Biden admin announces 2.8 billion for passenger rail including high speed

[Aurelius2]

Will that actually, finally get us a high-speed rail connection between San Francisco and LA? That would probably require Newsom getting off his ass.

It looks like that's one of their priorities, but the trains would have to go through the Central Valley.

California's geography also makes it inherently slower and more expensive than other places. That California's government is highly skilled at lighting massive piles of money on fire does make it much worse.

Basically, to get from LA to SF you have to cross at least two major mountain ranges. On top of that, earthquake risk makes things much more difficult than they would otherwise be.

[Aurelius2]

Will that actually, finally get us a high-speed rail connection between San Francisco and LA? That would probably require Newsom getting off his ass.

It looks like that's one of their priorities, but the trains would have to go through the Central Valley.

California's geography also makes it inherently slower and more expensive than other places. That California's government is highly skilled at lighting massive piles of money on fire does make it much worse.

Basically, to get from LA to SF you have to cross at least two major mountain ranges. On top of that, earthquake risk makes things much more difficult than they would otherwise be.

Yeah. How would the line even leave SF - is it more likely to cross the Bay into Alameda County or go south into San Mateo?

South through San Mateo. Here's a map of the planned project and current status.

Since the current goal is expand the existing Merced/Fresno/Bakersfield line, I feel like the former would require an additional stop in Modesto and the latter in San Jose.

There is no "existing Merced/Fresno/Bakersfield line". The viaducts along that line are currently under construction. The first track and systems construction is supposed to begin next year. Passenger service along the valley segment, as of this year's Project Update, is projected to begin in 2030.

[Aurelius2]

China built a national high-speed rail system for less than how much our bipartisan infrastructure bill cost. This means that we could have all lines connecting basically any pair of cities <500 miles apart if we were as efficient as China, for less than $1.2 trillion. This includes earthquake zones and mountains in central China (ie Kunming to Shanghai 190 mph is mostly tunneled and actually was cheaper than most of the other lines).

This entails a Chinese approach to private property, which I have no interest in. Surely we can cut costs without adopting quasi-communist despotism.