Should have given the project to the French company that put forward the proposal or hire a Japanese firm from the start. Leave it up to a bloated agency with a misaligned agenda to royally screw things up at the cost of the taxpayer. If you think this is bad, you don’t want to know where your federal tax dollars go to. Reading this makes me sick.
Fast Train to Failure: California’s Mismanaged High-Speed Rail Project
31–40 of 201 posts
Re: Fast Train to Failure: California’s Mismanaged High-Speed Rail Project
#32I used to support the HSR project on the grounds that connecting the state (both LA / Bay Area and the Central Valley towns) would yield long term economic benefits due the increased flow of people within the state. Decreasing the effective distance between people by making travel faster and cheaper has a lot of value in the information economy. Nothing beats face to face communication. I now no longer support the pr…
What’s interesting to me is that the federal tax cuts passed last year cost around $150B a year. I know you may not support this either, but that would pay for the construction of 1 and a 1/2 HSR’s a year, even with the cost overrun.
Reminds me of PG’s essay about how it’s easy to loss lots of money on bad investments, even for people who are normally frugal on luxuries.
Re: Fast Train to Failure: California’s Mismanaged High-Speed Rail Project
#33I used to support the HSR project on the grounds that connecting the state (both LA / Bay Area and the Central Valley towns) would yield long term economic benefits due the increased flow of people within the state. Decreasing the effective distance between people by making travel faster and cheaper has a lot of value in the information economy. Nothing beats face to face communication. I now no longer support the pr…
There is also the environmental impact to consider. Air travel has a much larger emission profile compared to train travel, and train travel has a much larger capacity. Plus, rail station are often in the center of the city rather than on the outskirts like airports are. e.g. traveling by train from Boston to NYC vs flying is almost a wash time wise due to travel to/from the airport + buffer time for security.
Re: Fast Train to Failure: California’s Mismanaged High-Speed Rail Project
#34Earlier quoted context omitted.
The Hoover dam was built on time and budget, along with numerous other public works projects of the early 20 century. It’s as if nothing can get done now.
Over 100 workers died building it.
China built 17,000 miles of high-speed rail in 15 years.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_China
There’s another 8000 on the way by 2025.
Re: Fast Train to Failure: California’s Mismanaged High-Speed Rail Project
#35In comparison, the Chuo Shinkansen connecting Tokyo and Nagoya (286km in distance), which runs at a maximum speed of 505 km/h (314 mph), costs about 45 billion US dollars.
Re: Fast Train to Failure: California’s Mismanaged High-Speed Rail Project
#36Self driving cars are expected roll out in the same time frame as this rail project. I think they change the ridership equation. The drive from LAX to SFO is about 6 hours, 3 hours longer than by HSR. But if I can work or sleep in the back I'd prefer to take the car. The car gives me more flexibility at the destination and more privacy, comfort and cargo space. When self driving cars become sufficiently trustworthy a…
If you are talking about taking a car solo, that's pretty expensive. It's hard to imagine a marginal cost under $0.23/mile for driving [1], so you are looking at a round-trip solo cost of $132 minimum - that's higher than flying (if you can plan it).
Either way, I'm not sure how much autonomy changes things. You can get luxury buses overnight for $115 overnight (https://www.latimes.com/travel/deals/la-tr-money-20170903-st...) already which probably beats the comfort of a car anyway - how much will not paying a driver cut costs?
[1] http://www.forthgo.com/blog/2007/05/24/marginal-cost-of-driv...
Re: Fast Train to Failure: California’s Mismanaged High-Speed Rail Project
#37While this article finds an issue with the way the Tejon Pass route was eliminated in favor of the Tehachapi Pass route, Tejon Pass route would skip a station in Lancaster/Palmdale, which would be a mistake. As the article acknowledges, these are rapidly growing exurbs that are refuge from the exorbitant land prices in the LA Basin. There is existing commuter rail service between there and Downtown LA, but a HSR is a…
What the heck is the train line doing near Fresno?
Why is it not following I-5 and making zero stops in between the South Bay and LA?
Re: Fast Train to Failure: California’s Mismanaged High-Speed Rail Project
#38Earlier quoted context omitted.
We're all spread out really really far compared to the rest of the world.
This is one rail line that would connect San Francisco and Los Angeles, the two most populous regions in the most populous state in the US. The fact that the entire country is sparsely populated does not affect the feasibility or utility of this project in particular.
A thing that becomes obvious when looking at the actual work being done is a lot of the central valley work is grade separation. The work is grade separating both the future high speed rail lines and existing freight rail lines. The whole project is filled with things like that. Work that already needs to be done irrespective of the HSR part. With that consideration the SF to LA feature is really about a 1/3 the total price tag.
I remember one time someone made the too spread out argument. I went and tried to do an estimate for a HSR line from Chicago to Denver. Via Kansans City and St louis. About 1000 miles.
Probably cost between 25-50 billion. Maybe less since for most of it the only things in the way are corn fields and cows.
Which seems like a lot of money, but then compare with the $2T spent on the 'war on terror' since 2001.
See:
http://www.hsr.ca.gov/docs/programs/construction/road_closur...
Re: Fast Train to Failure: California’s Mismanaged High-Speed Rail Project
#39While this article finds an issue with the way the Tejon Pass route was eliminated in favor of the Tehachapi Pass route, Tejon Pass route would skip a station in Lancaster/Palmdale, which would be a mistake. As the article acknowledges, these are rapidly growing exurbs that are refuge from the exorbitant land prices in the LA Basin. There is existing commuter rail service between there and Downtown LA, but a HSR is a…
I'd love to know the rationale in choosing Pacheco over Altamont.
Re: Fast Train to Failure: California’s Mismanaged High-Speed Rail Project
#40Self driving cars are expected roll out in the same time frame as this rail project. I think they change the ridership equation. The drive from LAX to SFO is about 6 hours, 3 hours longer than by HSR. But if I can work or sleep in the back I'd prefer to take the car. The car gives me more flexibility at the destination and more privacy, comfort and cargo space. When self driving cars become sufficiently trustworthy a…
If you are talking about taking a car solo, that's pretty expensive. It's hard to imagine a marginal cost under $0.23/mile for driving [1], so you are looking at a round-trip solo cost of $132 minimum - that's higher than flying (if you can plan it). Either way, I'm not sure how much autonomy changes things. You can get luxury buses overnight for $115 overnight ( https://www.latimes.com/travel/deals/la-tr-money-20170…
A bus is great: until you arrive at your destination and have a meeting in Palo Alto.