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Fast Train to Failure: California’s Mismanaged High-Speed Rail Project

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Re: Fast Train to Failure: California’s Mismanaged High-Speed Rail Project

#41

Post by Aloha »

cco wrote: post #37
niftich wrote: post #17

While this article finds an issue with the way the Tejon Pass route was eliminated in favor of the Tehachapi Pass route, Tejon Pass route would skip a station in Lancaster/Palmdale, which would be a mistake. As the article acknowledges, these are rapidly growing exurbs that are refuge from the exorbitant land prices in the LA Basin. There is existing commuter rail service between there and Downtown LA, but a HSR is a…

What the heck is the train line doing near Fresno? Why is it not following I-5 and making zero stops in between the South Bay and LA?

It's supposed to link the whole state, not just LA to the Bay

Re: Fast Train to Failure: California’s Mismanaged High-Speed Rail Project

#42

Post by sand500 »

usaar333 wrote: post #36
hirundo wrote: post #7

Self driving cars are expected roll out in the same time frame as this rail project. I think they change the ridership equation. The drive from LAX to SFO is about 6 hours, 3 hours longer than by HSR. But if I can work or sleep in the back I'd prefer to take the car. The car gives me more flexibility at the destination and more privacy, comfort and cargo space. When self driving cars become sufficiently trustworthy a…

If you are talking about taking a car solo, that's pretty expensive. It's hard to imagine a marginal cost under $0.23/mile for driving [1], so you are looking at a round-trip solo cost of $132 minimum - that's higher than flying (if you can plan it). Either way, I'm not sure how much autonomy changes things. You can get luxury buses overnight for $115 overnight ( https://www.latimes.com/travel/deals/la-tr-money-20170…

I would expect it to be like renting a more expensive car but you can sleep in it for the ride over. Cost needs to beat luxury bus or flight + cost of ubering around in the city

Re: Fast Train to Failure: California’s Mismanaged High-Speed Rail Project

#43

Post by AnimalMuppet »

illvm wrote: post #33
ummonk wrote: post #14

I used to support the HSR project on the grounds that connecting the state (both LA / Bay Area and the Central Valley towns) would yield long term economic benefits due the increased flow of people within the state. Decreasing the effective distance between people by making travel faster and cheaper has a lot of value in the information economy. Nothing beats face to face communication. I now no longer support the pr…

There is also the environmental impact to consider. Air travel has a much larger emission profile compared to train travel, and train travel has a much larger capacity. Plus, rail station are often in the center of the city rather than on the outskirts like airports are. e.g. traveling by train from Boston to NYC vs flying is almost a wash time wise due to travel to/from the airport + buffer time for security.

Getting to the city center, though, is often problematic. You either follow the existing railroad lines, which often have tight curves, or you build your own, which involves ripping out a long path through the already-existing city.

Re: Fast Train to Failure: California’s Mismanaged High-Speed Rail Project

#44

Post by trashguy »

classichasclass wrote: post #23

> A comparatively small amount of state aid to LA Metro would do far more for California’s environment and economy Like finishing the Green Line to @#$&ing LAX, maybe. It's ludicrous how bad the public transportation options are to what is arguably the most important airport on the west coast. Meanwhile, on my monthly sorties through the Central Valley, the Authority continues with its gigantic monuments to bloodymin…

Or any improvements on the 405 for us poor souls who live in the Valley+ and work in Santa Monica :(

Re: Fast Train to Failure: California’s Mismanaged High-Speed Rail Project

#45

Post by dstroot »

The simple facts seem to be that we have lost our capabilities to deliver these types of projects. I voted against it at the time assuming it could never be build with cost assumptions they put forth. Good concept with lots of potential benefits. Unfortunately we have zero chance of being able to to do it at a reasonable cost.

https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2017-05-31/the-u-...

Re: Fast Train to Failure: California’s Mismanaged High-Speed Rail Project

#46

Post by kochikame »

melling wrote: post #34
woofyman wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Over 100 workers died building it.

China built 17,000 miles of high-speed rail in 15 years. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_China There’s another 8000 on the way by 2025.

It's easy to do when you can just forcibly move people and don't have to listen to what the locals think before you start laying track

Re: Fast Train to Failure: California’s Mismanaged High-Speed Rail Project

#47

Post by russellbeattie »

Why does it seem that the U.S. has become incapable of building large projects in a reasonable amount of time and budget? It seems every major bit of construction is always years late, and billions over budget. Whether it's the Bay Bridge (half of it), or a new Space Shuttle replacement, or just fixing our bridges and other infrastructure, I've never read of a large public project actually coming in on time and on budget.

In China, they're building infrastructure so fast it's crazy. Regardless of the different social and political systems, we just seem to have lost all ability to function as a society to create big things that we need. Imagine if we wanted to build something like the Hoover Damn today?

I have to assume it has something to do with half the population trying to actively disrupt anything positive the government wants to do, and if they can't completely kill the project, they try to profit off it as much as possible, essentially "proving" that government is inefficient, if not outright incompetent.

Re: Fast Train to Failure: California’s Mismanaged High-Speed Rail Project

#49

Post by missingcolours »

niftich wrote: post #17

While this article finds an issue with the way the Tejon Pass route was eliminated in favor of the Tehachapi Pass route, Tejon Pass route would skip a station in Lancaster/Palmdale, which would be a mistake. As the article acknowledges, these are rapidly growing exurbs that are refuge from the exorbitant land prices in the LA Basin. There is existing commuter rail service between there and Downtown LA, but a HSR is a…

Endeavoring to solve all of our transportation problems in a single rail line seems like the underlying issue. If HSR had been built successfully and fairly directly, on or under budget, it would have been much easier to muster political support for future expansions.

Re: Fast Train to Failure: California’s Mismanaged High-Speed Rail Project

#50

Post by eloff »

ummonk wrote: post #14

I used to support the HSR project on the grounds that connecting the state (both LA / Bay Area and the Central Valley towns) would yield long term economic benefits due the increased flow of people within the state. Decreasing the effective distance between people by making travel faster and cheaper has a lot of value in the information economy. Nothing beats face to face communication. I now no longer support the pr…

For $100B you could buy ~33,000 $3M-dollar electric commuter planes with 10 person capacity and 600mi range - not quite anything like that on the market yet mind you - but it seems close at hand. You could cover nearly the whole state, not just LA SF, and have 330,000 person capacity. By what measure would this train be better?

Certainly not economic, noise, land-use, speed, convenience, coverage, or flexibility. Probably in terms of operational costs - but not by a huge margin. And the economics change if you scale the capacity down to match the train system and invest the rest to partially cover the operating costs.

And it took me 5 minutes to think of a (possibly) better plan than theirs.

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