Can you kill something that isn't, technically speaking, alive?
Reports of the death of California High-Speed Rail have been greatly exaggerated
51–60 of 476 posts
Re: Reports of the death of California High-Speed Rail have been greatly exaggerated
#52Earlier quoted context omitted.
As the piece points out, the lack of rail is pretty much irrelevant. Once all the guideways are in place, there is a machine that you just drive along that poops out perfect rails at ~1km/hr. It is the most trivial part of the project.
That's kinda like saying a car is easy to build because they have automated painting robots. Fundamentally the problem is that most of the land they want to use is owned by someone else, and that means every single parcel is a potential, and often actual, legal fight. In theory this is what eminent domain is supposed to accomplish, but people dislike eminent domain more than they like high speed rail. Well meaning bu…
If the car just needs to be painted, then yeah it is easy to finish when you have automated painting robots.
The article doesn't make right of way seem like a major issue, are there areas where that is blocking construction?
Re: Reports of the death of California High-Speed Rail have been greatly exaggerated
#53The problem with local infrastructure projects is their responsibility and execution fall to local community leaders (in this case local = state of California). These leaders are far less efficient and impactful than the federal government, a bar which is already way too low. Nearly every city in the US has had recent collisions with corruption, blatant mismanagement, ideological forces co-opting process, etc. and so…
> What options are even left at this point? I suspect we're dealing with the fallout of the loss of an American nomos (shared values, traditions, and moral principles formalized into law, custom, and convention) -- the very issue John Adams wrote about in a 1798 letter: While our country remains untainted with the principles and manners which are now producing desolation in so many parts of the world; while she conti…
>But should the people of America once become capable of that deep simulation towards one another, and towards foreign nations, which assumes the language of justice and moderation, while it is practising iniquity and extravagance, and displays in the most captivating manner the charming pictures of candour, frankness, and sincerity, while it is working diligently under the cover of these pleasing appearances and employing the most insidious and base artifices
It's always amazing to me that slave owning men on stolen land could not see the hypocrisy of such a statement
Re: Reports of the death of California High-Speed Rail have been greatly exaggerated
#54I think the biggest issue with CAHSR is that Florida just did it anyway.
Florida does have the advantage that the tallest mountain there is like 60 feet.
Re: Reports of the death of California High-Speed Rail have been greatly exaggerated
#55Earlier quoted context omitted.
We could actually just pay more money to public governmental employees, allow them to build careers (and raise families), and stop contracting out everything. This would also increase competition for such roles. How we got here is ultimately, especially for CA, land and legal cost, cost of living, and public employee salary relative to private salaries. That’s endemic to major metro areas in the US, with some small e…
> We could actually just pay more money to public governmental employees When their pensions are taken into account, government employees are ridiculously overcompensated already. They’re basically minor nobility at this point.
I have done the numbers for myself, and even taking pension and treating an extra week of vacation as a 1/52 pay raise, doing a software job for the government would be a huge step down for me financially. Basically gives me 0% chance of ever buying a home where I currently live
Re: Reports of the death of California High-Speed Rail have been greatly exaggerated
#56California "high-speed" rail is failing because it doesn't make sense. For all the billions already spent and planning to be spent, the delivered product is severely underwhelming. Trains go few of the places people want to go on the schedule they want to go.
Planes, by comparison, are an absolute bargain. Travel between almost any two cities quickly and affordably. By most calculations, planes also have less environmental impact because you don't need to build hundreds of miles of concrete and steel tracks.
Trains are great for bulk freight, but have very few sensible applications in the US. California would be better off with bus service if they really want a public option.
Re: Reports of the death of California High-Speed Rail have been greatly exaggerated
#57Earlier quoted context omitted.
As the piece points out, the lack of rail is pretty much irrelevant. Once all the guideways are in place, there is a machine that you just drive along that poops out perfect rails at ~1km/hr. It is the most trivial part of the project.
I’ve heard so many business guys running startups say the same thing about their brilliant idea. Once the plan is in place you just do daily standups and your engineers poop out perfect features at the rate of 1 ticket/day.
Alright, but one of the central findings of software engineering of the 80s is that software engineering cannot be driven rigidly, unlike other engineering fields.. Such as railways.
Think about it, rail is an eminently standardized piece of infrastructure that has existed for more than a century and millions of kilometers have been laid out. Don't you think _some_ effort has gone into automating the process and making it predictable?
Here is a (french) example of laying up to 2km of continuously-welded rail a day: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o97SB8c7Ezk
Re: Reports of the death of California High-Speed Rail have been greatly exaggerated
#58The reality is for every government constraint, there are even more difficult economic constraints that it has to work against.
A 90-minute flight between these SF and LA can be had for ~$80 or less. A 7-hour bus ticket between these two cities is ~$50. To put it another way, the train would have to be only half-again more expensive per passenger to operate than a bus to beat a flight on price.
I get it that there are niche reasons some individuals would prefer a train. But the economies of scale that they need to achieve here is ridiculous.
Re: Reports of the death of California High-Speed Rail have been greatly exaggerated
#59Earlier quoted context omitted.
We could actually just pay more money to public governmental employees, allow them to build careers (and raise families), and stop contracting out everything. This would also increase competition for such roles. How we got here is ultimately, especially for CA, land and legal cost, cost of living, and public employee salary relative to private salaries. That’s endemic to major metro areas in the US, with some small e…
> We could actually just pay more money to public governmental employees When their pensions are taken into account, government employees are ridiculously overcompensated already. They’re basically minor nobility at this point.
To be fair, we should all work to normalize retiring at 55 - it’s eminently doable but the earlier you decide to the easier it is.
Re: Reports of the death of California High-Speed Rail have been greatly exaggerated
#60One issue with "CA HSR" is that it isn't even "high speed". We may have happily referred to is as "high speed rail" 30 or 40 years ago but, given a possible completion date of 2035 (or whatever) the 2:40 travel time from SF LA is unimpressive ... and even that will not be achieved: "California legislative overseers do not expect the 2 hr 40 min target will be achieved."[1] The simple fact is that the I-5 corridor is…
Article states that I-5 corridor skips all major towns in central valley which kinda kills the purpose of HSR connecting SF to central valley towns to LA
I thunk it boils down to the fact that acquiring land near San Francisco or LA through imminent domain would be both hideously expensive and extremely unpopular.
Building "High Speed Rail to nowhere" in the Central Valley allowed them kick that can of political infighting down the road.