depressurization occurs. Thought I read that somehow. I responded to concern over the Hyperloop shutting down for hours whilst the damage is repaired. And, if someone fired a few pot shots into a taxing A380 at LAX, I have to imagine that the whole place would be shut down for a few hours.
              • ctdonath 13y ago
                Airplanes leak so much air that a couple more half-inch holes would not affect overall integrity. Most control systems are implemented with redundancy, so taking out a control point would just failover to a backup. Occupants aside, there little such damage could do to an airplane; noting the occupants, worst case is a couple casualties, not loss of everyone on board. And, of course, you could simply choose to not take off. As mhandley noted, Hyperloop might be more susceptible, as the concern is more like your airplane flying an inch off the ground and hitting a stationary large brick. ...which reminds me of an old analogy: Back when large-capacity (ooh! 10MB!) hard drives were becoming common, I recall hearing the comparison that the read head was akin to a 747 traveling Mach 3 just 1 inch off the ground. Perhaps Elon wondered how this might work in real life, and so came up with Hyperloop.
  • cpeterso 13y ago
    The choice was fast trains or no trains.
    • jfb 13y ago
      Well, fast trains or no new trains. It is still technically possible to get on BART in San Francisco and get off from a train in Los Angeles. You wouldn't choose to do this -- nobody would choose to do this [1] -- but it is possible. [1] http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/14/magazine/14Train-t.html?pagewanted=all http://www.nytimes.com/2009/06/14/magazine/14Train-t.html?pa...
      • mcintyre1994 13y ago
        I see, fair enough, cheers for pointing that out. I'm in the UK and we're pretty well connected by rail, I wasn't expecting the alternative to be that ridiculous, just normal slower trains.
        • jfb 13y ago
          Rail in California is sadly a total joke.
        • joshAg 13y ago
          In the US, rail is optimized for freight, not people.
          • jfb 13y ago
            Inasmuch as it's optimized at all.
            • syncsynchalt 13y ago
              We really do have arguably the best freight rail system in the world. http://business.time.com/2012/07/09/us-freight-railroads/ http://business.time.com/2012/07/09/us-freight-railroads/
            • 13y ago
• protomyth 13y ago
  They approved it at a much lower budget ($9.95 billion). It would be interesting for the voters to get another vote based on the current cost projections.
  • ewoodrich 13y ago
    The $9.95 billion was for the initial bond issuance. The estimate on the ballot was $40 billion versus the current estimate of between $98.5 billion and $118 billion. Edit: correction from dragonwriter, via wikipedia [1]: "The cost of the initial San Francisco-to-Anaheim segment was originally estimated by the CHSRA to be $33 billion (2008) / $35.2 billion (2013), but a revised business plan released in November 2011 by the CHSRA put the cost at $65.4 billion (2010) / $68.9 billion (2013) / $98.5 billion (YOE). The latest plan has revised the costs down to $53.4 billion (2011) / $54.5 billion (2013) / $68.4 billion (YOE)." [1] http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_High-Speed_Rail#Funding http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_High-Speed_Rail#Fund...
    • mjn 13y ago
      Those numbers still seem absurd to me. $120 billion? France built the entire TGV network, about 2,000 km (1250 miles, ~2x the length of LA-SF, including numerous stations in urban areas) for around $20-30 billion. Maybe the U.S. should borrow some management practices from inefficient socialist "old Europe".
      • pbreit 13y ago
        Uh, the number above is $70b and the TGV was built 30+ years ago so you could at least double that number based on inflation.
        • mjn 13y ago
          Even the most expensive TGV lines, have a per-km cost of around $20m/km in present dollars, and that's high enough to cause controversy. The bulk of the network was built for prices of $2-4m/km at the time, which is about $3-5.5m/km if you adjust for inflation. For a 700-km line like SF-LA, even the $20m outlier cost would work out to only $14 billion. Where's the 8x multiplier coming from? No TGV line has cost >$100m/km, or even close, in 2013 dollars. I am not sure any line in the world has cost that much, even in inhospitable terrain like China's high-speed rail in Tibet, or Japan's high-speed rail through the mountains.
• afriesh123 13y ago
  BTW - the link disproves your point somewhat - voters approved a $10bn train, which is now expected to cost over 10x that. Brings into question what exactly they approved, or what it means to "approve" if there is no cost control in the approval.
  • ewoodrich 13y ago
    I don't have a point really, I'm just saying this was a publicized ballot measure at the time and not carried out against the voters' will. And as I said in above comment, the $9.95 billion was for the initial bond issuance. The estimate on the ballot was $40 billion versus the current estimate of between $98.5 billion and $118 billion.
    • dragonwriter 13y ago
      > The estimate on the ballot was $40 billion versus the current estimate of between $98.5 billion and $118 billion. The estimate from the current Business Plan is $68.4 billion, not "between $98.5 and $118 billion."
      • twoodfin 13y ago
        They call it a "Business Plan"? That's rich!
• qohen 13y ago
  It's interesting that in Jun 2012, voters might've voted differently if asked again [1]: In fact, some of the highest resistance to the high-speed rail project that would run from L.A. to the Bay Area comes from Angelenos, according to new data released over the weekend by the USC Dornsife / Los Angeles Times Poll: About 56 percent of would-be voters in L.A. County would say no to the train if allowed to vote on it again; 37 percent would be in favor. In San Francisco the train would win 47-45. About 66 percent of Central Valley voters were opposed to the train, which would run through their farm region. Statewide, if a re-vote on the train were allowed, 59 percent of would-be voters would say no; only 33 percent would give reaffirm it. About 55 percent of statewide voters said they'd be down for a re-vote. The article later goes on to state: The biggest problem for this train is timing -- California is facing another crushing budget deficit and a stalling economic recovery. Dan Schnur, director of the poll: Californians aren't necessarily against the idea of high-speed rail. But they don't want to spend all that money right now, and they don't trust the state to make the trains run on time. [1] http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/2012/06/california_bullet_train_opposed_voters_poll_usc_high_speed_rail.php http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/2012/06/california_bullet...
• ajays 13y ago
  (I voted against it) In the ballot, they claimed a cost of $45B. But after the measure passed, the cost ballooned to $98B (yes, you read that correctly). Then, after howls of protest, the cost now is $68B.