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Taiwan managed to build high-speed rail. Why can't California?

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Re: Taiwan managed to build high-speed rail. Why can't California?

#51

Post by jcranmer »

_delirium wrote: post #28
aodin wrote: post #20

For an article with quite a few numbers, it seems to be missing some basic ones: * Taiwan, area 36,197 km^2, population density 651 / km^2 [1] * California, area 403,932 km^2, population density 97 / km^2 [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Taiwan [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_and_territories...

The total area of the state isn't too relevant, since California isn't exactly proposing to build HSR to Eureka or Redding. It's true that California's project is larger-scale, but by 2x: Taiwan has a single 200-mile HSR line, and California is trying to build a single 400-mile line.

Also keep in mind the topography. There is about 50-ish miles of mountains standing between Los Angeles and the Central Valley (15 fewer if you deter via Palmsdale), and you have a similar conundrum going from the Central Valley to the Bay Area. By contrast in Taiwan, you can travel mostly via coastal flats.

Re: Taiwan managed to build high-speed rail. Why can't California?

#52

Post by jedberg »

toastal wrote: post #49
jedberg wrote: post #39

The California HSR has a lot of problems not matched in Taiwan. Firstly, once you get from San Jose to Bakersfield, then what? We don't have good public transit in LA, much less to Bakersfield. But even if the train went all the way to Union Station in Los Angeles, you'd still need to rent a car to get anywhere useful, or take Uber/Lyft. And same thing on the other end. What happens when you get to San Jose? You stil…

Could that not be a chicken and egg issue? There's no reason to build bus lines to a nonexistent train station. And without the attractive high-speed train option, who's going to take these buses in meantime? Sounds like the train could be a catalyst.

LA and the Bay Area have many other needs that can be met with good transit. It may not go exactly to the hypothetical train station, but if it already exists its a lot easier to extend to said station.

Re: Taiwan managed to build high-speed rail. Why can't California?

#53

Post by jcranmer »

jccooper wrote: post #43
throwawaytoday5 wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's not just California, it's every state and every city in the US. People have an aversion to public works projects often crying about taxes or how the service is useless or not good enough. We have a political system where one major party (out of two) decries any public spending that might help people who aren't millionaires/billionaires/corporations. Is it any wonder when you have evil groups of people spending h…

Major highway and road projects in the US are often completed with minimal fuss. You don't really hear about these, because they go off smoothly. The difference may perhaps be that there's plenty of experience and precedent in doing these, both in government and industry, as road projects are constantly executed. Major rail construction has basically been absent in the US for a generation or more. Does the lack of ex…

> Major highway and road projects in the US are often completed with minimal fuss. You don't really hear about these, because they go off smoothly. The difference may perhaps be that there's plenty of experience and precedent in doing these, both in government and industry, as road projects are constantly executed.

... yeah, I don't think that's true. Major road projects in the US often have exactly the same kinds of hemorrhaging cost overruns and other issues that rail projects do: look at Seattle's Alaska Way Viaduct replacement project, the Bay Area's Bay Bridge replacement project, or Boston's Big Dig for infamous cost overruns that are measured in large integer multiples.

The major difference, I believe, is that there is often massive public pressure to force through road projects when they hit snags, whereas rail projects tend to get cancelled at first opportunity.

Re: Taiwan managed to build high-speed rail. Why can't California?

#54

Post by mch82 »

High speed rail is a bad investment. Rail systematizes discrimination, typically loses money, and struggles to provide a last mile solution.

$60B can buy at least 600,000 electric vehicles with 3 million seats. Semi-autonomous vehicles are already capable of operating as a “train” in a dedicated freeway lane and autonomous operation is likely by 2033 (when California’s HSR would begin operation). This solution could be deployed incrementally, with a smaller fleet of human-driven, semi-autonomous EVs in the first phase.

600,000 vehicles may not sound like a lot, but the whole United States had 370,400 taxi & ride share drivers in 2018! [1].

We need to turn the HOV lane into an autonomous car lane & build the future we want instead of tying ourselves to a romanticized version of the past.

[1]: https://www.bls.gov/ooh/transportation-and-material-moving/m...

Edit: I failed to acknowledge that autonomous vehicles are not available today, so have updated my post. Note, high speed rail isn’t available either & won’t be until, at earliest, 2033.

Re: Taiwan managed to build high-speed rail. Why can't California?

#55

Post by JumpCrisscross »

diego wrote: post #29
aodin wrote: post #20

For an article with quite a few numbers, it seems to be missing some basic ones: * Taiwan, area 36,197 km^2, population density 651 / km^2 [1] * California, area 403,932 km^2, population density 97 / km^2 [2] [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demographics_of_Taiwan [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_and_territories...

That's a nonsequitur. The California coast is pretty dense, the rest of the state has large amounts of empty space and national parks. Nobody would build a high-speed rail through Yosemite or Death Valley.

> Nobody would build a high-speed rail through Yosemite or Death Valley

Yet it detoured to stop in farmland.

Re: Taiwan managed to build high-speed rail. Why can't California?

#56

Post by jcranmer »

EdwardDiego wrote: post #41
dmitrygr wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US cannot do that either (for political reasons). The optics aren't great, "murrican jobs" and all

Large parts of your agricultural industry already are.

But the agricultural industry doesn't face "Buy American" provisions in their funding requirements that prohibit them from using too much foreign stuff, which is the norm in infrastructure projects.

Re: Taiwan managed to build high-speed rail. Why can't California?

#57

Post by monster_group »

The real issue is that gas is too cheap in the US. Everywhere else, except oil rich middle east, gas is expensive enough to discourage people from driving everywhere. They end up taking public transport. In US driving almost always comes out cheaper unless the distance is too great to be convenient to drive.

Re: Taiwan managed to build high-speed rail. Why can't California?

#58

Post by jseliger »

jedberg wrote: post #39

The California HSR has a lot of problems not matched in Taiwan. Firstly, once you get from San Jose to Bakersfield, then what? We don't have good public transit in LA, much less to Bakersfield. But even if the train went all the way to Union Station in Los Angeles, you'd still need to rent a car to get anywhere useful, or take Uber/Lyft. And same thing on the other end. What happens when you get to San Jose? You stil…

We don't have good public transit in LA, much less to Bakersfield. But even if the train went all the way to Union Station in Los Angeles, you'd still need to rent a car to get anywhere useful, or take Uber/Lyft. And same thing on the other end.

Have you used LA rail recently? It's a lot more functional than it used to be: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Los_Angeles_Metro_Rail although it still has a ways to go.

Re: Taiwan managed to build high-speed rail. Why can't California?

#59

Post by aiscapehumanity »

mch82 wrote: post #54

High speed rail is a bad investment. Rail systematizes discrimination, typically loses money, and struggles to provide a last mile solution. $60B can buy at least 600,000 electric vehicles with 3 million seats. Semi-autonomous vehicles are already capable of operating as a “train” in a dedicated freeway lane and autonomous operation is likely by 2033 (when California’s HSR would begin operation). This solution could…

600k additional vehicles sounds like a traffic density disaster.

Re: Taiwan managed to build high-speed rail. Why can't California?

#60

Post by _delirium »

mch82 wrote: post #54

High speed rail is a bad investment. Rail systematizes discrimination, typically loses money, and struggles to provide a last mile solution. $60B can buy at least 600,000 electric vehicles with 3 million seats. Semi-autonomous vehicles are already capable of operating as a “train” in a dedicated freeway lane and autonomous operation is likely by 2033 (when California’s HSR would begin operation). This solution could…

$60B can buy zero autonomous vehicles, because there aren't any working ones! And won't be for years, regardless of the wrong predictions [1] Elon Musk keeps making.

[1] He promised in 2016 that Tesla vehicles would have level-5 autonomy by 2017: https://futurism.com/elon-musk-every-tesla-car-will-be-fully...

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