# More election fallout: High-speed rail is coming to California **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 7, 2008, 1:28am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-election-fallout-high-speed-rail-is-coming-to-california/471571 "2008-11-07T01:28:21Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![MarcusF](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/67e7ee/32.png) [@MarcusF](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MarcusF)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2008, 12:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-election-fallout-high-speed-rail-is-coming-to-california/471571/21 "2008-11-07T12:33:22Z")
> [@brazil84](#): > > Putting that aside for the moment, I would ask the following question: Exactly what problem are we trying to solve by building a high speed rail link between southern and northern California? No comment as to whether the make sense but here are the reasons from the [Cal gov site](http://www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/faqs/why.htm) linked to from the OP . > [@](#): > > California’s population is growing rapidly and our economy needs a jumpstart. Unless we find new transportation solutions, traffic will only get worse and airport delays will continue to increase, hindering the economy and eroding California’s quality of life. To serve the same number of travelers as the high-speed train system, California would have to build nearly 3,000 lane-miles of freeway plus five airport runways and 90 departure gates by 2020. With a price tag of at least twice what it would cost to implement the high-speed train system and having much higher environmental impacts. What’s more, the proposed high-speed train system will provide lower passenger costs than for travel by automobile or air for the same city-to-city markets. > [@](#): > > \*\*Benefits of the California High-Speed Train System: \*\* > [ul] > [li]Carrying up to 117 million passengers annually by 2030, with the capacity to also carry high-value, lightweight freight. [/li][li]Meeting the need for a safe and reliable mode of travel at less than half the cost of building more freeways and airport runways and would link the major metropolitan areas of the state and deliver predictable, consistent travel times sustainable over time. [/li][li]Will not require an operating subsidy. [/li][li]Serving tourist and leisure travel, business travel and long-distance commuters over a variety of long, intermediate and relatively short-distance trips (such as Los Angeles to Anaheim, Palmdale, Riverside, San Diego, Fresno, Sacramento and the Bay Area). [/li][li]Sharing rail alignments throughout much of the system will improve joint facilities benefiting safety and operations of existing freight, commuter and conventional passenger rail services. [/li][li]Providing quick, competitive travel times between California’s major intercity markets. [/li][li]Providing door-to-door travel times for longer distance intercity markets that would be comparable to air transportation, and less than one-half as long as automobile travel times. [/li][li]Providing considerably quicker travel times for intermediate intercity trips than either air or automobile transportation, and bringing frequent high-speed train service to many parts of the state that are not well served by air transportation.[/li][li]Providing lower passenger costs than for travel by automobile or air for the same intercity markets. Providing a new intercity, interregional and regional passenger mode—the high-speed train— which would improve mobility, connectivity and accessibility to other existing transit modes and airports compared to the other alternatives. [/li][li]Improving the travel options available in the Central Valley and other areas of the state with limited bus, rail and air service for intercity trips. [/li][li]Providing transportation options in cases of extreme events, such as adverse weather or petroleum shortages. [/li][li]Providing a predominantly separate transportation system that would be less susceptible to many factors influencing reliability such as capacity constraints, congestion and incidents that disrupt service [/li][li]Providing superior on-time reliability. Providing a lower accident and fatality rate than automobile travel. [/li][li]Will avoid over 10,000 auto accidents yearly with their attendant deaths, injuries and property damage when compared to exclusive reliance on highways. [/li][li]Offering greater opportunities to expand service and capacity with minimal expansion of infrastructure. [/li][li]Adding capacity to the state’s transportation infrastructure and reducing traffic on certain intercity highways and around airports to the extent that intercity trips are diverted to the high-speed train system. [/li][li]Eliminating traffic delays at existing at-grade crossings where the high-speed train system would provide grade separation. [/li][li]Using train technology proven to be the safest, most reliable form of transportation known through extensive regular revenue service in Europe and Asia. [/li][li]Expanding airports and highways to meet the intercity travel demands of 2020 would cost two-to-three times more than building the high-speed train system.[/li][/ul] ---
**Author:** ![brazil84](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8491ac/32.png) [@brazil84](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/brazil84)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2008, 12:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-election-fallout-high-speed-rail-is-coming-to-california/471571/22 "2008-11-07T12:41:26Z")
> [@MarcusF](#): > > No comment as to whether the make sense but here are the reasons from the [Cal gov site](http://www.cahighspeedrail.ca.gov/faqs/why.htm) linked to from the OP . Thank you for your answering my question. I’m skeptical about these reasons, but you’ve answered my questions. ---
**Author:** ![wmfellows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c2a13f/32.png) [@wmfellows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wmfellows)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2008, 1:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-election-fallout-high-speed-rail-is-coming-to-california/471571/23 "2008-11-07T13:28:17Z")
> [@Sam\_Stone](#): > > Anyone who thinks the Democrats are the party of fiscal responsibility need only look at California for a counterexample. Don’t be a professional ideological sourpuss, you know bloody well both the American parties in California have been spendthrifts. Bloody hell man… > [@](#): > > This is the state that has been near bankruptcy and has to float emergency bond issues to make payrolls, and not they want to spend a billion or two on high speed rail? > > Let me know when the bankruptcy auction starts. The state capital would make a cool bingo hall. California does seem rather like the least likely place to start with such, if I am familiar with the US demographics enough. Would it not make more sense to try such on the dense East Coast corridor. I recall riding that joke of a “high speed” train between NY and Washington, what ten years ago on a a visit. Utter crap it was. There at least one would think there’d be a reasonable total return on investment. ---
**Author:** ![wmfellows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c2a13f/32.png) [@wmfellows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wmfellows)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2008, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-election-fallout-high-speed-rail-is-coming-to-california/471571/24 "2008-11-07T13:33:10Z")
> [@brazil84](#): > > I’ve always found driving to be faster and more convenient than taking the train. Even if the train runs fast, you still lose a lot of time getting to the train station, waiting around, and getting from the destination station to wherever you are going. Probably true in the US, but not true in dense urban centres. > [@](#): > > Also, it’s worth a lot to be able to leave whenever you want and to be able to throw your stuff in the car rather than pack it up carefully. Especially if you are travelling with children. Eh, now that’s utter bollocks, unless one is a total incompetent at throwing things into a simple rolling bag. > [@](#): > > Anyway, train stations tend to be magnets for beggars, homeless people, thieves, etc. . . . people I would rather not deal with or have my family have to deal with. Ah, America… Oddly one is able to manage such in the entire rest of the civilised world. One does wonder how. Perhaps the labour camps and debtors prisons, eh? > [@](#): > > Putting that aside for the moment, I would ask the following question: Exactly what problem are we trying to solve by building a high speed rail link between southern and northern California? Now this is a proper question, occured to me. Maybe I don’t know California demographics and travel patterns well, but looking at what maps I can find online, this does strain credulity in terms of a good return on investment - even allowing for indirect financial returns. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2008, 2:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-election-fallout-high-speed-rail-is-coming-to-california/471571/25 "2008-11-07T14:59:28Z")
> [@brazil84](#): > > Putting that aside for the moment, I would ask the following question: Exactly what problem are we trying to solve by building a high speed rail link between southern and northern California? There are a **lot** of problems caused by America’s over-dependence on the automobile for transportation, including (1) CO2 emissions; and (2) dependence on petroleum, a finite, nonrenewable resource which must be imported from politically unstable parts of the world and which will shortly pass its all-time global production peak if it hasn’t already; and (3) many more you can read about [here.](http://www.janeholtzkay.com/asphaltnation/index.html) Anything that takes some cars off the highway is a partial solution. See [here.](http://www.newtrains.org/) I recall last time light rail was seriously debated in this county, skeptics were presenting arguments that it does not really solve the problem of “traffic congestion,” which misrepresents the problem, which is not automobile traffic congestion, but automobile traffic, **period.** ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2008, 3:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-election-fallout-high-speed-rail-is-coming-to-california/471571/26 "2008-11-07T15:03:39Z")
> [@wmfellows](#): > > Now this is a proper question, occured to me. Maybe I don’t know California demographics and travel patterns well, but looking at what maps I can find online, this does strain credulity in terms of a good return on investment - even allowing for indirect financial returns. What? You don’t think a lot of people drive cars, now, from LA metro to SF metro and vice versa? ---
**Author:** ![Giles](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/giles/32/60_2.png) [@Giles](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Giles)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2008, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-election-fallout-high-speed-rail-is-coming-to-california/471571/27 "2008-11-07T15:08:37Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > What? You don’t think a lot of people drive cars, now, from LA metro to SF metro and vice versa? There are also a lot of people who fly between the Bay area and the LA region. If rail is fast enough, it can compete with flying over a distance like that, and planes use a lot of fuel. ---
**Author:** ![wmfellows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c2a13f/32.png) [@wmfellows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wmfellows)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2008, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-election-fallout-high-speed-rail-is-coming-to-california/471571/28 "2008-11-07T15:08:45Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > There are a **lot** of problems caused by America’s over-dependence on the automobile for transportation, including (1) CO2 emissions; and (2) dependence on petroleum, a finite, nonrenewable resource which must be imported from politically unstable parts of the world and which will shortly pass its all-time global production peak if it hasn’t already; and (3) many more you can read about [here.](http://www.janeholtzkay.com/asphaltnation/index.html) Anything that takes some cars off the highway is a partial solution. See [here.](http://www.newtrains.org/) Both those ‘cites’ seem to be to partisan publications and don’t truly answer his question. Of course you’re hard Left so you love communalist solutions, without respect to economic rationality. However, the question is what problem does high speed rail in and of itself solve for California? > [@](#): > > I recall last time light rail was seriously debated in this county, skeptics were presenting arguments that it does not really solve the problem of “traffic congestion,” which misrepresents the problem, which is not automobile traffic congestion, but automobile traffic, **period.** That’s not a rational economic argument, that’s a culturalist argument. Is, given the actual, live and established layout of California, rail a realistic item, is specifically high speed rail a useful solution - never mind the bloody hand waving about the evils of cars and how Americans have to do X, Y or Z, but what are the real incentives to success? ---
**Author:** ![wmfellows](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/c2a13f/32.png) [@wmfellows](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/wmfellows)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2008, 3:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-election-fallout-high-speed-rail-is-coming-to-california/471571/29 "2008-11-07T15:16:28Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > What? You don’t think a lot of people drive cars, now, from LA metro to SF metro and vice versa? I do not know that high speed rail will be a cost effective, economically rational choice for Californian commuters, given what I understand is a highly decentralised urban centres system in the LA area. Impressionistically, unlike say the European systems, which I am quite familiar with thank you very much and use myself, the Californian example strikes me as having all the ingrediants of being a massive White Elephant Monument to wishful thinking. Now, I love rail travel, choose it whenever it is effective and efficient. However, when travelling for actual reason, other than for pure pleasure, I always choose the most useful mode - if it is car, it is car. As I know you’re hard extreme Left and prone to extremes of wishful thinking, I am certain you are for every fantastic collective project proposed. I’d suggest for the Californians, a rather less wishful thinking “but we can build solar panels in the bloody desert” type of analysis would be rather more useful. ---
**Author:** ![cckerberos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/f0a364/32.png) [@cckerberos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/cckerberos)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2008, 3:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-election-fallout-high-speed-rail-is-coming-to-california/471571/30 "2008-11-07T15:28:27Z")
> [@riker1384](#): > > Am I the only one who worries about the safety of high-speed rail? It seems like it would be easy for a terrorist, or more likely just some drunk, teenager or psychopath to cause a large accident. All those miles of track, and all someone has to do is park a car or throw a log somewhere in there. How so they prevent that from happening? From [here](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shinkansen): > [@](#): > > During the Shinkansen’s 44-year, nearly 7 billion passenger history, there have been no passenger fatalities due to derailments or collisions (including earthquakes and typhoons). Injuries and a single fatality have been caused by doors closing on passengers or their belongings; attendants are employed at platforms to prevent this… > > The only derailment of a Shinkansen train in passenger service occurred during the Chūetsu Earthquake on October 23, 2004. Eight of ten cars of the Toki No. 325 train on the Jōetsu Shinkansen derailed near Nagaoka Station in Nagaoka, Niigata. There were no casualties among the 154 passengers. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2008, 3:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-election-fallout-high-speed-rail-is-coming-to-california/471571/31 "2008-11-07T15:34:27Z")
> [@wmfellows](#): > > I do not know that high speed rail will be a cost effective, economically rational choice for Californian commuters, given what I understand is a highly decentralised urban centres system in the LA area. HSR is not for **commuters.** That’s what light rail and interurban rail are for. HSR is to provide an alternative mode, neither auto nor airplane, for long-distance travel. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2008, 3:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-election-fallout-high-speed-rail-is-coming-to-california/471571/32 "2008-11-07T15:41:15Z")
> [@Giles](#): > > There are also a lot of people who fly between the Bay area and the LA region. If rail is fast enough, it can compete with flying over a distance like that, and planes use a lot of fuel. There you are: A faster way to get there than driving, a cheaper way than flying, and more environmentally friendly and sustainable than either. (That is, if the trains are powered by electricity from plants that are powered by something renewable and nonpolluting. My own preference is nuclear. It can be made safe with today’s technology.) ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2008, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-election-fallout-high-speed-rail-is-coming-to-california/471571/33 "2008-11-07T15:42:47Z")
> [@wmfellows](#): > > That’s not a rational economic argument, that’s a culturalist argument. I’m thinking of it mainly as an **environmentalist** argument. Also based on national-security considerations. The economic and cultural and daily-quality-of-life factors are all important, but secondary. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2008, 3:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-election-fallout-high-speed-rail-is-coming-to-california/471571/34 "2008-11-07T15:45:55Z")
> [@wmfellows](#): > > Of course you’re hard Left so you love communalist solutions, without respect to economic rationality. :rolleyes: A course of action does not need to be directly profitable to be economically rational. There are any number of economically rational things, things that really need to be done because our economy and society would be impaired without them, which only the state can do because the private sector **will** not because it can’t make money off them. Who built the Interstate Highway System and why? (Yes, I know the “why” was partly for military reasons – that does not detract from my argument, quite the reverse.) A very economically rational project, the Interstate Highway System. ---
**Author:** ![Bearflag70](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Bearflag70](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bearflag70)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2008, 3:52pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-election-fallout-high-speed-rail-is-coming-to-california/471571/35 "2008-11-07T15:52:24Z")
Population density, especially in LA, is not static. 1. We can’t build too densely in part because of traffic nightmares. 2. We can’t build rail systems because density is too low. Something has got to give. Build the rail and the density will follow. We have a long light rail line here in Sacramento. I’m sure people bitched about waste when it was built. But guess where all the new construction is? High density mixed use buildings all along the rail line. That’s where. ---
**Author:** ![BrainGlutton](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/82dd89/32.png) [@BrainGlutton](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BrainGlutton)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2008, 3:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-election-fallout-high-speed-rail-is-coming-to-california/471571/36 "2008-11-07T15:56:18Z")
> [@Bearflag70](#): > > Population density, especially in LA, is not static. > > 1. We can’t build too densely in part because of traffic nightmares. > > 2. We can’t build rail systems because density is too low. > > Something has got to give. Build the rail and the density will follow. Agreed, but, for that purpose, the “rail” would be light rail/interurban rail, not HSR. ---
**Author:** ![MichaelQReilly](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@MichaelQReilly](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MichaelQReilly)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2008, 4:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-election-fallout-high-speed-rail-is-coming-to-california/471571/37 "2008-11-07T16:10:42Z")
Cue Libertarians coming in to argue that trains lose money while conveniently ignoring that when factoring in capital costs every transportation system loses money and requires subsidy in 5, 4, 3,… ---
**Author:** ![Bearflag70](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8e7dd6/32.png) [@Bearflag70](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bearflag70)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2008, 4:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-election-fallout-high-speed-rail-is-coming-to-california/471571/38 "2008-11-07T16:29:11Z")
> [@BrainGlutton](#): > > Agreed, but, for that purpose, the “rail” would be light rail/interurban rail, not HSR. Population density is relevant to both HSR and light rail. People will be more inclined to take HSR if they know they won’t need a car anyway once they arrive at their destination city. HSR and light rail should be intertwined with intermodal transportation hubs. When I go from Sac to SF, I take the train whenever possible because I know I won’t need a car in SF, a car can be more hassle in SF than it’s worth, and the cost of parking in SF can be as much as as a train ticket anyway. Also, I don’t have to be concerned about traffic or paying attention to the road on the way there and back. I can just relax. However, going somewhere like Stockton, Fresno, Burbank, LA, Riverside, Temecula, San Diego, etc., I would probably drive because I know the auto is the only real viable way to get around in those cities. If I need a car anyway, I might as well use mine. High density around HSR stations would very much benefit HSR as it benefits light rail. ---
**Author:** ![Bridget\_Burke](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/7cd45c/32.png) [@Bridget\_Burke](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bridget_Burke)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2008, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-election-fallout-high-speed-rail-is-coming-to-california/471571/39 "2008-11-07T17:02:46Z")
> [@Giles](#): > > There are also a lot of people who fly between the Bay area and the LA region. If rail is fast enough, it can compete with flying over a distance like that, and planes use a lot of fuel. That’s why Southwest Airlines [helped scuttle](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_the_United_States#Texas) Texas High Speed Rail back in the 90’s. Even though everything was going to be privately financed. Driving distances in Texas are long & dull; a rail line connecting Houston, San Antonio & the Metroplex made a lot of sense. Apparently the idea has been revived. And not just as part of Governor Good Hair’s Trans Texas Corridor. ---
**Author:** ![suranyi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/e36b37/32.png) [@suranyi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/suranyi)\ **Post date:** [November 7, 2008, 5:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-election-fallout-high-speed-rail-is-coming-to-california/471571/40 "2008-11-07T17:04:31Z")
> [@wmfellows](#): > > Don’t be a professional ideological sourpuss, you know bloody well both the American parties in California have been spendthrifts. Bloody hell man… > > California does seem rather like the least likely place to start with such, if I am familiar with the US demographics enough. Would it not make more sense to try such on the dense East Coast corridor. I recall riding that joke of a “high speed” train between NY and Washington, what ten years ago on a a visit. Utter crap it was. There at least one would think there’d be a reasonable total return on investment. The air route between southern California and the Bay Area is one of the busiest in the world, and the distance is perfect so that high-speed rail could be a better door-to-door option for many people. That doesn’t even take into consideration the huge number of people who drive between the north and south. Have you ridden the trains in Europe, e.g. the ICE in Germany or the TGV in France? They are not crap. They are used by the majority of people who want to get places the same distances as S.F to L.A. Ed [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-election-fallout-high-speed-rail-is-coming-to-california/471571.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/more-election-fallout-high-speed-rail-is-coming-to-california/471571.md?page=3)