So far, it seems to be causing people to leave the state in droves. Which means that, a decade or two down the road, California is basically going to be in the same position as Detroit: huge debts, unattractive to businesses due to entrenched idiocracy leadership, can’t raise taxes because they’re already higher than people can afford, and basically out of options.
High speed lines aren’t just about the end points. The Acela runs from Boston to Washington, D.C., but I don’t know how many people take it from end-to-end.[sup]*[/sup] Over that distance, it’s probably faster to fly. But lots of shorter trips are possible; Boston-Providence, Providence-New Haven, Boston-New Haven, etc. Boston-New York and New York-Washington probably draw the most passengers.
A Seattle-San Diego line would have a section from Sacramento to Portland that’s pretty sparsely populated. I don’t think you have enough passengers on that stretch to be worth it; anybody making that trip, or longer, would probably fly. Same thing with east coast to west coast; the long gaps with very few people, and a faster alternative, means there wouldn’t be enough riders to be worth the money to build it.
At least for now. We’re still living with infrastructure, like the Boston subway or the Brooklyn Bridge, that’s more than a hundred years old. We should be planning our new infrastructure for the future, too. I wouldn’t build a San Diego-to-Seattle high speed rail yet, but I’d encourage California and Washington to build to a common standard so different systems could someday be linked if makes sense to do so.
- Travelling from train station to train station, or airport to airport, isn’t the whole story. Cities with successful high-speed rail usually offer an easy connection to the local public transit. Boston and Washington both have airports that are close to the city, with easy connections to transit, so that takes away from what would otherwise be an advantage for rail.
I’m not sure it’s a good comparison though, based on the assumption that HSR would take a position somewhere in between travel by plane and driving your own car, at least for trips that can be made in 12 hours or less. Megabus can’t really do that effectively, while HSR may prove to be very competitive with air travel on account of the time it now takes to get through inspection at the airport.
BART does go down to SFO although you do have to board a separate airport train that takes you to the terminals. Metrorail doesn’t quite reach LAX, you have to ride to Aviation Station then transfer to a free airport shuttle. I understand they’re working on an all-rail airport connection, but it probably won’t matter much until the Crenshaw Corridor project comes on line.
Another difference is that BART is a single integrated heavy rail system including subway sections in SF itself with the same trains and tracks running above ground in the more suburban areas. In L.A. the HRT and LRT trains don’t have this flexibility.
OK, so I am nudging this zombie since there is news. Groundbreaking ceremony was held last week and it looks like they are starting to build… something …
I love how the start of the article presents a problem for the writer:
*My plan was to go to Fresno to cover it. As an Angeleno, I had two options.
The first was a flight. An hour to the airport on standstill freeways; an hour to get to my gate; an hour or so in the air. Maybe some delays. A rental car on the other end. And then the whole ordeal in reverse. Ticket price? At least $661.
The second option was driving. Three and a half hours to Fresno; three and a half hours back. Four hundred thirty extra miles on the odometer. Seventeen gallons of gas. An entire workday wasted on the road. All to attend an hourlong event.
And so when I found out the festivities were being live-streamed online, I did what any sensible Californian would do: I stayed in L.A. and watched from the comfort of my own laptop.*
Aaaaand, (emphasis mine) by 2029 I would expect that there will be even more technology embraced to reduce the justification of people making such journeys for an hour-long meeting.
Looks like the project is going ahead, even with doubts about everything from construction costs, funding, ridership, speed, etc. IMHO this project still has far too many risks that have not been adequately addressed, backers have painted too rosy a picture of the benefits, and the project is still a bad idea. But, it looks like we will have… something… eventually.
So if the project were done now, the reporter could make it from LA to Fresno cheaply and quickly. Still would have to rent a car at one end. But, absent weekly ceremonies like this one, why would anyone want to go from LA to Fresno in the first place? To reuse the immortal words of Gertrude Stein, “There is no there there.”
The Fresno Metro area is home to a million people. It’s the 5th largest city in CA and #34 in the nation.
I don’t know how many Angelenos want to go there, but I’m guessing plenty of people from Fresno have business in LA.
Whether the project is a good idea or not, that strikes me as pretty damn lazy reporting.
I think the reporter was trying to make a point about why the train is needed, but (in my mind) only made a better point as to why it is not needed.
Be as it may, I know several local reporters who cover local events by TV or YouTube posting for the same reason, and they would only have a few miles to drive. Not only does this save them the transportation hassle, but they can fast-forward or repeat important segments in the event, something that is impossible when live. They say it makes them more productive, thankyew.
And a flight would be quicker and cheaper.
Quicker door to door?
On what basis do you come to this conclusion? Can we not compete with what other countries are already doing?
When I travel around Japan the bullet train and flight prices are competitive, as the distance increases the the rail tends to be cheaper but it does get to be slower. Time wise when it comes to travel the bullet trains tend to be faster because you don’t need to go through security or check bags. Their biggest advantage is they put you where you want to be in the center of the city. The airports are all some distance from the center of the cities so you lose a lot of time taking a cab, bus or light rail. By air you’re 30-60 minutes outside of the city on each end.
As a comparison LA to Fresno is 220 miles a cheap flight would be 214USD and take about an hour. There is no high speed rail option.
Tokyo to Sendai is 227 miles.
By air 1hour 10 minutes costing 170USD
By Train 2hours 30 minutes costing 97USD
If we are racing from the center of Tokyo to the center of Sendai I’d take the train no question. I’d be there and have time to grab dinner and check into my before someone taking a flight has landed.
Because both LA and Fresno’s airports are reasonable close to their downtown’s so time wise it is a bit more competitive. Cost wise it’s looking like the airline ticket would be 75% more.
1)HSR wont be completed for 15 years
2)We have no idea what ticket pricing will be as the project is already massively over-budget and the employees will be government workers
3)I doubt a trip from Fresno to LA will be non-stop.
4)HSR is going to destroy some pristine areas i n SoCal rather than follow the 5 or the 101
- The Tokyo to Sendai is not an express so the total time includes a half dozen stops along the way.
You may have some valid criticisms but those don’t address what I or even were commenting on.
Many of the Japanese rail project have run over budget nor are the Jrail workers making slave wages but they’ve still man aged to create a massive rail system that can get you places for less than airlines.
Why is the assumption the US will fail when it comes to high speed rail? If other countries can manage it why can’t we?
I think my home state of California would be much better off spending the money on maintaining our deteriorating highway system and planning for the change-over to automated cars, trucks and buses. My opinion from two years ago remains unchanged Trains are an enormous expense in running and maintaining. Private enterprise has already invested heavily in air transport and private buses, and having to compete with a subsidized train system beyond the little we already have is a poor use of funds.
My view of the future is that in 10 years time virtually all new cars will drive themselves on the freeways and mapped city streets, if not everywhere, and computer controls and networking will allow cars to follow a few inches apart, tripling capacity on major freeways.
We already have an extensive network of HOV lanes, and buses following within inches of each other would make what are effectively trains in HOV lanes that can add or drop buses as needed, and navigate around obstacles. Tracked trains and light rails cannot effectively move out of the way if there is a breakdown. Traditional roads will be far superior except for the truly long hauls, in which case the airplane will still be quicker and cheaper. Especially if state can get some legislation passed to prioritize larger planes doing commute shuttle work among the big cities.
Nm
So your complaint is actually a bunch of other things? Have you ever been on a high speed train? If not, what exactly do you know about the rider experience?
There are plenty of criticisms of this project, but the argument that high speed trains are not fast and convenient is not one of them. People who live with and use high speed trains are pretty unanimous on this.
Using this argument only undermines your point, because they make you look like you are just stubbornly resistant to something that is new to you, rather than making a reasoned argument.
I haven’t read the thread; just responding to the title.
AIUI, the line will go between L.A. and San Francisco. I suppose some people will ride it, but when I lived in L.A. nobody I knew ever went to San Francisco. I think it would make more sense to have a high-speed rail line from L.A. to Las Vegas. Everybody goes to Las Vegas. Given the rivalry between Southern California and Central Coast California though, it wouldn’t be political.
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Healthcare, secularization, minding one’s own business internationally, firearm violence, sex education, other forms of mass transit, renewable energy, multilingualism in a few cases, teaching evolution, military spending commensurate with actual threats, family planning, and so on.
If other countries can manage all of that, why can’t the US?
Of course there are indeed caveats and concerns about this project, but its greatest foe is the intransigence and petulance of so many of today’s conservatives, who (often vocally and openly) hate trains, hate cities, hate anything that might help the environment, hate anything that seems to imitate a foreign country, and aggressively seek to undermine such measures and make them fail.
Roads are also generally subsidised, right - both in build and maintenance?
The train is just beautiful and relaxing; good seat space, city centre to city centre, great views, plenty of room to walk - airports and airplanes are just stressful