221–230 of 476 posts
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there absolutely is, SF-LA is an ideal city pair
Do people actually travel between SF and LA? It makes sense in the east coast: traveling from the seat of government in DC to the seat of finance in NYC. But does california have that dynamic?
A number of VCs are based out of the Bay Area but actually live in LA (or did, before the Palisades Fire).
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...
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Sounds like you've never taken a train. Time through security? There's basically no security in American train stations (or French TGV stations). I've only experienced Chinese train stations with security but with wait times far less than American airports. Time to the airport? Well yes because the airports are inconveniently located. Train stations are right there in the downtown.
> Train stations are right there in the downtown. A train station in downtown LA or SF would be inconveniently located for most people in these cities.
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
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.
> I always support trains because once you have it it doesn't go away Plenty of trains have gone away...
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…
this is actually exactly what has been happening over the past few decades, and with the current proposal, for HSR from Toronto to Montreal, two of the largest cities in terms of both population and economy in Canada. Ottawa felt excluded, and is where the federal govt is based, so instead of going along the 401, a straight highway that follows a river valley and lake and has existing rail corridors, it has to go fro…
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Do people actually travel between SF and LA? It makes sense in the east coast: traveling from the seat of government in DC to the seat of finance in NYC. But does california have that dynamic?
Yes but they take Southwest Airlines which is already really convenient.
Is it though? My experience with Southwest is that its the worst airline I have ever used.
I have had great experiences with Alaska though. Always fast and efficient, and usually take off ahead of schedule
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Your theory does not explain why the state of California is capable of discharging $25 billion into freeway construction annually . It obviously cannot be the case that US states are incapable of executing public works projects.
It is so, so, so much easier to build freeways, roads, and highways than rail systems. It is also absolutely necessary to have roads to move people and goods as not everyone and everything can be transported on rail or even is near rail (even post-HSR). It is also an income center. California _makes_ money from spending on roads because of job creation (=tax revenue), taxes on vehicle sales, taxes on fuel, tolls, fre…
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> It has some of the top universities in the world. Why shouldn’t it have a higher caliber of public official than say Denmark? Many officials in the current administration who are wreaking havoc on the US economy went to the top universities, like Harvard, Columbia, etc. Attending those universities doesn't imply responsibility or sense of duty to public service at all. CA does have "high caliber" public officials,…
Why are the politicians in California different than the ones in Denmark? And are those reasons related to it being a sub-national entity, which seems to have been the argument being made above.
> And are those reasons related to it being a sub-national entity, which seems to have been the argument being made above.
I'm sure it plays a role, but there are tons of convolved factors? They're different places, and your question is too non-specific to have a single answer.
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…
The problem is that this should've been a federal project from the start, one of many running concurrently nationwide. Doing it nationwide would give economies of scale that wouldn't be possible with these local half-measures. California, and every other of the dozen plus states where this rolled out should've barely even had any say in the matter. Maybe deciding what artwork to put up in the stations and what to nam…