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Only 31% of California voters want to keep paying for bullet train

latimes.com

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Re: Only 31% of California voters want to keep paying for bullet train

#61

Post by rayiner »

stefan_ wrote: post #52
rayiner wrote: post #26

This is the upper middle class robbing poor people. The projected fare would be $86 per ticket, about triple the cost of driving for a family of four. The people who are going to pay that are upper middle class travelers and business travelers. Which would be fine if the project was paying for itself, but it won’t be. It’ll be state subsidies for high income professionals. That money could be doing so much good (scho…

Where do the US poor travel to?

They travel to visit family just like U.S. rich people! You can travel from say Spokane to Boise in about 7 hours by car, for about $215 in gas and wear-and-tear. That's affordable for all but the poorest people.

Re: Only 31% of California voters want to keep paying for bullet train

#62

Post by ebikelaw »

rayiner wrote: post #51
ebikelaw wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the upper-middle-class robbing the poor has been the history of our highway system, which you can't use without owning a car and paying ~ $0.55/mile to operate it. We have shoveled hundreds of billions of dollars of subsidies down the throat of the automobile culture and we did not get a functioning transportation system from doing so. We got a massively regressive, barely functional system and all of its attenda…

That's completely divorced from reality. Even poor people own cars! 80% of people in poverty have access to a vehicle.[1] $0.55/mile is about $120 for an LA to SF trip. For a family of four, this train is $350. Which one do you think a low-income family is going to take to visit relatives for Christmas? In any case, poor people who don't own cars rely on busses and subways--which this boondoggle does nothing for. [1]…

That's cherry-picking a favorable example for the car. It's always better to take your car when you fill it up with people, compared to other modes that charge per person. It's true locally - always cheaper to drive from Oakland to San Francisco vs. four round-trip BART tickets - and it's true regionally - cheaper to drive the whole family than to fly, if you don't value your time. Of course both of those assume that you can afford the car and that the car you can afford will survive the trip.

Anyway, your last sentence is wrong. Much of the money under the HSR project is going to local transportation projects. So far they have spent or committed seven billion dollars for Caltrain, BART, Muni, Sacramento RT, Capitol Corridor, ACE, LA Metro, Metrolink, San Diego Blue Line, and Coaster, among others.

Re: Only 31% of California voters want to keep paying for bullet train

#63

Post by slg »

ebikelaw wrote: post #47
rayiner wrote: post #26

This is the upper middle class robbing poor people. The projected fare would be $86 per ticket, about triple the cost of driving for a family of four. The people who are going to pay that are upper middle class travelers and business travelers. Which would be fine if the project was paying for itself, but it won’t be. It’ll be state subsidies for high income professionals. That money could be doing so much good (scho…

No, the upper-middle-class robbing the poor has been the history of our highway system, which you can't use without owning a car and paying ~ $0.55/mile to operate it. We have shoveled hundreds of billions of dollars of subsidies down the throat of the automobile culture and we did not get a functioning transportation system from doing so. We got a massively regressive, barely functional system and all of its attenda…

That $0.55 / mile is dropping with EVs (which also help address some of the other problems you mentioned) and would crater if driverless cars become a reality in the next decade or so. A driverless EV should easily be able to beat $86 for a 400 mile trip from SF to LA. Which makes we wonder if the time for high speed rail has come and gone.

Re: Only 31% of California voters want to keep paying for bullet train

#64

Post by melling »

AndrewBissell wrote: post #12
Apes wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The people who said it would be a massive boondoggle then went out of their way to make it a massive boondoggle. I guess the mistake California made was not realizing they weren't making a prediction, but a threat.

Yes, it was quite nefarious of them to alter the laws of physics and geology to make tunneling through the mountains outside LA into a nigh-impossible engineering task.

I’m not from CA, so maybe I have it wrong but I thought acquiring all the land is the reason the project is so expensive.

Re: Only 31% of California voters want to keep paying for bullet train

#65

Post by ebikelaw »

slg wrote: post #63
ebikelaw wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the upper-middle-class robbing the poor has been the history of our highway system, which you can't use without owning a car and paying ~ $0.55/mile to operate it. We have shoveled hundreds of billions of dollars of subsidies down the throat of the automobile culture and we did not get a functioning transportation system from doing so. We got a massively regressive, barely functional system and all of its attenda…

That $0.55 / mile is dropping with EVs (which also help address some of the other problems you mentioned) and would crater if driverless cars become a reality in the next decade or so. A driverless EV should easily be able to beat $86 for a 400 mile trip from SF to LA. Which makes we wonder if the time for high speed rail has come and gone.

The difference between HSR and driverless EVs that can go from SF to LA is the former has existed for 50 years and the latter has literally never been demonstrated.

Re: Only 31% of California voters want to keep paying for bullet train

#66

Post by aczyrek »

marcell wrote: post #10

The cost argument is always interesting to me, when you consider it in context. We (in America) recently passed a tax cut that will cost around $150B/year for the next 10 years, and likely more if the temporary parts are made permanent. Even with cost overruns, that's almost enough to pay for 2 California bullet trains PER YEAR for the next decade. And yes, I know California is just 1 state out of 50, but even still,…

> And yes, I know California is just 1 state out of 50, but even still...

Let's keep in mind that the GDP of California is greater than the 25 lowest economic producing states combined.

source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_and_territ...

Re: Only 31% of California voters want to keep paying for bullet train

#67

Post by curtis »

orangecat wrote: post #42
jboles wrote: post #11

Killing it would be short-sighted. If it gets killed, there would probably never be the opportunity to build it ever again. California is flush with tech money, put some of it to good use.

If you were given $77 billion to improve California, is this really how you would spend it?

I'd think that for half that much money you could greatly upgrade BART and more importantly extend it into the central valley.

Re: Only 31% of California voters want to keep paying for bullet train

#68

Post by icebraining »

ebikelaw wrote: post #47
rayiner wrote: post #26

This is the upper middle class robbing poor people. The projected fare would be $86 per ticket, about triple the cost of driving for a family of four. The people who are going to pay that are upper middle class travelers and business travelers. Which would be fine if the project was paying for itself, but it won’t be. It’ll be state subsidies for high income professionals. That money could be doing so much good (scho…

No, the upper-middle-class robbing the poor has been the history of our highway system, which you can't use without owning a car and paying ~ $0.55/mile to operate it. We have shoveled hundreds of billions of dollars of subsidies down the throat of the automobile culture and we did not get a functioning transportation system from doing so. We got a massively regressive, barely functional system and all of its attenda…

you can't use without owning a car

Or taking a bus, no? Seems like you can get a trip for under $15.

Re: Only 31% of California voters want to keep paying for bullet train

#69

Post by melling »

Agustus wrote: post #27
jboles wrote: post #11

Killing it would be short-sighted. If it gets killed, there would probably never be the opportunity to build it ever again. California is flush with tech money, put some of it to good use.

Killing it would be far sighted. Technology is improving transportation methods, we have buses and planes that can do the same thing as this train at much cheaper rates and without tax dollars to construct or maintain.

How do buses and cars accomplish the same thing?

Getting buses and cars to 180 mph even if they’re self-driving sounds a bit crazy.

Trains can move tens of thousands a people an hour at much faster speeds.

Re: Only 31% of California voters want to keep paying for bullet train

#70

Post by slg »

ebikelaw wrote: post #65
slg wrote: post #63

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That $0.55 / mile is dropping with EVs (which also help address some of the other problems you mentioned) and would crater if driverless cars become a reality in the next decade or so. A driverless EV should easily be able to beat $86 for a 400 mile trip from SF to LA. Which makes we wonder if the time for high speed rail has come and gone.

The difference between HSR and driverless EVs that can go from SF to LA is the former has existed for 50 years and the latter has literally never been demonstrated.

And another difference is that the development of a rail line requires billions in additional public funds (and also takes years if not decades to build) while the development of driverless cars is being paid for by private businesses. Wasn't your initial argument about saving money?
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