Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Help wanted: CEO for CA high speed rail project. High pay, sleepless nights

latimes.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

71–80 of 81 posts

Re: Help wanted: CEO for CA high speed rail project. High pay, sleepless nights

#71

Post by TheCoelacanth »

philipov wrote: post #65
mistursinistur wrote: post #55

Earlier quoted context omitted.

HSR and "more airports" are not substitutes. Airports don't address the need for capacity on trips shorter than the SF-LA route (e.g. Fresno-SJ or Bakersfield-LA). Rail lines do address this kind of infill transportation. More airports by themselves don't make it easier to get "to and from the airport" -- for this, you need more highway capacity. Most calls to build more airports tend to ignore this fact and its asso…

> (Rail stations, on the other hand, are distributed along a line and don't induce the kind of traffic congestion at a single point that you'd see with an airport node.) Ever been to Grand Central Station in NYC at rush hour?

Grand Central Station handles close to three times the number of passengers that the busiest airport in the world handles while taking up less than a third of the land area.

Re: Help wanted: CEO for CA high speed rail project. High pay, sleepless nights

#72

Post by pkaye »

Gibbon1 wrote: post #63
kilroy123 wrote: post #32

I really don't get this project. The math just doesn't add up. It's going to cost ~$67 billion dollars and there are ~39 million people in California.

Pretty easy actually. $67 billion /39 million people / 30 years => $57/year-person. or 1.5 million trips per day X 365days/year X 30 years => 15.4 billion trips. $67 billion / 15.4 billion trips => $4 trip

Then why does BART rides from Oakland to SFO cost $10.

Re: Help wanted: CEO for CA high speed rail project. High pay, sleepless nights

#73

Post by justicezyx »

alexbeloi wrote: post #64
justicezyx wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> In a democracy, dysfunctional government is a manifestation of lack of virtue in the people. I am happy such mentality shows up here. Particularly, I am deeply concerned with American educational philosophy. It seems American schools emphasize skills dealing with people more than those for understanding the non-human objects in the world. These skills, although are always claimed to advance the greater good, they a…

>The history has proven that a society that share the common goals can advance forward. While those comprised with self-proclaimed leaders never really manage to unite any large nations. This sounds nice, but I'm having a hard time thinking of any large modern states that appear to be driven by a shared common goal. If such states only existed in the past, then my feeling is that is a result of romanticizing the past…

The early history of US is a prime example. The people all believe in freedom and free of development. With this common ideology, US becomes a super power.

Re: Help wanted: CEO for CA high speed rail project. High pay, sleepless nights

#74

Post by ingenuous2 »

randyrand wrote: post #36
ingenuous2 wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Flying is a lot more time spend on overhead.

it doesnt have to be that way.

Agreed, but now we are talking political problems. And when we talk political problems, it's important to consider the base economic cost, all included.

Re: Help wanted: CEO for CA high speed rail project. High pay, sleepless nights

#76

Post by candiodari »

serhei wrote: post #60
valuearb wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Security overhead should be the same for high speed trains.

God, I hope not. It makes zero sense to have TSA theater for high speed intercity trains but not local public transportation, because the latter has far greater passenger volumes. If terrorists wanted to cause mass chaos using a public transit system, they would go for local subway and commuter train lines.

It's kind of amazing that there isn't more terrorism focusing on train lines, bridges and other infrastructure. That was the most effective way resistance against Germany during WWII worked.

And to boot: some of it is easy. You just have to bend one rail segment. Manually (which is doable with basic DIY equipment), or explosively. If you're okay with trying 5 times a large boulder positioned between the tracks where it can't be pushed aside easily has a decent chance of derailing a train. And that is a disaster. The amount of stored power in a train's movement is more than enough to destroy it. When this sort of shit happens by accident, there's usually double, sometimes triple digits dead. Targeted, you could do more. Without a few particular train lines, US oil production would slow to a crawl.

They are also far easier to destroy than to rebuild. Terror attack, and things go back to normal in a matter of hours. Sucks for the 5 people, but the economy is not going to be seriously impacted. With trains, and because there's a lot of cleanup, after which the entire line needs to be checked (and obviously not with a high speed train) a derailed train will take a week or two to fix, more on longer lines. It seems to me that disconnecting small cities in middle America from the train network and make coast-to-coast freight go a LOT slower wouldn't be out of the question for even a small organisation.

Re: Help wanted: CEO for CA high speed rail project. High pay, sleepless nights

#77

Post by kryptiskt »

marze wrote: post #46

Money down the toilet. It will never be finished. In ten years, ubiquitous communication and virtual presence will seriously impact business travel demand.

I first heard that in the 80s. I'm not holding my breath.

Re: Help wanted: CEO for CA high speed rail project. High pay, sleepless nights

#78

Post by joelrunyon »

randyrand wrote: post #19
joelrunyon wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel like that wouldn't fix the issue in such close proximity locations. Flying isn't optimal for that type of distance (less than 400 miles). You could lay track and get more volume on some high speed trains with comparable times (if you take into account the time for arrival / security clearance / etc at airports), the train could even be faster. Land rights are obviously the issue (esp in california), but adding…

how is it not optimal? its 1/3rd the travel time and $75 each way.

1. You can't have the airport in the middle of the city. Add 20-45 minutes to arrive / leave at each one.

2. Airport security. Add 15-45 minutes depending on density.

3. Delays. Frequent & much more common with airlines than trains. (add 1-several hours every hundred flights or so).

4. Capacity. Need 100 more passengers capacity? Add another carriage to the train or schedule an entirely different flight.

4. Also add in that you're wanting to cram in a bunch of airports into a few hundred miles of each other. You have to take into account that planes are moving at 550+ mph and need lots of clearance around each one. It's a lot easier to even schedule another train 10 minutes behind an existing one than it is to schedule another flight (considering the variables of destinations, companies and other logistics involved).

There's a reason why ATC jobs are some of the most stressful in the world. Flying seems easy, but the logistics behind it are intense.

Re: Help wanted: CEO for CA high speed rail project. High pay, sleepless nights

#79

Post by TheAmericanWay »

http://www.fresnobee.com/opinion/editorials/article154096449.... The above link takes you the Fresno Bee editorial board's justification to continue building moonbeam's legacy with total disregard for the California taxpayer accountability from our executive and our legislative areas of government. What is even more troubling is that the editorial board believes there is tons of money in the California and Federal Treasuries. Last check, CA has a total debt obligation funded and unfunded climbing past $1.3 TRILLION DOLLARS. And now these esteemed supposedly (?) business board types think that addition of $300 to $500 billion or more to the state debt is a solid move. First off we are talking about 1800’s technology in the 21st century. Furthermore, no one is talking about the pending $400 billion-dollar healthcare debacle coming our way and again, I repeat, there is no money in the bank to fund even this liberal dufus disaster. Then, of course, we have BART with 4-janitors who have collected over 1/2 million dollars in overtime last year. I think the editorial board needs to go back and write an editorial that requires competence and fiscal acumen from these two groups. On then would a totally prefunded project get the green light.

Re: Help wanted: CEO for CA high speed rail project. High pay, sleepless nights

#80

Post by alexbeloi »

justicezyx wrote: post #73
alexbeloi wrote: post #64

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>The history has proven that a society that share the common goals can advance forward. While those comprised with self-proclaimed leaders never really manage to unite any large nations. This sounds nice, but I'm having a hard time thinking of any large modern states that appear to be driven by a shared common goal. If such states only existed in the past, then my feeling is that is a result of romanticizing the past…

The early history of US is a prime example. The people all believe in freedom and free of development. With this common ideology, US becomes a super power.

I can't say I agree, at least I would need some convincing that people in the US in the 1700s believed in freedom and freedom of development more so than people in the US now. The US didn't become a super power until after WWII.
Post reply on HN