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Reports of the death of California High-Speed Rail have been greatly exaggerated

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Re: Reports of the death of California High-Speed Rail have been greatly exaggerated

#191

Post by JohnMakin »

pj_mukh wrote: post #141

This is the most California article ever written. The author admits that if the line was run along the I-5 it probably wouldn't need all the costly grade-separation and state property issues it's now facing. It may have even finished with its original funding! But instead of immediately being able to serve the upwards of 18M people of Greater Los Angeles and 7.5M people of the Bay Area, the 1M people of the Central V…

Not sure what specifically is “california” about this - There is very little support from either side of the aisle in continuing this project, which of course, the article states because it is an unavoidable truth. The criticisms offered by both sides are valid and the few proponents that still hold water for this dismiss these arguments with very bad or incomplete reasoning as written here.

For instance, brushing over the “possible original sin” of the project was way underestimating cost. Yea, no shit, that’s like 95% of the problem voters have with it, that and how long it’s taken with very little usable progress. Author spends very little time on this.

Re: Reports of the death of California High-Speed Rail have been greatly exaggerated

#192

Post by jltsiren »

bombcar wrote: post #59
epicureanideal wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

Then you would have two retirees for every three working age people. And given that only ~70% of working age Americans are actually working, it would mean three non-working adults for every two adults with jobs. Either the retirees would have a really low standard of living, or workers would get much smaller share of the value they create than they currently do.

If you are not already retired or close to retirement, you should assume that the normal retirement age is ~70 years. Anything lower cannot be sustained with the current demographic structure.

Re: Reports of the death of California High-Speed Rail have been greatly exaggerated

#193

Post by tekno45 »

1970-01-01 wrote: post #174

In the exact same amount of time, China has gone from 0 to 25,000 miles in high speed rail. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_high-speed_railway_lin...

they don't have billionaires bullying their way to cancelling projects for their personal fantasy tubes

Re: Reports of the death of California High-Speed Rail have been greatly exaggerated

#194

Post by georgeecollins »

I remember when BART was first built and San Mateo county opted out of BART. You couldn't take BART to SFO or even South San Francisco. Now they are talking about extending it to San Jose? This may sound very Californian, but I always support trains because once you have it it doesn't go away and eventually you get more that makes the train even more useful.

Re: Reports of the death of California High-Speed Rail have been greatly exaggerated

#195

Post by socalgal2 »

bardak wrote: post #169
pj_mukh wrote: post #141

This is the most California article ever written. The author admits that if the line was run along the I-5 it probably wouldn't need all the costly grade-separation and state property issues it's now facing. It may have even finished with its original funding! But instead of immediately being able to serve the upwards of 18M people of Greater Los Angeles and 7.5M people of the Bay Area, the 1M people of the Central V…

Even if you insist on going through the cities in the valley they chose a construction sequence that takes the longest time to show any process. If they fast tracked LA-Bakersfield they could have extended the Amtrak San Joaquin service to LA by now. Concentrat on the SF-Merced section next and then you can work on the Merced-Bakersfield piece meal.

I thought they were unclear if LA-Bakerfield is even possible.

My understanding comes from a podcast that wasn't about the rail at all, it was about how to make decisions. In the podcast they gave the example that if you decide to have a music box and a dancing monkey at a fair to make money, which do you do first, make the music box or train the monkey. The answer is, train the monkey, because if you can't train the monkey there is no point in making the music box (something you know can be made).

Her point was people delude themselves into thinking they're making progress on a project by starting with the easy stuff. But the easy stuff is pointless if the hard stuff is impossible.

She gave the example of the California high-speed rail. They're building the flat easy part first but engineers have not figured out how they're going to build the train between Bakersfield and Los Angeles through the Tehachapi Mountains. Until they've figured that out the flat part is a waste of time and a false example of progress.

Re: Reports of the death of California High-Speed Rail have been greatly exaggerated

#196

Post by gotoeleven »

xienze wrote: post #183
jeffbee wrote: post #18

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The CAHSR "peer group" which issued that quote is a political commission full of axe-grinding losers, specifically created by state politicians who want to kill the project. Nobody with a clue thinks that the 2h40m target is unattainable.

LOL I bet in 2010 if someone said that by 2025 the project would be grossly over budget and only have a short segment between nowhere and nowhere to show for 17 years of work you’d have called that propaganda by axe-grinding losers (paid off by big oil, naturally). Just admit it, it’s a boondoggle just like everyone said it would be.

[flagged]

Re: Reports of the death of California High-Speed Rail have been greatly exaggerated

#197

Post by [deleted] »

porphyra wrote: post #94
femiagbabiaka wrote: post #17

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.

Other countries can build entire rail lines entirely on viaducts for the same cost as it takes to grade separate a single Caltrain station. For example it was recently estimated that grade separating Broadway Station with a center platform would take $889 million and 5-5.5 years [1]. This is mind boggling. [1] https://burlingameca.granicus.com/DocumentViewer.php?file=bu...

[deleted]

Re: Reports of the death of California High-Speed Rail have been greatly exaggerated

#198

Post by socalgal2 »

BurningFrog wrote: post #130
pj_mukh wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's actually the opposite. The latent demand is only present in LA and SF. Fresno and Bakersfield are not car-less cities. Taking a train between them makes no sense (you're gonna have to rent a car on either end). While connecting the LA Metro and SF BART with a high speed rail line makes the most sense. Regardless of the construction inefficiencies this is really the original sin beating at the heart of th…

> you're gonna have to rent a car on either end BTW, this is one big reason HSR isn't a great fit for the US. In most countries, you arrive to major city by train, and you then move around the city using the local train network. This is only barely true for a few US cities, so even if HSR lines are built, they won't be as useful here.

I agree with you today, but by the time it's finished self driving car services like Waymo will be ubiqutous. I'm already addicted.

Re: Reports of the death of California High-Speed Rail have been greatly exaggerated

#199

Post by nimish »

levocardia wrote: post #185
xnx wrote: post #61

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Be careful citing the Brightline as a success. It is expensive, doesn't go to many places, has low ridership, regularly kills pedestrians and drivers, and is hemorrhaging money.

But, importantly, it actually exists and you can buy a ticket and ride on it . That's the bar we're talking about here. Not "did they make the best train line ever" -- just did they make a train line .

This is basically it. MVP and you can ride it!

Re: Reports of the death of California High-Speed Rail have been greatly exaggerated

#200

Post by gruez »

slt2021 wrote: post #188
GeekyBear wrote: post #107

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Eventually you will have to build out the rail line in densely populated areas (especially near San Francisco and LA). High speed rail requires that you to avoid unnecessary curves. At that point, you're going to have to start using imminent domain. Putting it off until after you have billions of dollars in sunk costs in the Central Valley doesn't change that.

the state can manage that expense over time, for example by refusing to enforce laws, spiking crime rates, turning into dystopia and chaos, thus lowering property values. after land is acquired, the property and law enforcement will bring up values

/s?
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