California High-Speed Rail Thread

[Torie]

It's insane. Period.

[Torie]

It's insane. Period.

No, letting your class continue to receive such obscene privilege is insane, Torie. 

Your response is off topic opebo. That train is a fiscal disaster, and feeding that white elephant will be done by others long after I am dead. CA seems to be doing all it can, to get the federal law changed so that states can declare bankruptcy.

[Torie]

Bottom line is that the airports in CA are pretty much maxed out. The LA area to SF area air traffic is one of the most traveled int he world with dozens of flights every day. The bay area already has a good local rail network and one is being built in LA. Rail is needed to take off some of the load of future growth which cannot be accommodated by air or road. It will likely not make money for years but in a couple of decades it will be essential.

People need to think longer term.

Airports in CA are not maxed out. What gave you that idea?  There are a zillion flights from Socal to the Bay every day, from a host of airports. Seats are readily available, and they are very cheap.

[Torie]

the CA airports are maxed out in terms of growth and expansion for creating more gates/terminals. For years they were trying to find a way to build a new airport in LA but have given up. With air and road there is limited ability to deal with future growth. Therefore rail offers a third option to offset

It turned out a lot of that expansion was not needed, including the opening of the El Toro airport in OC, and shutting down John Wayne, which would have been another fiscal disaster. The airports on the east coast are in a far worse mess. If you have some creditable study that 10 years hence, CA will be in gridlock, and it is either training or bust, please put it up. Otherwise, we are just going to disagree about the facts, and call it a day. In my experience, airports in CA work just fine, in part perhaps because of the reliable weather, and lack of population near CA.  The east coast is the opposite. Build a high speed train in the Bowash corridor, and see how that works first. That is where it is really needed, if it is needed anywhere.

[Torie]

I strongly doubt a rail from LA to SF will ever be finished. It makes zero sense. It's cheaper and to fly. It't not needed. It is not the Bowash corridor that needs high speed rail, because the air lanes are full and with bad weather, things descend into chaos. But the Bowash corridor has lots of folks all along the line, while between LA and SF is largely nothing. What a waste.

[Torie]

I strongly doubt a rail from LA to SF will ever be finished. It makes zero sense. It's cheaper and to fly. It't not needed. It is not the Bowash corridor that needs high speed rail, because the air lanes are full and with bad weather, things descend into chaos. But the Bowash corridor has lots of folks all along the line, while between LA and SF is largely nothing. What a waste.

I'm not sure I accept all the logic here. It seems that an LA-Bakersfield-Fresno-Merced-San Jose-SF link is comparable to the Paris-Lyon-Marseille TGV in length and would serve a greater population. There are domestic French flights, but that particular TGV line successfully competes and covers its operating costs. Other than Lyon there's not much in the way of major population centers between Paris and Marseille along that main French line either.

Well, yes, but the big issue is the attractiveness of the train versus flying between the big population nodes, and how crowded the air lanes are, and how much weather interferes with them. In addition when you get to downtown Paris, you're in Paris. When you get to downtown LA, you are sort of nowhere. And then there is that patch between Sylmar and the base of the Central Valley down the hill from Lebec. It's rugged! Finally on I-5, through the Central Valley, one can drive at 75 miles per hour pretty consistently. It's the closest thing to an American autoban that we have I think. So the train is competing with vehicular traffic as well.

[Torie]

And thank heavens the train runs from O'Hare into the Chicago subway, L, train system. It's great! Wish it had been there, when I lived there. The great thing about Hudson, NY, is that you can hop on a train, and get to downtown Manhattan in less than 2 hours, and the trains run every hour. Fantastico!

[Torie]

Replacing half of the bay bridge (2 miles of bridge replaced) cost 10% as much as this entire 800 mile HSR. There's clearly some serious anti-train propaganda going around.

The SF bay bridge collects $228 million a year in tolls, or $114 million for each half of the bridge. That $114 million will clearly never pay for the $6.5 billion half of a bridge replacement. So even toll bridges don't pay for themselves. But trains have to pay for themselves, because.

That is just a mortgage amortization formula. At 5% interest per annum, paying $114 million a year, or about  $9.5 million per month, $6.5 billion can be paid back in 27 years. The bridge pencils - and pays for itself. This assumes that the $114 million represents net revenues.

[Torie]