The liberals $43 billion train to no where...

[Doc Savage Fan]

Banned? Banned?! Interesting.

But the audience includes anyone else. I just wasted my time trying to reason with a chucklehead. I waste a lot of time, and owe none to anyone. Anyway, just as good as an exercise to clarify my thoughts about it. I've seen so much drivel from the local chucklehead club in the paper that I've failed to follow the issue closely before. I remained indifferent; it made an interesting whipping-boy for the local-right's ire, directed at state-government, Brown and the federal-level. So this has helped me shift a bit.

Usually, a project as big as the bullet-train will have all sorts of miscalculations in the planning of it. We only come out of the last decade with a similar debacle pertaining to the local I-215, state 60 and state 91 highway rebuild here in So-Cal Riv-county. I only advocate keener attention to those details.

LATER: Oh. I see. I thought I was responding to the same person. "Drako," "Profjohn."

I need some more coffee. In a way, Drako was almost right.

No problem. I just thought you would want to know.

 

[Meghan54]

Sounds just like Trump and his campaign promises about his Precious.....the Maginot Line he so desperately wants; his lies about who pays, its cost and effectiveness be damned. But I'm sure you'll hold Trump's feet to the fire just like you're doing for Brown, right?

Hahahahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaa!

The High Speed Rail Proposition A was passed in 2008, the only reason it succeeded was because then Attorney General Jerry Brown, who is in charge of all ballot measures, allowed the proponents of High Speed Rail to lie about the cost, lie about how long it would take to build, lie about how fast it would be and even lie about where it was going to be located.
If he had done his duty and made the authors of the Proposition tell the truth, it never would have been approved by the voters.

 

[brandonbull]

The High Speed Rail Proposition A was passed in 2008, the only reason it succeeded was because then Attorney General Jerry Brown, who is in charge of all ballot measures, allowed the proponents of High Speed Rail to lie about the cost, lie about how long it would take to build, lie about how fast it would be and even lie about where it was going to be located.
If he had done his duty and made the authors of the Proposition tell the truth, it never would have been approved by the voters.

I'm kinda glad that Gov Scott of FL turned down the $$$ for the project.

 

[imported_tajmahal]

Sounds just like Trump and his campaign promises about his Precious.....the Maginot Line he so desperately wants; his lies about who pays, its cost and effectiveness be damned. But I'm sure you'll hold Trump's feet to the fire just like you're doing for Brown, right?

Hahahahahahahahahahaaaaaaaaa!

Do you mean his campaign promise that people will say Merry Christmas again? #3 on the list. The #1? I'm still waiting for it, we'll see, but so far he's ahead of the high speed rail by 8 years.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news...any-campaign-promises/?utm_term=.e5f290db46f7

 

[feralkid]

There are only a few cities where HSR might be practical. People forget that the US doesn't have the population density of all the awesome utopias that they fantasize about.

Not a well thought out argument.
We have much high population density than the days when almost every city in America was connected by passenger rail.

 

[imported_tajmahal]

Not a well thought out argument.
We have much high population density than the days when almost every city in America was connected by passenger rail.

All you have to do to return to the glory days of train travel is to remove the peoples choice of air travel and make it harder to drive their own vehicles. Authoritarian in action.

 

[Thebobo]

All you have to do to return to the glory days of train travel is to remove the peoples choice of air travel and make it harder to drive their own vehicles. Authoritarian in action.

 

[Drako]

LATER: Oh. I see. I thought I was responding to the same person. "Drako," "Profjohn."

I need some more coffee. In a way, Drako was almost right.

LOL, I'm always right.

 

[ElFenix]

i dunno about the density argument. you're not connecting everyone with everywhere. you're connecting generally large metros with other large metros. texas central railway wants to start by connecting houston to dallas. that's a metro with 6 million being connected to a metro with 6.5 million. distance is about 225 miles. so that's 12.5 million people connected at about 55,500 persons per mile of track.

lets compare the tgv system. paris is huge by itself at 12.5 million, but no city it connects to in france is anywhere near that big. the second largest area is lyon, at 2.2 millon. so that's 15 million people connected, at a distance of about 280 miles. that's 53,500 people per mile of track. so that's lower than houston to dallas.

marseille is about 1.9 million another 170 miles on down. lets throw in valence and avignon on that line for about 2.1 million. that's 48,000 per mile of track. again, lower than houston to dallas.

at some point you connect over to san antonio and austin which are about 2.4 and 2 million, respectively. houston to SA is about 180 miles, and SA to dallas is about 250 miles, so for about 700 miles of track you've connected metros currently home to about 17 million people, and maybe 20 million by the time they'd get done. lets call it 28,500 people per mile of track connected (and that's it if's a full triangle connection, which it likely won't be, houston to SA probably runs NW to the college station area on the currently planned track, then cuts over to the austin area).

anyway, texas central isn't asking for any state support and is aiming for all private funding*, but shockingly the mouthbreathers in this state are trying to slam the door on it because, well, f--- infrastructure.








*the japanese gov't is probably making loans to finance some of the construction by the japanese firms that are involved, but who gives a crap if the government of japan wants to spend money here?

 

[imported_tajmahal]

It's why we have cars, trucks and planes. Freedom. A return to rail is a return to dependency.

 

[Bitek]

It's why we have cars, trucks and planes. Freedom. A return to rail is a return to dependency.

Good Lord you say some stupid things.

Probably not the talent the parents were hoping for, but hey, you've got to be good at something.

 

[JSt0rm]

ProfJohn (the guy you quoted) was a conservative that was banned a long, long time ago...you might as well be talking to a wall.

was like talking to a wall even when he wasnt banned.

 

[JSt0rm]

All you have to do to return to the glory days of train travel is to remove the peoples choice of air travel and make it harder to drive their own vehicles. Authoritarian in action.

im sure you know next to nothing about traffic management in a major city.

 

[sdifox]

It's why we have cars, trucks and planes. Freedom. A return to rail is a return to dependency.

... No one is holding a gun to your head to force you to take the train. Imagine that, one more option to choose from.

 

[imported_tajmahal]

... No one is holding a gun to your head to force you to take the train. Imagine that, one more option to choose from.

They are holding a gun to my head to force me to pay for it though, imagine that.

 

[imported_tajmahal]

im sure you know next to nothing about traffic management in a major city.

You mean the major cities of Madera and Wasco?

"Contracts have been awarded for the segment from Madera to Wasco, and construction is underway on several bridges."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_High-Speed_Rail

 

[glenn1]

Actually, your cost-benefit factors are the problem with your argument. You're behaving like the myopic businessman, thinking that the project must pay for itself strictly from revenues it gets in fares.

The CA bullet train will completely change the labor-management landscape in the state, with beneficiaries on both sides, but offering advantage to the largest number of individuals. Poor people are limited in their budgets to pay for a journey to work. Suddenly, some poor laborer in the lower central valley or Watts can work in any number of locations that might have been impossible with the automobile, and such workers often cannot even afford their own automobile.

An example of this is the transformation from the old Route 66 of a history that goes back before the Depression, and its replacement by I-40. I-40 offers an economic transformation with better transshipment of goods from coastal break-of-bulk points. It offered business advantages in addition to simply better or greater mobility for travelers and commuters. The old mom-and-pop diners of Route 66 merely relocate and prosper at major truck-stops and fueling points along the interstate.

So you think the poor who are "limited in their ability to pay for a journey to work" are going to be buying tickets on a HSR train? Have you checked the prices on rail travel of any kind in the last few decades? It's not like the system is going to be a low cost leader in the transport space, so why would the poor pay premium prices the system will necessarily charge to cover some but not all of the operating costs. Hell, even the ridiculously optimistic state estimates are projecting the cost of rail fare from Sacramento to the San Joaquin Valley at $54 to $78. Do you think the poor are going to be lining up to spend most of all of what they earn in wages just to get back and forth to work daily? Holy crap, at least if you're going to support this boondoggle at least be honest about it and admit that HSR is a luxury good for tourists and businessmen who can expense the costs. Poor folks sure as hell ain't going to be riding HSR to work.

 

[JSt0rm]

You mean the major cities of Madera and Wasco?

"Contracts have been awarded for the segment from Madera to Wasco, and construction is underway on several bridges."
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/California_High-Speed_Rail

I could explain things to you but it wouldn't matter.

 

[sdifox]

They are holding a gun to my head to force me to pay for it though, imagine that.

You mean the government is not there to do the infrastructure work it deemed necesary or desirable?

 

[Thebobo]

They are holding a gun to my head to force me to pay for it though, imagine that.

And who is paying for the highways so you can ride your car Truck or Bus YOU!
Who is paying for the airports and air traffic controllers and all the infrastructure YOU!

Imagine that

 

[Puffnstuff]

I'm curious as to how they can justify building this system for other reasons besides money. Everyone who understands high speed rail also understands that there must a minimum of level crossings on the route to prevent high speed collisions between the trains and other vehicles. CA is very congested making this part difficult. Is the proposed route elevated or are the tracks supposed to be at ground level?

Rail infrastructure does last a long time but you do need to maintain it, and CA has earthquakes...

This is the other thing with high speed rail that concerns me. If a quake knocked the tracks just a little bit out of alignment it would derail the train. They would have to use reinforced concrete ties and maybe enhance the track bed to minimize the chances of this happening.

 

[zinfamous]

I'm curious as to how they can justify building this system for other reasons besides money. Everyone who understands high speed rail also understands that there must a minimum of level crossings on the route to prevent high speed collisions between the trains and other vehicles. CA is very congested making this part difficult. Is the proposed route elevated or are the tracks supposed to be at ground level?

This is the other thing with high speed rail that concerns me. If a quake knocked the tracks just a little bit out of alignment it would derail the train. They would have to use reinforced concrete ties and maybe enhance the track bed to minimize the chances of this happening.

It's like CA hasn't had extensive rail systems for the last 150+ years, even with all the earthquakes in that time. It's like Italy, with a far more extensive network of tracks and HSR, and at least the same amount of earthquake activity, hasn't figured this out.

Yeah, let's keep arguing about problems that have never actually been problems

About congestion: CA is congested on major highways, but not so much on surface roads and within the cities. But none of that is relevant--HSR doesn't generally cross congested commuter highways and is typically limited to where it crosses into residential/commercial cities and suburbs. Also, it's not like these things are travelling at 150mph in populated areas. As is the case everywhere else in the world, top speed is achieved only over long stretches of uninterrupted track, away from any type of interference.

It's becoming more and more apparent that the critics of HSR have had little to no experience with this type of system anywhere.

 

[brandonbull]

The facts are that it's going to require a change to the culture of the US for rail to become popular. Wouldn't that mean a retooling of our entire transportation infrastructure? Other countries have 50+ year head start and didn't have a massive investment in roads and cars. It would take trillions of $ to really make rail viable.

 

[zinfamous]

The facts are that it's going to require a change to the culture of the US for rail to become popular. Wouldn't that mean a retooling of our entire transportation infrastructure? Other countries have 50+ year head start and didn't have a massive investment in roads and cars. It would take trillions of $ to really make rail viable.

again, it's not the entire transportation infrastructure. These are for specific metro commuter areas that are already desperately congested. One solution will be robot cars which, quite frankly, would easily eliminate such problems....but then we have the same type of luddites complaining that such a reality will be a disaster!

I actually take the crappy Amtrak every once in a while from NC up to DC and it isn't all that bad, despite the ridiculous time commitment (roughly 7 hours, where the typical drive is 5 hours, plane is about 1.5 hours--not counting airport travel-to-and-wait times). That route is actually rather crowded most of the time, so it isn't like people aren't using the train or somehow think it doesn't exist.

Show people that they can cover the same distance at roughly the same time as flying (when you factor in airport commute times), for comparable or a little cheaper cost, they will adapt. It works everywhere else. It's not like Americans are some monolithic species of human that think and act completely different from any other type of human. Far form it. Perhaps some communities want you to think this way for whatever reason, but after traveling from continent to continent and all over this country, I find such assumptions to be wholly without merit.

 

[glenn1]

again, it's not the entire transportation infrastructure. These are for specific metro commuter areas that are already desperately congested. One solution will be robot cars which, quite frankly, would easily eliminate such problems....but then we have the same type of luddites complaining that such a reality will be a disaster!

I actually take the crappy Amtrak every once in a while from NC up to DC and it isn't all that bad, despite the ridiculous time commitment (roughly 7 hours, where the typical drive is 5 hours, plane is about 1.5 hours--not counting airport travel-to-and-wait times). That route is actually rather crowded most of the time, so it isn't like people aren't using the train or somehow think it doesn't exist.

Show people that they can cover the same distance at roughly the same time as flying (when you factor in airport commute times), for comparable or a little cheaper cost, they will adapt. It works everywhere else. It's not like Americans are some monolithic species of human that think and act completely different from any other type of human. Far form it. Perhaps some communities want you to think this way for whatever reason, but after traveling from continent to continent and all over this country, I find such assumptions to be wholly without merit.

That's the biggest problem with most long haul passenger rail today, the costs aren't equal or cheaper than plane or bus travel for same travel time. The "sale" prices on Amtrak are typically higher than most other transport modes regular prices much less sale prices. For example Megabus RDU-WAS is $39 on Megabus and $57 on Amtrak. For the Northeast Corridor the differences are even more stark - you can get daily Bolt Bus fares for $12 O/W for the WAS-NYC route and at least $49 on Amtrak but more typically the "Saver" fares are sold out and you need to get the "Value" fare which puts you up to ~ $100 each way. It's not like Amtrak typically gets you there much quicker either.