91–100 of 476 posts
What I wish- although it may not be feasible- was a straight shot from Burbank to San Jose- as a single tunnel.
It's absolutely critical that a country with California's GDP learns how to rearchitect itself to build again -- literally critical for America's progression. Nothing in this article makes me feel any better about the prospects of that happening.
More young people need to actually start voting to get all the NIMBYism out of the government, and then change can happen.
Reading the article I think CAHSR is using agile method of delivering value. Electrification of caltrain in sfbay, removing rr crossings in LA, finishing overall plan and acquisitions, laying relatively low cost and easy central valley track, while putting the most costly activities to the end: boring an actual tunnels in mountain ranges
It's absolutely critical that a country with California's GDP learns how to rearchitect itself to build again -- literally critical for America's progression. Nothing in this article makes me feel any better about the prospects of that happening.
[1] https://burlingameca.granicus.com/DocumentViewer.php?file=bu...
It's absolutely critical that a country with California's GDP learns how to rearchitect itself to build again -- literally critical for America's progression. Nothing in this article makes me feel any better about the prospects of that happening.
If you’re a democrat in california, where does infrastructure fall on your list of priorities? What big voting bloc does it get you?
Here in Maryland, we’ve been building a 16 mile above ground, mostly non-grade-separated light rail for a decade already and it’s nowhere near done: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Purple_Line_(Maryland). I don’t know a single person other than myself who is motivated to make it happen. Nobody is agitating to get our miserable commuter rail system to run more timely. Road construction is the only thing that ever penetrates into the public consciousness. Making anything better is very low on everyone’s list of priorities.
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>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 emp…
John Adams in particular was not a slave owner, and he called slavery an "evil of colossal magnitude." So he and those like him (and there were many) shouldn't be condemned in any sense along that line. I agree that slavery and ill treatment of Native Americans were egregious problems. But on both issues, there were prominent voices speaking out in favor of what was right, including among the founding fathers -- Ben…
The 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…
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I get so tired of hearing that HSR doesn't make sense federally. The entire country east of the Mississippi has comparable population and density to western Europe. Plus the sheer size and lack of people sure doesn't stop the federal government from maintaining thousands of miles of interstate through vast swaths of nowhere.
Those interstates move millions of pounds of goods - probably way more important than the people. And the US freight rail system is the envy of the world.
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I get so tired of hearing that HSR doesn't make sense federally. The entire country east of the Mississippi has comparable population and density to western Europe. Plus the sheer size and lack of people sure doesn't stop the federal government from maintaining thousands of miles of interstate through vast swaths of nowhere.
If you look at it by map there's not much more interstate highway than railway. Interstate highway is also far cheaper to build and maintain than you would imagine. It took around $114 billion to build interstate across the entire country, while the high speed rail project in just California is already upwards of $128 billion. On Europe that is kind of exactly my point, high speed rail in Europe is built and maintain…
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Unfortunately there simply isn't enough demand between SF and LA alone to justify the insanely long stretches of a direct rail project. A better way would have been to build it out from the city into the suburbs first as a commuter rail project. There isn't a ton of intercity demand for this rail, but there is tons of traffic in and out of each singular city to justify even medium speed rail.
"Unfortunately there simply isn't enough demand between SF and LA alone to justify the insanely long stretches of a direct rail project." I will stipulate that that is correct at this very moment . However, it is my contention that a truly high speed rail link (sub two hour) between SF and LA would have manufactured demand as an entirely new set of trips, activities and lifestyles would have been enabled by the abili…
I would also strongly doubt that even after full adoption, Bakersfield to LA in 30 minutes is going to be much more useful and heavily trafficked on a daily basis than SF to LA in 2 hours would.
Even in Europe, their marquee city-to-city rail routes contribute a small share of overall rail traffic compared to their daily commuters.