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Only 31% of California voters want to keep paying for bullet train

latimes.com

71–80 of 119 posts

Re: Only 31% of California voters want to keep paying for bullet train

#71
How does China build 14,000 miles of high-speed rail, with another 10,000 on the way, while the United States essentially has zero miles?

Countries are the same size.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_China#/me...

Their cheaper and more efficient infrastructure is could to pay dividends over the next few decades.

Re: Only 31% of California voters want to keep paying for bullet train

#72

I think this is a very misleading headline. 49 percent support the high speed rail project in this poll, based on a neutrally worded question. The 31% figure comes from a leading question that starts with "The latest estimates for California’s high-speed rail project are that it will cost up to $77 billion dollars and will be finished in 2033. This estimate is nearly twice as much as the original estimated cost." The…

Totally misleading to be up front about expanding costs. No one has to right to know what the taxpayer could be on the hook for...

Re: Only 31% of California voters want to keep paying for bullet train

#73
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's completely divorced from reality. Even poor people own cars! 80% of people in poverty have access to a vehicle.[1] $0.55/mile is about $120 for an LA to SF trip. For a family of four, this train is $350. Which one do you think a low-income family is going to take to visit relatives for Christmas? In any case, poor people who don't own cars rely on busses and subways--which this boondoggle does nothing for. [1]…

That's cherry-picking a favorable example for the car. It's always better to take your car when you fill it up with people, compared to other modes that charge per person. It's true locally - always cheaper to drive from Oakland to San Francisco vs. four round-trip BART tickets - and it's true regionally - cheaper to drive the whole family than to fly, if you don't value your time. Of course both of those assume that…

It's a highly relevant example. What are the reasons a lower-income person might travel from LA to SF? Traveling to visit family is probably the primary reason.

You can see this play out with the Acela on the east coast. It's almost all business travelers or nicely dressed professional looking people. People who can't afford $100+ per ticket take the bus ($35).

Likewise, even lower income people traveling alone aren't going to spend $86 for a ticket on HSR (if it's not more like $100+ by the time it's finally open). They'll pay $35 for a Bolt bus.

Re: Only 31% of California voters want to keep paying for bullet train

#74
post #71

How does China build 14,000 miles of high-speed rail, with another 10,000 on the way, while the United States essentially has zero miles? Countries are the same size. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_China#/me... Their cheaper and more efficient infrastructure is could to pay dividends over the next few decades.

Disregard of labor regulations and property rights, as well as cheap labor.

Re: Only 31% of California voters want to keep paying for bullet train

#75
post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, the upper-middle-class robbing the poor has been the history of our highway system, which you can't use without owning a car and paying ~ $0.55/mile to operate it. We have shoveled hundreds of billions of dollars of subsidies down the throat of the automobile culture and we did not get a functioning transportation system from doing so. We got a massively regressive, barely functional system and all of its attenda…

That's completely divorced from reality. Even poor people own cars! 80% of people in poverty have access to a vehicle.[1] $0.55/mile is about $120 for an LA to SF trip. For a family of four, this train is $350. Which one do you think a low-income family is going to take to visit relatives for Christmas? In any case, poor people who don't own cars rely on busses and subways--which this boondoggle does nothing for. [1]…

Even poor people are forced to own cars because the whole cityscape is designed with that assumption, so they have to shell out thousands of dollars they could've used on food or other niceties, to buy a barely functioning vehicle that costs them more money and time to repair constantly.

Re: Only 31% of California voters want to keep paying for bullet train

#76
post #26

This is the upper middle class robbing poor people. The projected fare would be $86 per ticket, about triple the cost of driving for a family of four. The people who are going to pay that are upper middle class travelers and business travelers. Which would be fine if the project was paying for itself, but it won’t be. It’ll be state subsidies for high income professionals. That money could be doing so much good (scho…

It seems like widening Highway 5 and adding a dedicated carpool lane, along with creating a Greyhound-like public transit route from Northern to Southern California would have been more cost effective.

Count the overpasses on I-5 when you plan to widen it. I think that when self-driving cars become typical (say, >50% of freeway traffic) that alternating 2 & 3 lanes and exploiting them with platoons of SDCs may become feasible.

Re: Only 31% of California voters want to keep paying for bullet train

#77
post #71

How does China build 14,000 miles of high-speed rail, with another 10,000 on the way, while the United States essentially has zero miles? Countries are the same size. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/High-speed_rail_in_China#/me... Their cheaper and more efficient infrastructure is could to pay dividends over the next few decades.

Disregard of labor regulations and property rights, as well as cheap labor.

tl;dr https://ibb.co/iEPiao

Re: Only 31% of California voters want to keep paying for bullet train

#78
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The difference between HSR and driverless EVs that can go from SF to LA is the former has existed for 50 years and the latter has literally never been demonstrated.

And another difference is that the development of a rail line requires billions in additional public funds (and also takes years if not decades to build) while the development of driverless cars is being paid for by private businesses. Wasn't your initial argument about saving money?

That characterization seems hilariously disconnected from the facts, which are that DARPA kick-started autonomous vehicles more than fifteen years ago with millions in government money, and that the vast majority of development of such vehicles has occurred on public roads, mostly in California. The parts that have been developed off-road have been done at an old Air Force base, and if you want to argue that facility is privately funded that will only make your argument sound even more dumb.

Re: Only 31% of California voters want to keep paying for bullet train

#79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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